Mulan, A Great Role Model For Women

Fa Mulan is a young only child of Fa Zhou, a former soldier in poor health. Mulan must go to the Matchmaker to honor his family, and everyone is worried about what might happen during his visit, as the desire of all women in his social context is to find a good husband and, thus, honor the family.

Family values ​​and the role of women as a good housewife are very intertwined in society at the time, and Mulan will find herself under a lot of pressure; she doesn’t feel prepared, she has other desires and dreams. The visit will be a disaster and Mulan will feel guilty for having dishonored his family and not finding his place in society.

At the same time, the Chinese army started a war against the Huns, so the emperor asked one man from each family to go fight the war. In Mulan’s family, the only man is his father, so by rule he is the one who must serve in the Chinese army. Mulan goes against this decision because he knows that due to his health condition, his father will not survive. Mulan will then impersonate a man, leave the house and join the army.

The honor and duty in Mulan

The values ​​of the traditional family, of the patriarchal society, where the man is the hero and the woman is left in the background, limited to the house, are more than established, but Mulan doesn’t seem to fit them.

On her visit to the Matchmaker, we see the young women worrying about their appearance, very excited to find a husband; Mulan, on the other hand, prepares at the last minute, makes a little glue so he can remember what to say, and doesn’t quite know what to do. Mulan knows he must honor his family and he really wants to honor his parents; however she fails in her attempt with the Matchmaker and questions what her true duties are.

Finally, she breaks the rules, breaks with everything established by enlisting in the army in her father’s place, and not only to save him, but also for herself. Mulan must find her place in society and show herself that she is good for something more than being an exemplary wife.

When Mulan decides to dress up as a man, something very symbolic happens: Mulan cuts his hair with his father’s sword. This detail could go unnoticed and we would understand only as Mulan’s transition, the change and the beginning of the whole adventure, but there is something more, both the hair and the sword are loaded with symbolic connotations.

If we think of mythology or war books we will realize that the sword is always linked to honor ; the sword is a part of the man who accompanies him, represents victories, personal growth and honor in battle. Every great knight has his sword and won battles with it.

The sword Mulan uses is his father’s sword, the sword with which he brought honor to the Fa family. Mulan takes the sword and cuts his hair with it. Hair also has a strong symbolic charge related to honor; if we think of Samson, the hair symbolized his strength and honor. Large hair, in turn, is associated with the feminine.

Just like in “Cantar de Mio Cid” Cid’s beard was a reflection of his honor, the more battles he won the bigger his beard got. Likewise, we see the Emperor in Mulan with a huge white beard, a symbol of wisdom and the great honor he has, and because he is the Emperor he is the character with the biggest beard.

Mulan has failed, has dishonored her family and herself, so she cuts her hair and does so with the element that once brought her father honor. Upon returning from the army and having saved China, Mulan returns to his father the sword and objects that the emperor gave him, thus returning the honor to his family.

Women in Mulan

As we have already seen, the role of women in society presented in the film is entirely secondary. Mulan will be a totally atypical female character never seen before at Disney. Mulan will be a rebel, a woman who defies the rules and shows us that any of us can do what we want, because no man is greater than any woman.

When the emperor asks for help from the people, he only asks for help from one man from each family, and he cannot be replaced by a woman, even if his health is failing. Mulan considers this unfair, as she is young and can serve China on better terms than her father, who probably would not survive such a challenge.

Mulan will have to weigh her words and act like a man to go unnoticed. There is a moment when soldiers sing a song about women and everyone asks them to be “beautiful flowers”, “that they know how to cook”, etc. Mulan appeals to intelligence and cunning, to a woman you can talk to, something the rest of the soldiers reject because they are not qualities you would expect to find in a woman.

Things aren’t easy for Mulan at first. However, she soon manages to outdo herself  and gain respect and recognition from the rest of the soldiers.  When this first hurdle seems overcome, they discover that she is a woman and some people do not accept her, even after she has saved everyone and has proven to be a good warrior.

There are several occasions when we can have proof of how difficult it is to be a woman in a world of men, where many people stop listening and even say to “hold your tongue in the presence of a man” or that “it will never be appreciated because she is a woman”. Despite the adversities, Mulan will be a hero, will break all paradigms and stereotypes and will save her country, showing that she is not minor for being a woman.

We see a before and after her, the carefree young woman we saw at the beginning has disappeared, proving to be a strong and brave woman, just like any man.

She was probably unaware of the gravity of the war until she reached a camp where there are no survivors. There, she will find a lost doll, which symbolized her feminine and childish part. This encounter with the doll represents an encounter with herself, with her true self and, at the same time, the end of innocence and a step towards maturity.

Mulan is not a princess, and her beauty is hardly alluded to. It is far from being the prototype of a Disney princess. It represents the portrait of a woman like any other, with aspirations, dreams, and the desire to surpass herself and show that she is not inferior to men.