When you 're a kid all you would think about is candy, playing, being with your family, and movies. On particular movie has always been my favorite and it is the comedy-drama Mulan which was released in 1998. The movie Mulan is about a girl who disguises herself as a man to save her injured father from being killed in a war. A group called the Huns invaded the Great Wall of China to go after the emperor and take over the country. The emperor ordered all men to be called into battle. Mulan couldn 't really fulfill her traditional gender roles. She needed to be obedient, thin, bear children, and never speak her mind. She believes she has to prove something and have her family see that she can do things right. Not only does she doubt herself …show more content…
The media portrays women as thin, beautiful, and a perfect body. In relation, the movie portrays women as thin with a tiny waist, obedient, and good taste. Mulan had to go through a makeover to see someone called the Mathchmaker. The Matchmaker finds husbands for the women and arranges the marriage. The meeting doesn 't go well and the Matchmaker told Mulan that she may look like a bride but she will never bring her family honor. In addition, the movie plays another catchy tune and it 's about men describing their own view of women instead of accepting her how she is. The song is called: "A Girl worth Fighting For." As the song plays, Mulan, who is disguised as a soldier says: "How about a girl who 's got a brain. Who always speaks her mind?" The other soldiers didn 't agree and waved away her line of the song. Men need to see that women can 't change who they are. Women are majestic creatures and they should be celebrated for their one of a kind …show more content…
The Emperor’s counsel said, “She’s a woman. She will never be worth anything.” Then the Emperor stepped in and told her that she has saved them all. He bowed to her and the troops, counsel, and the people who were there to celebrate the troops all bowed to Mulan. She has earned the respect and honor she deserved. However, in order to get her respect she had to go extreme measures to do so. Mulan didn’t want respect or gratitude. She just wanted to save her father. Then her simple wish of keeping her father safe took an unexpected turn and she became a war hero. Men need to realize that women are capable of doing so much more than child bearing. Women can do what men can do and even better at
It is not often that a strong and significant female character is introduced in a movie and/or book as the main character. Pan’s Labyrinth, though not the typical fairy tale, introduces the viewer to three females that prove controversial and necessary to the plot, which passes the Bechdel Test, designed to identify gender bias in the media. There is Carmen, the loving mother, Ofelia, the supposed princess/innocent girl, and then there is Mercedes, Captain Vidal’s maid and rebel spy. These three women show different portrayals, different characterizations, of how women should defy the gender bias in films.
Mulan is, and always has been, a hero in her own way. She goes off to war with nothing but her own will to protect who she loves pushing her forwards. People may think of a hero as a man with broad shoulders and a beautiful lady behind him. Mulan proves that this representation is stereotypical. She, a women, goes out and protects her father. Heroes can be called many different names but there is one thing they all have in common, they all have a goal to help someone that means so much to
...n by naming the title of the movie after the main female protagonists. Just look at the Little Mermaid, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and even Beauty and the Beast. All are movies about the females being damsels in distress and having a male come to their rescue. Charles Perrault’s original version portrays the perfect version that children all around the world should be watching. Children are already very impressionable and what they watch when they are younger is how they eventually will act. How they grow up rests on the children movies and books of that generation. Those movies and books are what form the future leaders of our countries and for one very impressionable company, such as Disney, to be favoring one gender more than the other can result in chaos. Overall, Charles Perrault’s feminist lens in his story can lead girls to an empowering high self-esteem.
...nist ideas. They suggest that women are good for only household chores and that they are not very intelligent. In fact, Mulan herself refutes these stereotypes through her quick thinking and advanced battle techniques, yet they still insist on carrying though.
This scene also leaves the viewers relieved, and happy because Mulan gets to stay the army and she has finally shown everyone else that she is just as good has them and even better.
In my thesis, I want to answer the question of how Disney can use the same general plot and various identical story elements to shape the protagonists of Mulan and Moana into feminists, yet still produce two seemingly original stories on the surface. Both films center around a sixteen girl who embarks on a forbidden quest to save her people at the expense of her father’s wishes. The relationship with the overprotective father, more or less passive mother, “wacky” grandmother, and supernatural male travel companion influences what kind of person the protagonist is before and after the journey.
