Mulan: A Case of Failed Empowerment | Video Essay
1,932,444
Published 2020-09-10
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Accented Cinema - Episode 44
To most people, the live action Mulan film is just a boring, soulless war movie. But to me, it is an insulting experience. I can forgive it for all the inaccuracies in depicting Chinese culture. But I cannot forgive this film for what it did to the character of Mulan: Turning her into a symbol of submission.
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All Comments (21)
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Correction 2: A lot of comments are saying the poem should be 双兔傍地走. I have seen both used. But the version I shown at 0:22 says 兩兔, and it's from the year 1094 (Song Dynasty), so... Yeah I'm sticking to that. Correction 1: Thanks to commenter Luke Huang pointed out, I typed the wrong line of the poem at 17:47. It should be 雄兔腳撲朔，雌兔眼迷離，兩兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌 Instead I repeated 兩兔傍地走 twice like a dumb dumb. ------------------- Wow, 18 minutes huh? Guess I really do hate this movie.
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The problem with this movie is that she is already a Spider-Man before she was Peter Parker
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The most incrediable thing is not that they don't understand Chinese culture, but that they don't understand their previous film.
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Never have I heard someone so angry with a calm voice
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"It was the perfect time to empower a new generation... And you f*cked it up." This guy's a savage, I love him.
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Basically, the writers think that in order to empower women, you got to turn them into men. The animated Mulan was empowering, because she was herself, because she was a woman.
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"Mulan starts off as a total amateur, but so does everyone else" that's honestly not something people talk about enough when discussing Disney's Mulan
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"written by 4 people, and not one of them were asian". That's pretty much the only description the movie needs. I teared up when she returned to her father in the animated film. Even a little in this review. In the live action, I was just like: oh, ok, cool.
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16:44 im not even Chinese but this pissed me off. If according to the ballad, you can't tell the difference in gender between two hares running side by side, then mulans dialogue in that scene completely contradicts the whole message by telling us that she was in fact able to tell that one was male and the other was female. It beats the whole point! It takes the main, conclusive message from the ballad and comepletely strips it of its meaning!
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"the cgi looks like utter crap maybe it wouldn't have been a problem if the animators joined skillshare" is a way funnier line when you remember sponsored videos have to be approved by the company
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I’m a straight dude and even I felt empowered by animated Mulan. She wasn’t just a female who proved her strength to be equal to other men, she was a child protecting her family, a soldier protecting her homeland, and a friend protecting her comrades. Those are the traits and values not defined by gender, but by the decency of a human being.
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As a Chinese and a girl, I really did feel represented and empowered by the cartoon. So sad Mulan 2020 failed in every way.
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They replaced mushu with a Phoenix that doesn’t really do anything.... biggest mistake Disney can make
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OG Mulan: "How can you tell female from male when hares are running side by side?" 2020 Mulan: "So anyway I saw two hares running and I could totally tell them apart."
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"The CGI looks like utter crap. Maybe it wouldn't have been a problem if teh filmmakers had skillshare." Oof. That wasn't just a shot, that was a firing squad.
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I was a little African girl when I watched Mulan and I admired and related to her the most out of all the 'Disney princesses', we mostly have the same culture here. I couldn't relate to this version.
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"Mulan is unlike any other Disney female lead at the time... She's not born royalty nor nobility and does not marry into one either." YEP! She was so different that the Disney Princess brand had to alter a "requirement" on who is a "Disney Princess". It was "The character must be royal by birth or royal by marriage." Because of Mulan it is "The character must be royal by birth, royal by marriage, or do a heroic deed."
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I find it interesting how in the animated movie, she's offered the role of emperor's advisor (hinting to her problem-solving skills, and how much her intelligence is valued), and in the 2020 version she's offered a place in the guard as one of the fighters
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"Mulan 2020 is not malicious. It's just stupid." describes every damn disney remake
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7:40 I teared up, I did not realize how deep and precious the messages of the animated Mulan was.
