The original tale of Hua Mulan takes place during the Wei Dynasty and is an example of a fulfillment of two quintessential Confucian teachings: filial piety and national service. The Epoch Times article, “The Legend of Mulan,” explains that although the Disney adaptation contains many deviations from the actual legend it holds true to those two teachings. Confucius is arguably China’s most influential philosopher and his teachings permeate the culture even into the modern day. His teachings of piety and service to one’s family and country establish the cultural norms of the Chinese people. These are the norms that play throughout the Disney movie as well. The expectations and restrictions of the son versus the daughter creates the tension between Mulan’s duty and her gender. As a daughter she is obligated to serve her parents by obedience and her country by producing more sons, but Mulan deviates from her role as a female child to that of a male child. When Mulan’s father is called to serve in the army, she insists to take his place due to his old age. In order to do so, Mulan disguises herself as a male and joins the army. As a son, Mulan serves her father by protecting him from sure death and serves her country by fighting off foreign invaders. Therefore, the transition of gender implies the transition of cultural expectations and restrictions, which ultimately allows for the interpretation of her story as one of Disney’s heroes rather than a princess.
Mulan is the first Disney non-princess to take on a non traditional female role as a hero. I choose the word hero rather heroine because she accomplishes her duties while disguised as a male soldier. In a way, it makes sense for Mulan to be excluded in the category of the Disney princess because it does not correlate to her function. Furthermore, the film is organized in the format for a Disney hero rather than a Disney princess. Eagleton writes that Structuralism “...brackets off the actual content of the story and concentrates entirely on the form. You could replace father and son, pit and sun, with entirely different elements - mother and daughter, bird and mole - and still have the same story. As long as the structure of relations between the units is preserved, it does not matter which items you select” (Eagleton 83). Therefore in the case of Mulan, her story is structurally similar to that of Hercules, a well known Disney hero, rather than to Cinderella, a well known Disney princess. The difference in context is irrelevant to structural analysis, but the overall construct of the movie is as follows: China is threatened by the Huns, she struggles with her identity but decides to follow her heart, she runs away from home in order to address the danger and find herself, goes through rigorous training with the help of a mythical creature (Mushu) and an animal companion (Khan), develops a love interest (Captain Li Shang) but is unable to pursue him due to the imminent danger, proves her worth as a hero to Emperor of China and the rest of her country, ultimately saves the love interest and the rest of society, and is reunited with her family. For those who have watched Hercules, the components mentioned can be applied like so: Olympus is threatened by Hades and the Titans, Hercules struggles with his identity but chooses to follow his heart, he runs away to address the danger and find himself, goes through rigorous training with the help of a mythical creature (Phil) and an animal companion (Pegasus), develops a love interest (Megara but is unable to pursue her due to the imminent danger, proves her worth as a hero to Zeus and the rest of Olympus, ultimately saves the love interest and society, and is reunited with his family. These parallels between the characters Mulan and Hercules support “that the individual units of any system have meaning only by virtue of their relations to one another” (82). Mulan thus does not posses the structure of a princess, but her character fulfills the criteria of the hero role. However, in order for Mulan to perform the role of the hero, she must temporarily forgo her womanhood and identify herself as a man. Her journey to “manhood” is reinforced by the movie’s soundtrack. I would also like to note that the musical quality is another shared structure, but this can be applied to most if not all of Disney’s animated films.
