Mulan Film Review

If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to watch Mulan as a young girl. For some reason, I don't have any recollection of the plot of the film from a childhood perspective, but absolutely love the female war hero characterization and empowering plot line. Mulan has zest, bravery, individuality, cunning, and smarts, she is a girl that I would want my future daughter looking up to. Unlike the princesses leading up to Mulan, she is dares to test the confounds of conservative gender roles and does so fearlessly. She is not glorified for her looks or feminine nature, she is shown to be heroic in the true sense of the word -- she saves the city with her intellect and agility and doesn't let the overt societal sexism hold her back.

Though I do not recall obsessing over this movie when I was young, I have always loved the music. Reflection, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful songs Disney has ever produced and trumps all other princess wishing songs to date, however after watching this film with a more critical eye, I found a lot of problems with the messages some of the other songs were sending to young boys.

I would like to switch gears and claim that I believe Mulan, with a few exceptions, painted a great narrative empowering women, however it did so at the downfall of narrowly stereotyping masculinity. Some songs like "Bring Honor To Us All" and "A Girl Worth Fighting For"have some obvious concerns regarding female stereotyping, but I argue that they also depict men in a negative fashion. "A Girl Worth Fighting For" depicts men lusting over a lady and dream of their ideal partner.  Yes I can make a case that they all envision woman who fit the conservative ideals, but I want to focus on lyrics such as this, "My girl will marvel at
my strength, adore my battle scars." This song's underlying message is that, to be complete, a man must win the love of a woman to gain a sense of worth and masculine pride. Without the acknowledgement of a woman that they are strong and powerful, they are not manly.

The most explicit song in which I saw glaring red flags regarding stereotyping gender roles of males is in "I'll Make a Man Out of You" in which the phrase "be a man" is repeated over and over throughout there chorus. This phrase, just in society alone, has taken on a such negative connotation that promotes hiding one's feelings, as to not show weakness, and presenting an outward physical strength. It directly illustrates that a person's masculinity is defined as toughness linked to the violence and fury of a "raging fire" and that their true feelings must be hidden and "mysterious as the dark side of the moon." Is this really what manhood is about? It is definitely not the message I want infiltrating the mind of young boys. If males grow up idealizing this message and masculine identity they are headed down a path of poor mental health and susceptibility to feeling lesser for superficial, outdated, and unimportant values.