This morning school was canceled due to weather. My daughter was also feeling under the weather. She was sent home from school a few days prior for a fever, and was clearly lethargic compared to her usual level of energy.
Very well, child. Go read a book and you may watch a movie after.
Off she went and retrieved a chapter book that she’d read before and was now rereading. We went through the usual routine. She read her chapter and then recapped for me. Something about wishing on a book and traveling to a land of dinosaurs. I chose not to tell her dinosaurs were probably fake.
Now pick your movie.
1998 animated Mulan?
Okay.
Sitting there, helping her get the movie going, I ended up watching the first few minutes of it. These days it is difficult not to notice things I never did before the scales fell off, and once they fall away they don’t come back. Watching with these eyes, 1998 Mulan could be viewed as a guide for young girls on how to fail at winning a husband. Do the opposite of Mulan and you will have no trouble finding one.
No real background for the movie is needed. It is enough to know that Mulan decides to take the place of her elderly father in the war between China and the enemy invaders. When we meet Mulan, she is eating in bed and writing HanZi on her arm, a clear substitute for a tattoo, particularly when viewed through the Western lens the movie was made for and the once popular trend of getting Chinese character tattoos.
She jumps out of bed calling for her dog, “little brother”, which is, I suppose, a somewhat refreshing change from a girl speaking and thinking of her pets as children in lieu of children, and perhaps she only calls the dog little brother because it is a family dog rather than hers alone. I am sure if she was living in the city on her own she would call it her baby. She haphazardly uses the dog to complete her morning chore of feeding the chickens, which results in a huge mess and a lot of wasted chicken feed.
We then meet Mulan’s father, who is literally on his knees praying for his daughter to get a husband. Mulan goes off to meet the matchmaker in order to “uphold the family honor”, but not before she hides the HanZi on her arm from her dad. So much for honor.
Here we get a small scene in which her mother regrets not praying to the ancestors for luck on behalf of her daughter. Her grandmother dismisses the ancestors and says, “How lucky can they be? They’re dead!” and proceeds to place her faith in a lucky cricket, reminiscent of a sort of new age belief or manifestation.
Mulan then arrives late for the matchmaker’s appointment, riding up on a giant war horse like a man might, and with pieces of straw and dirt in her hair. This is a necessary scene as it shows Mulan knows how to ride a horse, but being manly is not an desired trait for a woman.
The next scene shows a lyrical montage of Mulan being prepared to meet the matchmaker. She is bathed, clothed, dolled up, and generally made presentable in the stereotypical fashion of China. During this scene her mother notices the HanZi on her arm, which Mulan explains are notes, because apparently she is too stupid to memorize what she needs, or to take the matchmaking seriously enough to spend the effort to memorize it in advance. Mulan also takes time out of her busy preparations to show off by interfering in a boardgame between two old men, outsmarting them in a single move, and looking very smug about it.
Throughout all of this, the ladies preparing her for the matchmaker are singing about the following, telling her how to win a husband and be an honorable woman:
By glowing with cleanliness like a bride
Looking beautiful so that men will go to war for her
That her beauty will help her strike a good match
That men want girls with:
Good taste
Calm demeanor
Obedience
Good work ethic
Good breeding
A tiny waist
That to serve the nation, men go to war bearing arms to protect everyone and that women bear sons
That no man will turn down the collection of traits listed above
I want to note in particular a verse at the start of this song, mentioning the importance of a woman’s hair.
Wait and see, when we're through
Boys will gladly go to war for you.
With good fortune (and a great hair-do)
You'll bring honor to us all.
To Mulan’s credit, she chimes in with the following, clearly wanting to do well.
Ancestors, hear my plea
Help me not to make a fool of me
And to not uproot my family tree
Keep my father standing tall.
Steadier than the undertaker
We are meeting our matchmaker!
Unfortunately Mulan fails in her approach, because she is not heeding the sage advice (in this case) of the experienced old women who want to see her married and follow tradition. However, her foolish grandmother gives her the lucky cricket so that Mulan can rely on manifestation rather than the religious spiritual tradition of everyone else in her family.
The meeting with the old lady matchmaker starts off poorly, continues poorly, and ends poorly. First Mulan mistakes the matchmaker’s use of her name as permission to talk and speaks out of turn. The matchmaker begins to evaluate Mulan, but complains that Mulan is too skinny(!) which is “not good for bearing sons”. Mulan is then required to recite an admonition, which she does by cheating, using the HanZi notes on her arm. When asked to pour tea to demonstrate her dignity, refinement, and poise, Mulan is distracted and pours it onto the table before managing to get it into the cup.
