Mulan As I Viewed It

In the You Tube video about Disney, it points out gender stereotypes such as dominance, sexism, and strength that Disney is accused of perpetuating and reinforcing in its animations, which can easily be misinterpret by innocent impressible children. Who said a woman cannot do a man’s job? It must have been a man who said it because he has never known or seen a man’s job being done by a woman, but in Disney’s animated video “Mulan,” a young Chinese woman does just that as she penetrated a Chinese army by pretending to be young man. Disney’s “Mulan” reinforces as well as breaks down many of the gender stereotypes it is accused of.

The You Tube clip brought to light the many stereotype features of woman portrayed in Disney’s animations, which are tall slender bodies with small waist, beautiful big alluring eyes, with their faces all made up, and long flowing hair that is perfectly done. Mulan’s character is only seen in all of those female stereotyped images as she is getting ready to meet the match maker who will determine if she is a suitable enough to be chosen as a bride. From my understanding of that scene, I felt that the message Disney is depicting is that in order for a young lady to be noticed and considered marriage material she must—first be seen as attractive and desirable (sex object)—before she can even go on to stage two of the match making process, then she must present herself as being able to pour a simple cup of tea without spilling it (domesticated). Mulan did play dress up, but it was not in her to stay that way; she had the slender body with the narrow waist, hair and makeup was done to perfection, and she looked like a Chinese Barbie, but she was not cut out for that role and proved it by appearing awkward when dressed up as well as being clumsy when she spilled and over poured the tea. That scene showed her as being a disgrace and dishonor to her family and the female gender, so the female gender stereotype was reinforced in that scene of what is expected of a woman if she is to entice a man into marring her. This animation breaks down the typical Disney’s female stereotype it has been known to depict on its protagonist by proving by showing Mulan putting aside her femininity to fight also side men; she did this by wearing no makeup, acting like a man, wearing a man’s uniform, which concealed her female shape, as well as getting rid of her long flowing locks by cutting it short, which later proves her to be wiser, stronger, and better than they were. She became the hero in the animation and saved her city, and not the typical beautiful damsel in distress needing to be saved by a prince charming.

Furthermore, I noticed the gender stereotype of the male characters in “Mulan” were reinforced in the image of Captain Shang who had strong masculine facial features, six pack abs, muscles, and is strong. From my understanding, Disney is saying that this is the image of—a real man—a leader, and the men he was in charge of had body types that were indeed not seen as desirable and manly. One of the soldiers even made a comment for the captain to put back on his shirt because he obviously felt intimidated by the captain’s body. Mulan on the other hand, being a woman, was impressed by what she saw. Sexism is also presented as the soldiers goes off to war, so to boost their moral, they start singing about a girl worth fighting for—a real female—one who is beautiful, loves a strong man, can cook, and who thinks of her man a having no faults, but Mulan interjects her qualities and feels that a girl who has a brain and always speaks her mind should also be worth fighting for, but the soldiers dismiss her ideal of a girl worth fighting for. What was Disney thinking when they created that scene? Obviously they were not. “Mulan” did break down a male stereotype by showing a couple of the solders dressed as woman to seduced and distract the enemy soldiers who were holding the emperor as hostage, but then again a woman must use her beauty and charm as a way of distracting men.

So, Disney’s animated video “Mulan” reinforces and breaks down the gender stereotypes the YouTube clips accuses Disney of perpetuating.

Blog 13

Blogging WOW!!! Let me see, it has definitely helped me, but at this point right now, I am all blogged out, and can’t wait until I do the last one. I am not saying this in bad light of blogging; it is just that since I have been introduced to blogging in this class, it has become—my hunting for this semester. Every week by 11:59pm, Friday, I am on a mission to try and complete the minimum 500 word requirement; boy what pressure!!! It was like my whole world stopped because I had to get my blog completed, posted, and send a copy to me instructor before I turned into a pumpkin. What an uplifting feeling I got when I was able to accomplish it, and not only was I able to complete the minimum 500 word requirement, but sometimes I got carried away and wrote as much as 600 words. It was always difficult for me to try to decide which one of the three blog prompts to write about since they all were interesting and required taking a different approach on the topic that was discussed in class; The prompts seemed to be in three levels of understanding; the first prompt I felt required a very deep understanding of the what was discussed in class, the second prompt did not required as much analytical thinking, and the third prompt always seemed to easier than the other two. I always felt as if I did not understand the material and felt intimidated on getting started, but once I started writing, I got carried away and had to refer back to the prompt because I would start writing about things that were not pertaining to the prompt, and end up deleting ¼ of my paper and starting over. Blogging presented to be a burden and a challenge all in one to me, because I had to look at literature from another perspective and how it relates to gender, it also made me more aware of the different rhetoric surrounding it. I survived, and because of blogging, it has kept my mind on all the books, videos, and topics that were discussed throughout the semester in this class. Blogging turned out to be my open journal on my own points of view on the class and the contents that were being discussed.

Blog response did not prove to be as challenging; I rather did enjoy doing it. I also found to be a lot easier than writing my own initial blog. I looked forward to blogging the 200 words minimum—separate response for two classmates; it was a piece of cake because I was eager to view their perspectives on the prompt they chose to write about. Blogging has also helped me connect with my classmates by means of responding to their blogs, which provided an access into keeping an open dialect outside of class about the topic of discussion. Responding was like listening to a person’s own point of views and how they felt about the topic and respecting it for what it’s worth and allowing me to share my own views on the same topic for others to respond to.