The symbolic interactionism is a theory concerned with the ability of humans to see themselves through the eyes of others and to enact social roles based on others’ expectations. In the film, Mulan’s abilities as a woman were not be accepted and recognized before she joined the army. For example, at that time, she was defined as a weak woman and helpless daughter. Although she worried about her old father, no one thought that she could help her father, and no one respected her thoughts. Her label made her only needs to obey and wait the results of war. However, when she came home after the war ends, her label also changed. This is because she met other’ expectations and played men’s role successfully. She mastered more capability like fighting a battle. Her label also became a hero and her family guardian. From the beginning to the end of the film, Mulan’s identity and label changed a lot because of her changing
Social factors have always encouraged the idea that men embody masculinity and women embody femininity and, thus, certain gender-norms are expected accordingly. In the past, such expectations were traditional and to go against them was frowned upon by the general public. Contemporarily speaking, there is more freedom to avail oneself of today than there was once upon a time. Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s fairytale adaptation of ‘Beauty and The Beast’ was published in 1740. During this time, men and women were compelled by the social conventions associated with their gender. When analyzing the literary work, the reader can grasp what gender roles are eminent in the characters identity and motives. By exploring the choice of language being
In multiple instances throughout the film, female characters violate gender norms by acting as both warriors and leaders because they are adapting typically masculine traits. In the film, women are the majority of the labor force at iron town. The men are merely there to do the labor that needs the most physical power. “Americans oversimplify Japanese women as demure, submissive, and oppressed” (Kyu Hyun, 2002, 38). This quote shows that the stereotype of women in Japanese culture had been just like the western perspective where they were below men. This quote also shows that Princess Mononoke reverses the gender role from being submissive to being above men. Another quote that supports that women were not submissive says that “the young unmarried women in Japan have become a powerful group, demographically and economically” (Kyu Hyun, 2002, 39). The women who were in the upper class society of Japan had time on their hands and we know this because they had time to write literature. “Most of the canonical work from this period was produced by women of the upper social class” (Varner, 2005,
Over the years, Disney has presented many movies to their audience—most having a Princess as the protagonist. These movies became a babysitter for most parents in the early stages of their child’s life. Most people found these movies as relatively harmless. The obvious assumption about the Disney Princesses is that they only desire true love since almost every movie ends in romance. Parents just viewed these movies as romantic movies on a child’s level. However, these movies were not solely intended for an audience of an age that can be counted on both hands. They were intended to speak to “an intelligent and active audience” (Sumera 40). However, there are many people who disagree with the ways of the Disney Princess movies. The disagreements lie within the portrayal of women gender roles in these movies. It is argued that Disney portrays women as a being nurturing individuals without any control over their identity. The women are unable to think for themselves, because they are uneducated, and they are quick to fall in love with the first man that pays them any attention. However, this is not completely true. The people that are against the portrayal of women in the Disney movies are failing to recognize the underlying concepts in these movies. For example, Belle, in Beauty and the Beast, was well educated, Mulan went to war despite the consequences, and Merida, in Brave, stood up to her mother in refusal to marry. The Disney Princesses desired intelligence, bravery, strength, and independence—not true love’s kiss.
Overall, the Disney movie, Mulan, demonstrates gender roles, socialization of gender roles, and consequences of breaking the gender roles. By Mulan going to war for her father, in China, many things were at risk, life, honor, and the country of China, itself. Displaying the characteristics a man had was the only way for Mulan to survive, granted, she was not great at displaying woman characteristics in the first place. Being caught in war, as a woman, meant death, but Mulan was lucky for her bravery when saving Captain Li Shang, for he spared her life, which allowed Mulan to help save China and the emperor in the end. Even though China had very strict gender roles, Mulan broke them to save her father’s life and became the person she was meant to be.
and expected as a role model or just a woman. All three of them are
In the Disney film Mulan, the character for Mulan plays an important part to support the example of a woman not satisfied with her state of being and subordinated position in society and therefore, takes action to show others her true capabilities and qualities. This prototype is scarcely depicted in today’s cartoons and films so that children rarely identify with this image. “Mulan” helps to promote this role model of an intelligent woman and could be the first step in breaking gender constraints. In addition, it might teach children that they have to find their own state of happiness rather than trying desperately to fulfill society’s expectations.
Mulan pushes gender inequality by reinforcing masculine and feminine stereotypes through the songs that it presents throughout the movie. The roles of what it means to be a man is simply laid out within the influential song, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.” This song occurred when the fresh new soldiers appeared to be very weak and unfit, so Captain Shang sang of how they must become strong like real men should be. Captain Shang asks the question, “did they send me daughters, when I asked for sons?” (Mulan), implying that women are unfit for the conditions of
The film may actually be more detrimental than other Disney films; it conceals traditional gender expectations within a message of female empowerment. The song, I’ll Make a Man Out of You, reinforces stereotypical male traits and claims that they are useful, while, A Girl Worth Fighting For, highlights feminine traits and represses intelligence. In contrast the poem is incredibly progressive for the time. Fa Mulan is treated as an equal, she is able to bring honor to her family without being married off and her fellow soldiers accept that she is a woman and don 't shun her for