Mulan
a helpful piece of Pop Culture
In Re-Reading Popular Culture, media ethnographer Joke Hermes argues that popular culture is a form of cultural citizenship by building a community from interpretation, evaluation, and emotional connections of usable stories. Through the community that is built, acceptance is received, and a voice is given to the people who belong to the community. Through this voice, we reflect on our society and are able to see the political and ideology struggles.
The community built in Mulan is that of gender equality and it gives a voice to all the women and men that it is acceptable to ‘act’ like the other sex—who is to tell you to not do something that you enjoy. A person should not be judge and pre judged on who or what they are supposed to be, like when Mulan is expected to ‘act’ like a woman and to be married to a man and do the “womanly duties” all women are expected to do: look pretty, clean, cook, take care of the man, take care of the children—of course after having them, and to always please the man, and in the case of Mulan, bring honor to your family. The matchmaker scene in Mulan shows a great example of what is expected of a woman. Now, if that’s what you want to do and that makes you happy, then go ahead and do just that, but that shouldn’t be what every person’s standard is.
In order to explain how popular culture manages to do the work of citizenship, Hermes draws on the work of television theorist John Mepham, who argues that usable stories are a part of cultural citizenship in the way that we are able to compare, evaluate, and reflect on them to look for answers we seek from the questions we come by in our lives. Through these connections we make to certain usable stories, we are able to comprehend the quality of our individual personality and the quality of society.
In Re-Reading Popular Culture, Hermes explains that “Popular Culture is a domain in which we may practice the reinvention of who we are”. (4). Mulan reinvents herself as a man, for camouflage, so to not be killed for being a woman (which is what she really is). She only reinvents herself physically and not so much personality wise; which doesn’t seem so bad, but this distinct factor of changing what you are is what some feminists disagree with—we have to dress and act like a man to be accepted as their equals? From a blog Things Feminists Hate: Disney Princesses—Mulan, the blogger confronts feminists when the way Mulan dresses arises in saying:
“Okay, hold up. Which way do feminists want it? Women to be dressed like women (isn’t that sexist to assume that women have to dress ‘feminine’) or that women should dress however they want and will get the job done? No female soldier in this day and age goes to war in a dress, heels, and pearls anyway…Soldiers dress like soldiers, because dressing any other way would be impractical.” (paragraph 10).
But we can’t forget that the men were dressed as women when they saved the emperor in the final battle in Mulan. I believe that Disney was just saying that you need to dress the way that’s gonna get the job done, and dressing the men up like women in this film made it seem like they were more accepting of Mulan which is probably what the children (who is the primary audience) was thinking.
Hermes refers to John Mepham and his idea that he suggests that we focus on the provision of usable stories as a marker of quality. The marker of quality is a reflection on the “development of individual personality and [on] the creation of social self-understanding” (p. 11). People use usable stories as scapegoats; they use them as answers to their questions that were supplied by the very piece of popular culture they are investing their time on. By providing questions and answers, usable stories allow us to connect on a more emotional level by reflecting on the usable story compared to how we live our lives and them empower us when we end up in similar situations.
Disney’s animated film Mulan provides us with an inspiration and a fresh view of the expectations of our society concerning gender biases and feminism. We get a better understanding of gender bias and the concern for feminism by focusing on Mulan’s individual personality of who she really is and through social self understanding of what society expected of her and for her. By using Mulan as a usable story from popular culture, we are able to see how society’s perspective and stereotypes need to be adjusted to better qualify the importances of gender differences and similarities so to not degrade one gender versus another. According to Michael Hale in The evolution of the Disney Princess there are three generations of princesses. The “majority of the female princesses in the First Generation are royalty by way of birth and not work (for the exception of Cinderella” and that each of the three “First Generation princesses end their films either betrothed or married” The second generation of princesses (which Mulan would fall if she were a princess) have personality, spend more time getting to know their prince (or Shang in Mulan), and have meaningful relationships with their fathers. The most important to note here is that they have more personality. There is a change in how women are seen from the first generation to the second generation of princesses, and that is that women are being seen more equally to men. So the question that may arise would be are women really equal to men, and through Mulan we are shown that women are equal to men (and even sometimes better).
Popular culture can also act as a therapy by using usable stories that help “us in ‘working through’ the uncertainties and anxieties of our time”. (p.12). Because popular culture acts as a therapy it is the same as Hermes’s would describe as “doing cultural citizenship, [or the] very nature of coming to terms with oneself as a member of a community”. (p.13). Hermes explains that “Popular Culture allows us to fantasize about the ideals and hopes that we have for society, as well as to ponder what we fear.” (3). By fantasizing about ‘an ideal’ world through usable stories, it gives people hope and hope is therapeutic because it gives a sense of relief to people for a brighter future. Some may have the fear that women and men aren’t equals, and even that women are less. I was in a position where I could have helped unload some equipment, but when I asked the guy if he wanted help, he shoved me away and said “no, we need a man, you” as he pointed to the guy next to me “help, get on the other side”. Mulan allows us to fantasize about being equal through what we are able to do with the ability and perseverance to do so and not based on our gender stereotypes. I could have just as easily helped with carrying the equipment as the male standing next to me.
Mulan teaches us that it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside, but what is truly on the inside. The fact that you are a girl or a boy shouldn’t matter, as long as you get the job done and do it well should be the only thing that matters. Mulan isn’t a perfect movie (although one of my favorites—for I love Disney), the movie was made for children, and it got the point across that a girl is equally as powerful as a man and can do whatever a man does—or whatever makes you happy; for “the flower that blooms in adversity, is the most rare and beautiful of all”. (Mulan).
