by Ginny O'Keefe
After I watched Mulan (2020), the lackluster live-action remake of the beloved 1998 animated movie, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the bitterness and anger I felt after watching The Rise of Skywalker back in December. The feelings of disappointment and resentment were incredibly familiar, all stemming from the fact that both Mulan (2020) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019) refute the idea that a hero can be anyone and come from anywhere. This is where both films ultimately fail their two female leads.
In the original animated film, Mulan is an ordinary girl who feels incredibly out of place and cannot seem to do right by her family or the deeply ingrained misogynistic society that surrounds her. She has no fighting skills, no hunger for war, no royal heritage, no outstanding measure of beauty. She has nothing that could suggest she is “special” besides her brave and kind heart...
It isn’t until she sets her mind to it, in order to save her father, she learns what it means to be a warrior through hard work and brutal training (“I’ll Make a Man Out of You” anyone?). She is given the same types of challenges her fellow soldiers are and she overcomes all of them regardless of her gender, therefore showing the audience that a woman can do anything a man can do. And how does Mulan in the 2020 live-action remake compare? Disney decides to throw in “the chosen one” trope and give her special abilities that no one else in the army has.
Before I go further, yes, I am well aware that the power of qi featured in this remake is prevalent in Chinese culture. But qi isn’t a superpower, but a vital energy inside yourself and everyone has it. The new Disney film decides to take qi and turn it into an X-Men like superhuman mutation. The only other characters in this film who possess this magnitude of qi are the villains. Convenient, no? This way it makes it easy for Mulan to defeat them since, apparently, she is the only one who can. Her new power is a cheat code and it actually sends an anti-feminist message; Mulan needs to rely on superpowers in order to be brave and save those around her. Mulan in the animated film didn’t need to be the strongest fighter to save the day. She went into the army and worked around her weaknesses through critical thinking and strategy. Plus, taking an ancient Chinese belief and blowing it up into this gargantuan superpower feels ridiculous. This 2020 remake makes it seem like Mulan is an outsider to the army not because of her gender, but because she is “magic”.
All of this feels so akin to Rey’s horrible regression in The Rise of Skywalker. Besides, “Somehow Palpatine has returned” another one of the most cringeworthy lines in the film relates to when Rey discovers her heritage. “You have his power. You’re a Palpatine”, (sigh). They took the message that The Last Jedi sent to audiences which said, “it doesn’t matter where you come from. You can be and do anything”, and completely rejected it in the next installment. Now Rey gets all of her power from a man and can’t come from nowhere because then she'd be powerless. Disney has a strange affinity with “the chosen one” trope lately. Why has the company developed such a dislike for characters with humble beginnings? It isn’t doing any favors for their female leads.
Mulan had a simple reason to go to war in the animated film. It wasn't to prove anything to society but to save her father. A simple reason, but a valid one nonetheless. The remake makes the character feel as though she is inclined to go to war not just for love but because she has to prove something to society which has always looked down upon on her for being “special”. I’ll stick with “normal” Mulan who works hard and doesn’t need to be one in a million. She's more interesting, lack of powers and all.
P.S.: I strongly urge readers to research why this film is receiving so much backlash. Much of it has to do with the lead actress (Yifei Liu) supporting police brutality in Hong Kong, and the fact that it was filmed near a concentration camp for Muslims in China.