The music of any album follows a particular theme just as the movie’s soundtrack reinforces the storyline via song. The soundtrack adds another layer of language on top of the movie’s spoken and visual dialogue. The placement and structure of each song is intentional and Eagleton’s statement that “words are not just strung together for the sake of the thoughts they convey, as in ordinary speech, but with an eye to the patterns of similarity, opposition, parallelism, and so on created by their sound, meaning, rhythm and connotation,” can be applied to their formation (86). On the other hand, psychoanalysis can also be used to unpack the content of individual songs since “psychoanalytical or humanist readings...depend on these items having a certain intrinsic significance [and] to understand..we have to resort to our knowledge of the world outside the text” (83). It is also essential to keep in mind the prevalent Confucian influence when using psychoanalysis. Since it is necessary to understand the historical, cultural, and even economical implications of the text, the role of men and women and the importance of fulfilling those roles in Chinese culture cannot be ignored. The relationship between men and women was discussed:
...in terms of yin and yang. Women were yin, men were yang. Yin was soft, yielding, receptive, passive, reflective, and tranquil, whereas yang was hard, active, assertive, and dominating. Day and night, winter and summer, birth and death, indeed all natural processes occur through processes of interaction of yin and yang. Conceptualizing the differences between men and women in terms of yin and yang stresses that these differences are part of the natural order of the universe, not part of the social institutions artificially created by human beings. In yin yang theory the two forces complement each other but not in strictly equal ways. The natural relationship between yin and yang is the reason that men lead and women follow. If yin unnaturally gains the upper hand, order at both the cosmic and social level are endangered. (Ebrey)
The historical Hua Mulan and the fictional Fa Mulan both challenge this notion of gender-based occupations. The situation then questions the importance of fulfilling one’s duties as specified by gender versus fulfilling the virtue of the teaching despite physical gender. Utilizing both structuralism and psychoanalysis, we can simultaneously achieve a close and general reading of the songs “Honor to Us All,” “Reflection,” “I’ll Make A Man Out of You,” and “A Girl Worth Fighting For.”
The movie first introduces Mulan as she prepares for her meeting with the town matchmaker. The audience is introduced to an immature and irresponsible young lady who struggles with organizing herself. The song, “Honor to Us All” begins as Mulan meets her mother in town to be washed and dressed by other townswomen. This point in the movie is when the audience observes Mulan’s non stereotypical behavior in comparison to the rest of the young women present for their meeting with the matchmaker. The first, second and third verses address Mulan’s transition into womanhood from her disheveled state:
This is what you give me to work with? Well, honey, I’ve seen worse. We’re going to turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse/We’ll have you washed and dried, primped and polished till you glow with pride. Trust my recipe for instant bride, you’ll bring honor to us all/Wait and see when we’re through, boys will gladly go to war for you. With good fortune and a great hairdo, you’ll bring honor to us all. (Mulan)
Mulan’s environment, as mentioned earlier, is heavily influenced by Confucian philosophy and the role of women and according to Freud, “This parental influence of course includes in its operation not only the personalities of the actual parents but also the family, racial and national traditions handed on through them, as well as the demands of the immediate social milieu which they represent” (Freud 139). The Confucian emphasis on female roles within the family is a fundamental component of Mulan’s culture. In verse four, this idea of honor is correlated with the fulfillment of one’s gender responsibility: “A girl can bring her family great honor in one way, by striking a good match and this could be the day” (Mulan). The gender roles are then mentioned again in verse six in a parallel manner: “We all must serve our Emperor who guards us from the Huns. A man by bearing arms, a girl by bearing sons” (Mulan). The importance of the matchmaker visit is based on the societal bias for men while women are merely producers and caretakers of the men. Her duty is to her father, husband, and son, and the greatest honor comes from fulfilling her obligations to them. Throughout the song, however, Mulan is seen acting out of her gender role. She demonstrates her intellect as she helps an elderly man win a board game and demonstrates her assertiveness by helping a little girl who is bullied by young boys. All the while, her mother, grandmother and townswomen sing the requirements for a desirable wife: “Men want girls with good taste, calm, obedient, who work fast-paced. With good breeding and a tiny waist, you’ll bring honor to us all” (Mulan). The women are made into objects of desire for the men, and her success is measured by her ability to attract a husband. This objectification of the female is also seen later in the song “A Girl Worth Fighting For.” Mulan ultimately fails her meeting in which the matchmaker states that Mulan “may look like a bride, but [she] will never bring her family honor” (Mulan). In addition to the objectification of women, honor becomes an object of desire in which the fear of attaining it is enough to put a person in a state of distress. This “object-love,” as coined by Freud, for honor is another theme present throughout the movie (138). Discouraged and dishonored, Mulan returns home and struggles to reconcile her gender with her expected role in society. She is not fit to be a bride, yet her gender binds her to a task that she cannot accomplish.
