Film Reproduction: Cultural Reconstruction or Deterioration?

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Mulan, an American animated musical action-comedy-drama film released in 1998, has been well received by critics and the public with grossing $304 million, earning Academy Award nominations and winning several Annie Awards including Best Animated Feature. Adapted from an ancient Chinese story on a legendary girl Mulan who volunteers to join the army by masquerading as a man in order to replace her aged father, the film integrates non-Chinese value, ideology and expectation into the original narrative. However, this transculturation giving rise to cultural hybridization accounts for an inevitable fall in cultural authenticity owing to anachronisms of distinctive Chinese icons, inappropriate linguistic expressions and superabundance use of exotic cultural elements. This paper will examine to what extent cultural reformulation has transferred the conventions, ideologies and moral values of the source culture by comparing the film to Chinese legend of Mulan, and then analyze the “inauthentic” reconstruction and deterioration of culture in a global context.
Plot
The film story is set in Han Dynasty, while the Middle Kingdom is facing Hun’s invasion led by Shan Yu, forcing the Chinese emperor to command one man from each family to join the Chinese army for counter. Mulan decides to impersonate a male and conscript taking the place of her limped father so as to certify her contribution to the big family. She serves in the army for over 10 years and hides her female identity from her fellow soldiers until the end of the war. At last she kills Shan Yu by tricky ideas, defusing the crisis of the whole country. Although the emperor intends to give a big honor to her, Mulan refuses the offer to appoint her as a minister; instead, she goes ba...

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Wang, Georgette. “Globalization and hybridization in cultural products: The cases of Mulan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 8. London: Sage Publications, 2005. 175-193. Print.
Xu, Mingwu and Tian, Chuanmao. “Cultural Deformations and Reformulations: A Case Study Of Disney's Mulan In English And Chinese.” Critical Arts: A South-North Journal Of Cultural & Media Studies 27.2 (2013): 182-210. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Oct, 2013.
Zuo, Rui-fang, and Liu, Feng. "Study on Cross-cultural Interpretations of Mulan." US-China Education Review 30th ser. 4.5 (2007): 67-75. Docstoc. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

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