Textual Analysis Of Mulan

My experience, or “biography” with gender and gender inequality can be attributed to what C. Wright Mills’s calls “history”, or the social world. According to Mills, our individual lives interact with society to formulate our experiences. This perspective “enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society” (C. Wright Mills 3). As discussed in Module Twelve: Gender, Work, and Family, women and men are placed into two separate spheres; the private sphere and the public sphere. My life experiences relate to the private sphere, which is associated with femininity and domestic work. Society reserves the public sphere for men only, in which they are dominant and “breadwinners”. This is the sphere that I have been conditioned by society to not pursue.

For my final paper where we had to pick a topic from current popular culture, I decided to write my paper with the focus on Disney movies. More particularly with the focus on the Disney princess movies. When it comes to the Disney movies they have always been and will always be such a huge part of our society. While growing up most children grow up watching these movies and get the idea that that is what they want to be when they grow up. When you ask a young girl what she wants to be when she is older there is a good chance that she will say that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. I have always been such a huge fan of Disney movies and I have a feeling I always will be. I found it very interesting this semester when we spend the short class period talking about the Disney female and male characters. It is rather interesting and something that I can say that I really never noticed before but the fact that the majority of all the female characters all had the same face shape. Whereas the males there were none two that were the same. However for this paper I will be looking into the relationship to cultural meanings about gender and other identity markers, such as race, sexuality, and cultural norms as seen in some of the more classic well known Disney movies.

In the past years, Disney/Pixar has revolutionized the premise of their movies by shifting away from princesses and portraying resilient male characters as the protagonists of their highly successful animated feature films. From 1995 to 2008, Disney/Pixar released eight films, all of which included a male lead, yet these characters are arguably unlike any other protagonist in early Disney animated films. In their essay, “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar,” Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden call attention to the new manner Disney/Pixar use to depict their heroic male characters in their movies. Gillam and Wooden claim that Pixar is using their movies to promote the acceptance of a new standard of masculinity capable of embracing feminine traits, as conveyed by the male characters within the films. As a viewer, it is easy to recognize the emasculation of the male protagonists within Pixar movies, however, the authors’ claim is faulty; they fail to acknowledge that society now has room for a new sympathetic man because it is straying way from a patriarchal beliefs of the past.

Disney directly exposes the idea that young girls should make their main goal in life to find their prince charming, fall madly in love, and live happily ever after. Making young girls’ aspiration in life revolve around finding a man of their dreams “transfix[es the] audience and divert[s] their potential utopian dreams and hopes through the false promises of the images [Disney] cast[s] upon the screen” (22). Disney tells the audience that women need a man to be happy. Disney presents the idea that women are dependent on me. Just like in The Little Mermaid, Ariel goes as far as surrendering her voice, to a witch named Ursula, and abandoning her family in order to be with her prince. Ariel also trades in her life as a mermaid, drastically changes her body, and sacrifices her greatest talent all in order to win her prince. Disney sends the message that girls need to give up their talents and lives in order to be with a man. Disney suggests that a woman’s main priority is her lover, no one or nothing else. Disney effectively portrays women in a negative way, depicting them as weak and needy. No attempt to break the stereotypical gender roles of women are evident however, these stereotypes are growing as Disney instills this image of women in the minds of viewers.

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.

On another note, one might think because of the dramatizing of love at first sight and how a prince basically came to rescue her from a life of misery that Cinderella has a would higher levels of romanticism than the movie Mulan. However, our data does not support this hypothesis. In contrast, it was found that individuals whose favorite Disney princess was Mulan had higher levels of romantic beliefs than those individuals who chose Cinderella as their favorite. An alternative explanation for this could be the differences in the way varies romantic relationship that occurred within each Disney movie existed. Unlike Mulan, Iin the Cinderella movie, the only romantic relationship that was being portrayed was between Cinderella and the Prince. Not to mention, Cinderella and the Prince relationship was so rushed it felt as if it was fleeting. In