Mulan’s fear of absolute dishonor upon her family pushes her to self-reflection as her father learns of her failure with the matchmaker. The song “Reflection” reveals the conflict within Mulan’s character. The verse states Mulan’s awareness of her gender’s role and her incompetence: “Look at me, I will never pass for a perfect bride or a perfect daughter. Can it be I’m not meant to play this part? Now I see that if I were truly to be myself, I would be break my family’s heart” (Mulan). The chorus then directly addresses her gender and her seemingly inescapable situation: “Who is that girl I see staring back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don’t know? Somehow I cannot hide who I am though I’ve tried. When will my reflection show who I am inside? When will my reflection show who I am inside?” (Mulan). According to Freud, “All, then, would now seem in place for gender roles to be reinforced, satisfactions to be postponed, authority to be accepted and the family and society to be reproduced” (137). Mulan, at this point in the movie, cannot reconcile any of the three components mentioned by Freud. She failed her parents because she could not function properly as a woman. Mulan lacks as a woman because societal and cultural decorum expectations conflict with her personality. Since she was denied by the matchmaker, Mulan cannot participate in the reproduction of her family or society. Thus, Mulan is stuck at a binary opposition between her ego and the desire for honor. She can either choose to abandon her personality in order to satisfy the cultural, gender, and familial demands or to fully embrace her personality at the cost of disappointing the mentioned demands. The internal conflict that Mulan experiences is explained by Freud, “We may have certain unconscious desires which will not be denied, but which dare not find practical outlet either; in this situation, the desire forces its way in from the unconscious, the ego blocks if off defensively, and the result of this internal conflict is what we call neurosis” (137). It is not completely clear that Mulan contemplates functioning as a male child during this song, but it becomes an option later on in the movie. Her internal conflict consequently contributes to her aggressive behavior towards her father in the scene after the song. She is outraged by her father’s decision to serve in the army, but she may also be angered at the fact that she is unable to help her father on top of dishonoring him. On the other hand, we can apply a structural view on the Confucian teachings of filial piety and national service to Mulan’s situation. According to Eagleton,
Meaning was neither a private experience nor a divinely ordained occurrence: it was the product of certain shared systems of signification...language pre-dated the individual, and was much less his or her product than he or she was the product of it. Meaning was not ‘natural’, a question of just looking and seeing, or something eternally settled; the way you interpreted your world was a function of the languages you had at your disposal, and there was evidently nothing immutable about these. Meaning was not something which all men and women everywhere intuitively shared, and then articulated in their various tongues and scripts: what meaning you were able to articulate depended on what script or speech you shared in the first place. (93)
The meaning of filial piety and national service is a product of the society in which it is termed. The language used in order to coin the Confucian teachings does not specify the meaning; instead, it portrays the idea of devotion towards one’s family and nation. The actual words do not have an inherent meaning as psychoanalysis suggests. It does not imply gender or restrictions because it is the culture that shaped those aspects. Mulan could still serve her father and country by choosing to impersonate a male soldier. Her femininity is no longer a factor as she adopts masculinity in order to fulfill her obligations to her father and China. Thus, Mulan challenges the society in which the terms are defined by switching genders in order to exercise the meaning of filial piety and national service. The words are used as a specific relationship while the gender becomes the variable. Just as mentioned earlier, the meanings of filial piety and national service should remain the same despite switching the pronouns indicating gender. The teachings provide a structure in which the society projects gender-based roles onto the overall structure.
