Female Gender Roles In The Movie Mulan

The movie Mulan directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft depicts the hero's journey of a young maiden, Mulan, as she leaves home to join the war against the Huns in place of her father. Characters throughout all cultures experience departure, initiation, and return, the three stages of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, including Mulan.

Mulan, the plot of the movie is a young woman who disguises her sex in order to join the

Mulan, a tale of adventure and honor, is not only an engaging film to watch, but it also contains an amazing amount of historical accuracy concerning religions in China. The film Mulan is historically accurate in its portrayal of Daoist ideas, the expected behavior of women according to Confucianism, and Confucian relationships.

The website is titled “Growing Up With Disney” and covers eight Disney movies produced in 1989 to 2016. Each movie gets its own webpage that focuses on the female lead character and each webpage includes a summary of the movie and a reflection of my thoughts on the character. The reflections focus on the formations of gender roles and how Disney has changed in the span of these eight movies. The audience targeted is those who share the same love for Disney movies and grew up watching them.

To complete this sociological journey I used the concepts from chapters 3,4,5, and 8 of the textbook Sociology: A Brief Introduction, 11th ed. by Richard T. Schaefer. Mulan is a Disney movie character that has to face many sociological problems that threaten her physically and sociologically. Her social role is to become an obedient wife to her future husband, but Mulan just could not conform to the gender role that was expected of her, thus creating a role conflict. And as the movie progresses Mulan refuses to give into the norms of China and instead trusts in her values and takes on the duty of protecting her significant others from the war against the Huns. In the process of training. She isn’t given many life chances because of her being apart of the group known as women and men don’t respect or understand this group. Mulan meets Li Shang, who has the achieved status of captain, but some soldiers believe that the title of captain is an ascribed status because of the status of his father. This causes conflict and insubordination between the captain and the soldiers. Mulan takes on the personality of Ping to hide her identity and this action eventually has severe consequences due to the impersonation of a soldier being a very serious crime that could’ve brought on a fatal punishment, but she was spared due to her heroics later on. This is her journey from a girl to a soldier.

In order to please her man, she is willing to do anything. As a result, she expects to get the things she wants. However, throughout the song she gives some clues that allow people to have an idea about her inner struggles. For example, she is self-conscious about her weight, she does not have a good relationship with other women, and she feels the need to use sex as her weapon to gain, material wealth and power over men. This song is congruent with Morgan’s opinion that women are denied access to power and are suffering for it. It also give people an idea, why men are referring to women as bitches.

Mulan is a Disney animated film that takes place in ancient China during Han Dynasty War. Mulan is a young girl in China, the only child of her honored family who struggles to find her identity and meaning in society. While Mulan is a lovable, spirited girl who doesn’t fit in with Chinese tradition because she speaks her mind and follow her heart. Being a girl who experience culture, gender role, and self-image demonstrated what a non- tradition person will do to bring honor to her love one’s and the family.

Men, Women, or transgender we are all human. Each human can act in whichever way they please. However, does this break a traditional gender norm? A traditional gender norm is the types of behaviors which generally considered acceptable, appropriate or desirable for people based on their actual perceived sex or sexuality. Gender norms can be seen in various television shows, movies, and music. However, how do we know if these gender norms are okay to be seen in these forms of entertainment? In the movie Mulan directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook they illustrate how traditional gender norms can be broken by showing that Women can prove themselves as worthy as men, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Although in the 60’s, when this song was first released, women might have had positive views about this song; because in fact women’s role 50 years ago was mainly adhering to their man’s need, whether it being supporting him, serving him or pleasing him. In which the

In the film Girlhood by Liz Garbus we are introduced to two young girl’s named Megan and Shanae, who committed a crime and are getting help through a facility that helps young girls reflect on their actions. Both Megan and Shanae share similar viewpoints for example, they mention that their role model is their mother. They also added that daughters need to be with their mothers. Both girls are following the development of gender roles which states that socialization leads girls to identify with traditional female roles where nurturing and caring are reinforced. Shanae got nurtured and follows everything her mom says because she wants to be just like her as she as growing up. Megan says her mom is her role model, but she doesn’t want to be like her because she wants to be someone in the future and not a drug addict.

From the minute one is born the division between genders is placed. The phrases “act like a lady” or “be a man” become everyday practices and lifelong slogans. Fairy tales are always focused on women who play the beautiful damsel in distress persona and on men who play the handsome knight coming in to save them. Whether you are female or male, it is important to remember that these fixed characteristics placed on genders are never to be reinforced. In a world full of gender stereotypes, the Disney movie Mulan challenges the societal construct of masculinity and femininity by proving that gender roles are not fixed traits, but socially constructed views that can be changed.

In the movie, “Mulan” the gender stereotyping is different than in the movie, “The Lion King.” Although she is portrayed as a strong female she still needs a man in her life. Giroux states, “Mulan may be an independent, strong-willed young woman, but the ultimate payoff for her bravery comes in the form of catching the handsome son of a general” (Greene 582). This teaches that young girls should strive to be beautiful so they can find a handsome man that will want to be with them. Men, on the

We need to understand that the filial piety presented in the movie with the one in the original legend is different, because in the movie Disney portrayed back the filial piety based on American people’s understanding and stereotypes on Confucianism. In this way Mulan described as a free individual who does not want to be bounded by the strict rules of Confucianism. Although, most of the time Mulan expresses her refusal to Confucianism, she still represents the value of filial piety to her father by disguising herself as a man warrior and taking her father’s duty in a war. In this sense, Disney tried to show Mulan’s dutiful character by bringing out Mulan’s “manly” and rebellious personality. However, in order to strengthen Mulan’s head-strong personality, Disney deliberately lessened the value of obedience and replaced it with Mulan’s pursuit of identity. In this sense, Mulan is described as being confused of her real identity. She is given two difficult choices between fulfilling her role as a potential wife or listening to her own calling (She wants to find her own love without the interference of other people, including her parents). Moreover, the Ballad never explicitly tell the relationship between Mulan and her parents; but everyone can assume that Mulan does not have “a close relationship” with her parents unlike the one depicted in the Disney’s version. Because in filial

Analyzing the word, "beautiful" in this stanza, one should perceive that she is not actually singing about the outside of her, but what she consists of emotionally and mentally on the inside. She reveals that her thoughts and emotions are of worth and value and they are of her opinion. They are consumed through her, and no one else and if anyone disagrees, she does not take that into affect. Her diction is actually pretty precise. To quote a famous cliché, beauty is not skin deep. She explains that the beauty is the sentiment.

Another way to analyze gender in Mulan is to examine society 's expectations of female versus male roles. In Mulan, it is apparent that society has different expectations for each gender and the roles they should play. Before she meets with the matchmaker, Mulan recites the characteristics the Chinese society believes makes a perfect woman, "quiet and demure, graceful, polite, delicate, refined, poised"(Mulan). Mulan is accused of bringing dishonor to her