Mulan has been known as a Disney film about destroying gender roles, women empowerment, and sexual identity. Lots of people in the LGBT+ community have related to characters, and story lines in the movie, and when it was announced there was going to be a live action movie, people were excited.
However, the movie has been criticized for several reasons, the first being that the movie will probably not include any songs. A large part of how good Mulan was, was it’s amazing soundtrack, and relatable songs like “Reflection” which has become somewhat of an anthem for many young trans people. The entire idea of a Disney movie with no songs, seems wrong. It’s completely lacking a huge part of it’s story without the use of music.
To make it worse however, the director just made a statement about the movie, describing it as a “girly martial arts extravaganza.”
The term, which slams the film back into a stereotypical “girl focused” film, takes away from the entire point of the film, destroying gender roles, and sexism. The statement about it being “girly” trivializes girls interest in things, and also stereotypes the idea that films with girl leads are “girly films”.
Niki Caro, who is a white lady, and the director of the film, made a whole statement, which is as follows;
“I haven’t started yet so I can’t give you any real detail. But the budget and the location and the story is offering such scope to me for [an] incredible, muscular piece of girly martial arts extravaganza in China. And I can’t wait.”
When white people are responsible for making diverse movies about culture that is not their own, they will mess it up. There is no reason that a director that is Chinese couldn’t have been at the helm of the movie, making it realistic, and keeping it culturally accurate. She should not have accepted the role of leading the direction on a culturally significant piece, when she’s obviously not that educated in the culture.
White people taking over on a movie that is not important to white people is problematic, because the story is important to people that are not white. It could be portrayed in a proper way, without being muddled by people who don’t even relate to the story and characters.
An important series of tweets by Wei Ming Kam, on twitter, about the implications of the directors comments, and how it relates to racism and stereotypes against the Chinese community was circulating earlier, and it’s spot on. I don’t want to talk over her, but her thread is very important, and a must read.
The director of live action Mulan, Niki Caro, just called it a ‘girly martial arts film.’ Yes, she’s white. https://t.co/avgy1EBrt3
— Wei Ming Kam (@weimingkam) March 21, 2017
Secondly: ‘martial arts film’ – reducing this Chinese story about a legendary woman warrior to martial arts is a reductionist white view.
— Wei Ming Kam (@weimingkam) March 21, 2017
The statements from the director aren’t shocking, but it’s just another example of white people butting into a culture that doesn’t belong to them, and then trivializing it down to one thing that fellow white people can appropriate and relate to, and making millions of dollars off of it. It’s happened too many times before, and it’s time that it ends. There is no reason that a Chinese director couldn’t have directed Mulan, as it’s a culturally significant film.