Mulan begins her quest to return honor to her family and to serve the emperor when she begins her military training. Her training is accompanied with the song “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” in which Captain Shang addresses his incompetent troops. The very first verse begins by addressing gender stereotypes: “Let’s get down to business to defeat the Huns. Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons? You’re the saddest bunch I’ve ever met, but you can bet before we’re through, mister, I’ll make a man out of you” (Mulan). This sets up the binary opposition between the male and female, or rather, the son and daughter. By the end of her training, Mulan, the daughter, will assume her identity as a man and therefore a son. The line, “I’ll make a man out of you,” is repeated at the end of every verse in order to reinforce the transition that will occur by the end of the song. However, one may wonder why Mulan would resort to drastic measures at the sake of preserving her family’s honor. Eagleton writes,
Every human being has to undergo this repression of what Freud named the ‘pleasure principle’ by the ‘reality principle’, but for some of us, and arguably whole societies, the repression may become excessive and make us ill. We are sometimes willing to forgo gratification to an heroic extent, but usually in the canny trust that by deferring an immediate pleasure we will recoup it in the end, perhaps in a richer form. We are prepare to put up with repression as long as we see that there is something in it for us; if too much is demanded for us, however, we are likely to fall sick. (132)
The training is rigorous, and as the movie progresses it almost seems as if Mulan does not have what it takes to complete her duties as a male either. The song’s structure echoes Mulan’s struggle as the last lines of each verse go from, “Mister, I’ll make a man out of you,” to, “Somehow I’ll make a man out of you,” to, “How could I make a man out of you?” (Mulan). Captain Shang even tells Mulan to leave the army because of her poor performance. However, Mulan finds a way to redeem herself by accomplishing a task that no other man could. At the beginning of the song, Shang began the training by proposing a challenge to the fresh recruits. If any of them could retrieve the arrow at the top of a wooden pole, they could prove their worth as a true man and soldier. In addition to climbing the wooden pole, the men were require to strap two weights to their arms in which one weight represented strength and the other represented discipline. No one was able to conquer this feat until Mulan did after Shang had told her to leave. She mustered all of her strength and discipline into that one task to redeem her honor. Objectively, Mulan can be considered a man because she successfully completed her training. Why was Mulan, a woman, able to complete a task no other man could? Surely, there were stronger and more disciplined men in the training camp, yet they had all failed. The answer lies in what Freud refers to as the phallus or the male genital organ. Psychoanalytically, Mulan performs an act that is stereotypically designated to women - handling a pole. The pole can arguably represent the male genitalia and Mulan’s success is due to her nature as a woman. The repression of Mulan’s sexuality forces her to divert her energy towards military training. Eagleton explains, “One way in which we cope with desires we cannot fulfill is by ‘sublimating’ them, by which Freud means directing them towards a more socially valued end...it is by virtue of such sublimation that civilization itself comes about: by switching and harnessing our instincts to the higher goals, cultural history itself is created” (132). In order for Mulan to participate in her environment, she must repress her sexuality, and according to Freud this is common human behavior. The repression of her “libidinal energy” (134) is translated into aggression which physically enables her participation as a soldier. Interestingly, the conquering of the pole implies that Mulan was able to indirectly satisfy herself sexually despite having to repress her womanhood.
The rest of the men express their sexual desires openly because they are also experiencing a sort of sexual repression by being removed from society where women are present. Their desires are revealed in the last song,
For a long time we’ve been marching off to battle. In our thundering herd, we feel a lot like cattle. Like the pounding beat, our aching feet aren’t easy to ignore. Hey, think of instead a girl worth fighting for. That’s what I said, a girl worth fighting for. [Ling] I want her paler than the moon with eyes that shine like stars. [Yao] My girl will marvel at my strength, adore my battle scars. [Chien Po] I couldn’t care less what she’ll wear or what she looks like. It’ll all depend on what she cooks like beef, pork, chicken. (Mulan)