Meanwhile, the “lucky” cricket is sabotaging everything, including jumping into the cup of tea that Mulan has just poured. Mulan tries to warn the matchmaker who is about to take a sip and engages in a short tussle over the tea, which ends in the tea spilling all over the matchmaker, the cricket jumping into the old lady’s bodice, and burning coals searing a hole in the seat of the woman’s dress, showcasing how disastrous and destructive new age spiritualism and manifestation can be.
The matchmaker then states the obvious: “You may look like a bride, but you will never bring your family honor.” Indeed, it is a phrase that calls to mind many a modern woman as seen on social media.
Mulan is depressed, but instead of reflecting on the legitimate advice of her family or the many things she could have done differently, she concludes that being a bride and a good daughter isn’t the part for her.
Look at me
I will never pass for a perfect bride, or a perfect daughter
Can it be I'm not meant to play this part?
Now I see that if I were truly to be myself
I would break my family's heart
Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection someone I don't know?
Somehow I cannot hide
Who I am, though I've tried
When will my reflection show who I am inside
Her father uses the analogy of a late blooming cherry blossom to gently tell Mulan that she needs to continue developing, advice that Mulan ignores.
How do we know she ignores it? Because later in a confrontation with her father, he explicitly tells her she needs to learn her place, but she does the opposite of what her father wants, by taking his armor and sword and riding off in his place, endangering both her life and his because they will be executed if found out, and bringing dishonor to them all. Her actions are so grave that her foolish new age grandmother is shocked into reverting back to the old religion and praying to the ancestors.
By the way, she cuts off her hair right before she leaves. So much for a great hair-do.
Oh, and she names herself “Ping”. As in Fa Ping. Fapping. I kid you not.
All of the above happens in the first 15-20 minutes of the movie. There is another whole hour and by the end of it, Mulan has made no progress as a woman. She is not more mature and has not changed in any way, she just has shorter, uglier hair, and has spent time acting like a man instead of developing feminine strengths.
This is further punctuated in the middle of the movie after she is outed as a woman, and instead of being executed by the army commander, she is shown mercy and banished from the army. Mulan is depressed again and ruminates that “Maybe I didn’t go for my father. Maybe what I really wanted was to prove I could do things right”, showing that she still totally fails to understand her place and what was right for her as a woman, because what was right was for her to stay home and get married and allow her elderly father to go to war as the emperor decreed.
To distract from her lack of character development, Mulan is shown to miss home as if that were a character development, and also to receive romantic interest from a man she spent months or years deceiving, as if that were a character development and not a case of extremely poor judgment by the man showing interest.
So let’s recap all of Mulan’s qualities and habits and decide whether a generalized man would desire them in a wife.
Eating in bed — No
Tattoos — No
Pet as child substitute — Maybe, when viewed positively as motherly potential, otherwise No
Messy and wasteful — No
Hides behavior from her father — No
Behaves like a man — No
Is late to important events — No
Puts in no effort for important events — No
Competes with men — No
Is a smug show off — No
Ignores good advice — No
Abandons family and cultural tradition — No
Abandons religion in favor of spiritualism/new age beliefs — No
Speaks out of turn — No
Is too skinny — It beats obese, so Yes.
Engages in physical confrontation — No
Is self-pitying, and has no ability to self-reflect or self-correct — No
Disobeys and ignores her father’s wishes — No
Cuts her hair short — No
Makes inappropriate sexual jokes — No
Deceived him for years — No
However, even after all of this, Mulan is not irredeemable. She has traits that a man can work with, but it won’t be a high quality man that comes calling. What are these traits? Does a man want them in a wife?
Doesn’t want her father to die in war — Yes
Has a desire to do good and to do well — Yes
Is skinny and physically fit — Yes, but preferably with womanly proportions
Does not want to smell like a man — Yes
Bravery — Sure, but physical bravery is not required
Wants to be at home after all — Yes
If you’re a young girl looking for a husband, do the opposite of Fa Mulan.
Bonus: The men in the movie tell Mulan what kind of girl is worth fighting for. She tries to suggest another type of girl worth fighting for, and is immediately—and correctly—shot down.
No comments:
Post a Comment