Note, September 12, 2020: With Disney’s new live-action Mulan film out this month, we wanted to revisit some thoughts one writer had about the original plot and characters. Our story from 2018 is below.



The first time I saw Disney’s "Mulan," I was a 7-year-old, fifth-generation Asian American living in San Francisco, surrounded by people who looked like me. My Chinese American father had already told me the ancient legend of Hua Mulan, which Disney’s film is (very) loosely based on, so it’s safe to say I didn’t feel the full effect of Disney’s first Chinese "princess": When I saw "Mulan" in theaters, I didn’t think, "Wow, finally!" I thought, "It’s about time." Still, as the movie anchored itself firmly into the hearts of Asian Americans, I understood that "Mulan" and I were bound by blood. She was the VHS tape whose plastic spine I rarely cracked open, but that I always had as part of my collection. It was filial piety.

But nearly 20 years later, my perspective shifted: At a friend’s birthday party in early 2017, I watched Disney’s "Mulan" for the first time as a queer, nonbinary trans adult. In the darkened living room, I found myself holding back a sudden swell of tears as I listened to the lyrics of Mulan’s iconic solo, "Reflection":

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 break my family’s heart.

It is a story about a young person who doesn’t fit the rigid constructs of womanhood or manhood.

For the first time ever, I truly heard and understood the song’s themes — of not living up to family expectations, of longing to be seen for who you truly are — and I related… hard. As an Asian American, yes, but also as a queer and trans person.

Disney’s "Mulan" is, however unintentionally, a queer narrative that explores both gender identity and sexual orientation. It is not, as it is often simplistically described, a story about a disempowered woman who becomes empowered by masculinity. It is a story about a young person who doesn’t fit the rigid constructs of womanhood or manhood, and who must instead carve her own path.

Mulan’s gender journey over the course of the movie feels very familiar to me as a nonbinary trans person. First, in "Honor to Us All," the village women attempt to sculpt Mulan into an ideal woman — and more specifically, an ideal wife. It surprises some of my friends that this has always been my favorite scene in the movie, and that as a child, I longed to dress as Mulan in full bridal garb for Halloween. But this actually fits my experience navigating gender: I was a child who was excellent at embodying girlhood and wanted badly to become a beautiful, graceful, feminine woman… but it just wasn’t in the cards for me. Mulan, too, fails the test of womanhood when her meeting with the Matchmaker goes horribly awry. As Mulan acknowledges this failure in "Reflection," she poses a question that most trans people know intimately: "When will my reflection show who I am inside?" And what exactly would that reflection be? If Mulan isn’t a woman, then who (or what) is she?

By rejecting society’s limited ideals... you can become your most authentic self.

When I was at Smith College and coming into my own gender revolution, I thought, "I’m pretty sure I’m not a cis woman, so maybe I’m a trans man." I started binding my chest and wearing Oxford collar shirts and sweater vests (it was New England, so I thought I looked cool). I kept a secret Tumblr blog under a male alter-ego named Levitt, for Joseph Gordon-Levitt — which is very embarrassing to admit now. At that birthday party, I saw this version of myself in Mulan, as she prepares to convince everyone she’s a man — practicing her swagger, affecting her voice to a lower register, and scrambling to settle on a "boy name." In " I’ll Make A Man Out of You ," Mulan-as-Ping progressively works her way toward achieving manhood, which is defined by catching fish, carrying heavy things, and, of course, wielding a big stick. She later fails the test of manhood when she is revealed as a woman — or, rather, as someone who is not a man. Ultimately, Mulan is able to defeat the bad guys by playing on their misperceptions of her gender, and — in an unfortunately transmisogynistic scene — getting her friends to transgress gender, as well. Through a queer lens, the message of Disney’s "Mulan" is something I learned as I came into my nonbinary identity: By rejecting society’s limited ideals of "womanhood" and "manhood," you can become your most authentic self.

Then there’s Li Shang, the handsome young general who falls for both Ping and Mulan, and who has been meme-ified as a bisexual icon. Between the women in the rice paddy blushing and giggling as Mulan-as-Ping passes by, and Ping and Shang’s awkward flirtations, even the sexuality and romance in Disney’s "Mulan" is queer.

Because of all this, and because I’ve come to read Disney’s "Mulan" as a queer Asian American narrative, I feel apprehensive about the upcoming live action adaptation. With reports of major changes to the original — including a new villain, a new love interest, and no songs at all — it seems like the live action movie will be nothing less than a total departure from its animated original. This is a blow to anybody who loves the 1998 version, but especially to queer Asian Americans. Without Shang or the original soundtrack, there will likely be no bisexual love story or genderqueer introspection. Considering that 2015’s "Cinderella" and 2017’s "Beauty and the Beast," the only other live action Disney princess adaptations that have been released so far, both stay extremely faithful to the characters, songs, and even the shots of the animated originals, it feels particularly othering that Mulan — one of the only Disney "princesses" of color — is getting an extreme makeover.

I admit, I take this all a little personally: I submitted to audition for the role of Mulan in the live action film. And while I was not invited to audition, I was excited and hopeful that they would cast a tomboyish Asian American rising star who would bring honor to us all. When I found out the job had instead gone to Liu Yifei, a Chinese actress known for her "sweet and delicate image," and that the rest of the cast would be mostly Chinese nationals, as well, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. More and more, it seems like this live action adaptation will completely erase the queer Asian Americans who love the original so much.

Queer Asian Americans are still waiting... for our onscreen reflections to show who we are inside.

As a kid, I watched Disney’s "Mulan" and felt I didn’t need it — but now, 20 years and several gender identities later, it is one of the precious few instances where I’ve seen myself represented. Queer Asian Americans are still waiting (I’m gonna say it) for our onscreen reflections to show who we are inside. But I’m hopeful: In the original film, when Mulan was in need of comfort, her father pointed out a closed bud on a flowering tree and said, "Look, this one is late. But I bet that when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all." Hopefully, the wait is worth it.

Jes Tom (they/them) is an actor, writer, and weird queer comedy babe. For more opinions & narcissism, follow Jes on Twitter @jestom, and Instagram @jesthekid.

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