Each man brings his idea of the perfect woman and these desires all correlate to the expectations seen at the beginning of the movie during the matchmaker scene. The desire for a beautiful, adoring, obedient, and domestic wife is consistent with the expectations introduced in “Honor to Us All.” A specific example of this relationship between the two songs is seen in the line, “When we’re through, boys will gladly go to war for you.” This directly demonstrates a structural correlation between “Honor to Us All” and “A Girl Worth Fighting For.” The two songs are two sides of one society - the female perspective and the male perspective. Although the songs individual structures are not necessarily similar, they contribute to the movie’s overall structure. The first song has Mulan as a woman being introduced to the female’s perspective while the last song has Mulan as a man being introduced to the male’s perspective. Psychoanalytically, the song reestablishes the status of women in relation to men. Women, in this case, function as the object of men’s desires and their hope is that they are chosen by a potential husband. Men, on the other hand, possess the liberty to desire women just as Eagleton suggests,
One belief which has apparently not varied in these institutions is the assumption that girls and women are inferior to boys and men: this prejudice would seem to unite all known societies. Since it is a prejudice with deep roots in our early sexual and familial development, psychoanalysis has become of major importance to some feminists. (142)
It is also significant to note the correlation between the soldiers, their desire for women, and the drive to fight. It is true that the motivation to fight stems from their duty to defend the Middle Kingdom from foreign forces, yet the phrase “a girl worth fighting for” indicates that the men’s motivation stems from the desire for the female. Freud describes a connection between sexual energy and the destructive instinct called ‘libido’ (140). He argues that sexual repression can manifest itself in the form of energy, namely violent energy. This can be applied to the men’s situation as they march towards the battlefront. Their disconnection from women is indicative of their sexual repression, so the only way to relieve this tension is to fight in the war. By fighting, the energy is exerted in the form of violence which allows for enough relief until the men are reunited with society. Each man hopes to return home as a war hero in order to acquire a woman: “[Men] But when we come home in victory, they’ll line up at the door. [Ling] What do we want? [Men] A girl worth fighting for! [Ling] Wish that I had [Men] a girl worth fighting for!” (Mulan). By ending the musical numbers in the movie with this song, Mulan has come full circle in terms of gender roles.
The overarching structure of the movie is demonstrated by the strategic utilization of the soundtrack. The order places a significant role in reinforcing Mulan’s transformation. “Honor to Us All” is the beginning of Mulan’s journey as she interacts with the social dynamics of her culture. The demands of her gender are laid out, and the nature of her true character is revealed. “Reflection” initiates Mulan’s transitional stage from woman to man as she realizes that she must drastically change in order to function within her society. “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” demonstrates Mulan’s metamorphoses into manhood as she assumes her new identity and function. “A Girl Worth Fighting For” brings Mulan back to where she started in the beginning of the movie, but in this case she views the world through the male lens. Psychoanalytically, the content of each song suggest a strong influence of Confucian thought. The family and nation are elevated in terms of priority while the individual is de-emphasized. Honor does not begin with oneself because it rightfully belongs to the nation and family lineage. Gender roles are also specified by Confucian teachings, and these teachings are responsible for the bulk of each song’s content. “Honor to Us All” and “Reflection” unpack the requirements, duties, and expectations of the female. “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” and “A Girl Worth Fighting For” discuss the requirements, duties, and expectations of the male. The juxtaposition of the songs allow for the gender roles to be defined via negations, as Eagleton notes, “‘In the linguistic system,’ says Saussure, ‘there are only differences’: meaning is not mysteriously immanent in a sign but is functional, the result of its difference from other signs” (84). Thus, “Honor to Us All” defines the male gender by virtue of not being female. The gender stereotypes apply solely to women which indicates that they do not apply to men. The same can be applied to “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” since females do not function as males they cannot be a man just as the song’s chorus suggests. In conclusion, the heroine Mulan negotiates the gender roles specified both by her movie’s genre and historical stereotypes. Just as she assumes the position of a male soldier despite being a woman, Mulan situates her story within the hero genre despite being a female Disney character.
Works Cited
Ebrey, Patricia. "Women in Traditional China." . Asia Society, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 11 May 2014.
<http://asiasociety.org/countries/traditions/women-traditional-china>.
Mulan. Walt Disney Home Videos., 1998.
Shen, Teresa, and Gisela Sommer. "The Legend of Mulan." Epoch Times. The Epoch Times, 31
Aug. 2011. Web. 10 May 2014. <http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/the-legend-of-mulan-61005.html>.
Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Social Theory: the Multicultural and Classic Readings, Charles Lemert, ed. San Francisco:
Westview Press, 1993. (Sigmund Freud, an Outline of Psychoanalysis)