Mulan

1
Mulans Mirrors

• From the ancient ballad
• to the Disney animation

2
Mulan looking into the mirror
3

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• I take off my wartime gown And put on my
  old-time clothes." Facing the window she fixes
  the cloudlike hair on her temples, Facing a
  mirror she dabs on yellow flower powder

4
Genealogy of Mulan

• Ballad of Mulan (Ode to Mulan)
• Maid Mulan enlists in her fathers place Ci
  Mulan tifu congjun, Ming Dynasty
• Hua Mulan (Yu opera, 1956)
• White Tigers, The Woman Warrior (1976)
• Disney Mulan (1998)

5
Ballad of Mulan

• Gujin yuelu Musical Record Old and New, Chen
  Dynasty, 568
• Yuefu shiji Collection of Music-Bureau Poems,
  Song Dynasty, 12th century
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• "The male rabbit's feet kick up and down, The
  female rabbit's eyes are bewildered. Two rabbits
  running close to the ground, How can they tell
  if I am male or female?"

6
Two questions un-clarified

• Time setting
• ?The Han Dynasty (205BC-AD220)
• ?The Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534)
• Identity of Mulan
• ?Non-Chinese (Han)
• The Khan is calling for a great force
• On her return she sees the Son of Heaven
• The Son of Heaven sits in the ceremonial hall.
• The Khan asks her what she desires.
• I wish to borrow a ten-thousand mile camel

7
Northern military woman Confucian model

gentle graceful
8
Confucianization of Mulan

• Tang Dynasty model of filial piety, moral
  integrity and chastity
• Three cardinal guides Monarch guides subject
  Father guides son Husband guides wife
• xiao (filial piety) zhong (loyalty to the
  monarch)
• Mulan poem in Tang
• How laudable is Mulans virtuous integrity,
• Serving as the model of the monarchs subjects.
• Her unswerving loyalty and filial devotion
• Will be remembered even after thousands of years.

9
jie (chastity)

• Maid Mulan enlists in her fathers place
• starting out with a vehement sense of filial
  duty but ending up with a great contribution to
  the emperor blending with the male but
  maintaining her chastity
• Loyalty to the emperor vs. filial piety
• Segregation of the male and the female
• Mulan serve the motherland by serving her father
• Twenty-four True Daughters
• General of Filial Piety

10
Bound feet
11
Marriage

• Having heard about the distinction of your
  literary talents in the emperors court,
• I am ashamed of myself, who back from the battle
  fields,
• May not be a match for you.
• However, please be assured that I will make a
  pliant wife of yours,
• And will never confront you with the formidable
  temper of a solider.
• Maid Mulan enlists in her fathers place

12
Hua Mulan (Yu opera)

• Korean War
• Patriotic devotion
• Women as half of the sky

13
The Woman Warrior

• Connection between Chinese and American
  identities
• Two Chinas
• the old feudal China and the new Red China
• White Tigers
• Fa Mulan
• The peasant uprising individuality ?a public
  cause

14
The new red China

• The depth and width of joy were exactly known to
  me the Chinese population. After much hardship a
  few of our millions had arrived together at the
  capital. We faced our emperor personally. We
  beheaded him, cleaned out the palace, and
  inaugurated the peasant who would begin the new
  order. In his rags, he sat on the throne facing
  the south, and we, a great red crowd, bowed to
  him three tries. (WW42)
• The founding of PRC in 1949
• Red guards and the Cultural Revolution
• The revolution and womens liberation

15
Top 20 Films in the U.S., 1998 (ranked by
domestic box offices in U.S. millions of dollars)

• Rank Movie Title U.S.
  Domestic Foreign
• 1 Armageddon 201.6
  306.4
• 2 Saving Private Ryan 191.0
  242.3
• 6 Dr. Dollittle
  144.2 141.5
• 7 Deep Impact 140.5
  208.3
• 8 Rush Hour 140.4
  36.0
• 9 Godzilla
  136.0 239.7
• 11 The Truman Show 125.6
  122.8
• 12 Mulan
  120.6 176.5

16
Disney Mulan

• Disneyfication Westernization and globalization
  by a multinational studio
• Formulaic production
• Good prevailing over evil emotional, catchy
  songs cute animal sidekicks for comic relief
  young romance character voices performed by film
  stars
• Mushu Mooshu pork Eddie Murphy Cri-Kee
  cricket

17
Why does Mulan leave home for the army?

• Filial piety ? Reciprocal Love
• Search for self
• Filmic cliché
• villains being speared
• and carried away by rockets
• (True Lies 1994 Broken Arrow 1996)

18
Zhang Ziyi or Li Yuchun?

• Stanley Tong ???