Mulan is an animated film that was released in 1998 from Disney during third wave feminism, which features an Asian woman protagonist. She is a Disney princess, but at first glance you wouldn’t think so. Mulan is introduced as a clumsy tomboy who did not think she would ever bring honor to her family. In order to accomplish said honor, she would have to by being the perfect bride, in accordance with the matchmaker. The film has a great amount of feminist ideals, however, it doesn’t leave out stereotypical gender roles and several examples of overdetermined ideologies. Patriarchy is very prevalent in this film, from the woman characters positions, down to the songs they sing throughout the film, patriarchy is a theme that cannot be missed. This paper will discuss how feminine and masculine stereotypes are conveyed in the film, how gender stereotypes are portrayed, and of the patriarchal themes included in the film.

Mulan’s character is a unique Disney heroin that had not yet been portrayed before 1990’s. Most characters had the damisel in distress storyline, such as Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. The femininities movement was beginning to make its way in children 's literature and films. No longer were parents wanting the submissive, passive stereotypical female example for their young children. Mulan is a strong, powerful character that overcomes the gender stereotypes of young females. The actual telling of

The process of gender socialization reveals much about how gender identities are formed, but gender is not just a matter of identity: Gender is embedded in social institutions. This means that institutions are patterned by gender, resulting in different experiences and opportunities for men and women. The concept of the term “gendered institutions” means that entire institutions are patterned by gender. In a gendered institution, men and women are channeled into different, and often differently valued, social spaces or activities and their choices have different and often unequal consequences. Gendered institutions are the total pattern of gender relations, which includes the following (Acker 1992): stereotypical expectations, interpersonal relationships, and the division of labor along lines of gender. As well as, the images and symbols that support these divisions and the different placement of men and women in social, economic, and political hierarchies of institutions.

Disney’s animated film Mulan captured the hearts of many of the corporation’s fan’s hearts when it first arrived in 1998. The film is based on one of China’s most beloved poems entitled “The Ballad of Mulan,” which tells a similar story of a young woman dressing up as a male in order to enlist in the army to protect her father. Disney’s Mulan focuses heavily on the individual struggle of main character to find out who she is and where she fits into society, which deviates away from the original storyline drastically. The differences are formed due to the large differences between the ancient Eastern culture that is trying to be portrayed and the Western ideals that Disney incorporated to make the movie more relatable for the modern Western viewers. While this movie is full of imagery that paints a picture of a strong female lead that conquers evil by being her “true self,” it also contains many gender stereotypes that stem from the culture of the ancient Chinese belief system. Upon examining the movie further, it becomes obvious that the importance of accepting and conforming to gender roles that Mulan represents is not only rooted in Chinese culture but also finds origin in the cultural views of the West.

“The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought entitled social constructionism. Social constructionism proposes that everything people "know" or see as "reality" is partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say that something is socially constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept. These basic theories of social constructionism can be applied to any issue of study pertaining to human life, including gender. This is

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

However, Disney’s movie Mulan countervails these stereotypes as the main character and protagonist, Mulan, acts as a symbol of resilience by resisting the gender roles placed on her by society and as a result, is seen as a hero.

Mulan, in fact, has more in common with male Disney leads than the female Disney leads. Mulan is a thinker. She 's resourceful, like Aladdin. She is quick to act, like Eric (from The little Mermaid.) And she sacrifices herself for the sake of others, like Hercules. She also speaks her mind, even in a culture that does not allow such a thing. She doesn 't waste time pining about "will I ever

Mulan can be applauded for being one of the few movies in which the princess isn 't a delicate character that needs saving. "Pocahontas, Mulan, and The Princess and the Frog, had princesses who displayed more masculine than feminine characteristics in their three most frequent characteristics. This suggests a chronological movement towards a more androgynous princess"(England). Mulan is a great step towards the advancement in the way gender roles are presented in movies, however; there is still major underrepresentation and misrepresentation of females in media. Rebecca Collins studies the effects of media on mental health. She states, "If young girls do not see themselves reflected in media, this diminish their sense of importance and self-esteem"(Collins). It is important to be critical of how Mulan represents women, because young girls look up to the female characters they see in Disney movies.