Why Disney's Mulan is an Awesome Heroine

Okay I've been a bit on a Disney kick lately on this blog, but I promise I’m almost done with it, and I’ll move on to more adult topics, maybe Game of Thrones (which is as far from being kid friendly as you can get).

After writing my post on Frozen and The Evolution of the Disney Princess, someone pointed out to me that Mulan wasn’t listed.  It was an oversight, but on further thought, I realized that to me Mulan really isn’t a princess movie. 

It is more than the fact that Mulan isn’t a princess nor will she ever become one.  Mulan’s story is more akin to the archetype hero’s journey (think Star Wars and Lord of the Rings) than the typical Disney princess movie.  Perhaps the same argument could be made for Frozen since Anna is trying to save more than herself but her kingdom, but I think that Mulan fits the hero’s journey a little better.

I’m not going to discuss the hero’s journey today because I’d rather focus on the character of Mulan, and what the movie does right for feminism. 

Of course I’m not the first to look at Mulan from a feminist point of view, and there are several great articles written on this topic both with positive and negative views of the movie.  Here are a few that I found interesting.

Mulan Not your typical female

Feminist Mulan

Media Critics Unite: Media Criticism of Disney’s Mulan

Disney Deconstructed: A Feminist Watches Mulan | The Body Pacifist

I fall on the more positive side.  I think Mulan as a great feminist role model, and that the movie has a lot of positive messages for our girls and boys.  One noted criticism is that some of the lyrics of the songs like “Please Bring Honor to us All” and “A Girl Worth Fighting For” have very misogynistic messages, and they do.  The lyrics are so over-the-top that it is clear to me that they are used to establish the very patriarchal society.

 I can see the concern that young kids might not catch that, but my feelings are that actions speak louder than words.  Seeing Mulan take on supposed masculine roles and save the kingdom sends a stronger counter-message to those songs.  There are also a lot of stereotypes of both men and woman and Chinese culture which are all valid criticisms.  Clearly, the movie Mulan isn’t perfect, but the character Mulan, herself is really awesome and here are a few reasons why.

Mulan doesn’t diss on the other women or on her cultural.  Too many time when a female character goes against gender roles and social norm, she has some sort of disdain for the female roles in her society or is enlightened enough to see that women shouldn’t be constrained by them.   The problem I have with this especially when stories are set in historical time periods is that the character is given a modern viewpoint.  Most people accept the culture that they live in.  I’m not saying it is unrealistic for someone to challenge it, but they should buy into it on some level.   It is unrealistic for a character who comes from a repressed culture to completely embody modern beliefs. 

Additionally, having a character sneer at the gender roles of her sex is also somewhat demeaning to the traditional roles that women have played throughout most of history.  I’ve discussed before about how society elevates all things considered masculine and devalues all things considered feminine, and that to me is a big problem with patriarchy.  Stories that present strong, feminist characters that do this are buying into the patriarchy culture that masculinity has more value than femininity.

But Mulan does not do this.  She sincerely wants to fulfill the role society has asked her to play and bring honor to her family.  Only she doesn’t fit that part.  This has always been the problem with rigid gender roles.  While no one ever perfectly fits into them, there are some who can’t fit into them at all.  Mulan is one of these.  She is not trying to lead some sort of feminist revolution but just struggling to find a place society where she can be valued for her own strengths and not the ones society thinks she should have.

Mulan is not a tomboy.   Not that I have anything against tomboys, but a lot of times, female characters fall into two categories.  They are either the prissy, princess-type or a complete tomboy.  Real people do not fall nicely into categories, and Mulan doesn’t either.  She doesn’t have the grace and poise of a lady, but she isn’t a sword-playing martial arts expert either.  In fact, she struggles to be a soldier and does not initially have the athleticism she needs early in her training.

What she does have is smarts.  She is clever, innovative, intelligent, and brave enough to speak her mind, traits that are better suited for a leader and detrimental to the passive role that society expects of her.  So while she doesn’t quite fit into the ideal female role, she also doesn’t perfectly fit into that male role either.  Like most of us, she is a mishmash of feminine and masculine traits. 

Mulan uses her own strengths to succeed.  While Mulan does eventually become a good soldier, it is not her fighting skill (which is average at best) that helps her save the day but rather her brains.  I love this.  She becomes a hero because she embraces who she really is instead of trying to be something she is not.  

Mulan acknowledges or own her self-serving interest.  Mulan comes across as very self-sacrificing.  She dresses up like a man to take her aging father’s place in the war.  It is all very noble.  But my favorite part of the movie is after she is discovered and cast out of the army and humiliated, she takes a good look at herself, and realizes that she did this not just to save her father but for herself.  What Mulan truly wanted was to prove to herself that she was worth something.  

Mulan is one of my favorite heroines.  She isn’t perfect.  She isn’t some sort of symbolism for feminism.  She feel like a real person who is struggling with society expectations and trying to find a place for herself to bring honor to her family and her culture.  I think she is amazing.

So what are your thoughts?  Do you love Mulan?  What do you think makes a great heroine?

~MaryAnn

Thanks Disney

It isn't that Disney hasn't given us powerful women before.

 

 

 

 

In fact, many times the most powerful character in the movie is a woman.

 

 

 

Sometimes she is even powerful and beautiful.

 

 

 

But thank you Disney for finally giving our children a powerful woman who isn't evil.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for Elsa.

Frozen: Insights from the Movie's Writer

Frozen is an awesome movie.  I loved it.  My kids Loved it.  My husband said it was better than the Lego Movie (which was an awesome movie too).  I think there is a lot to learn about storytelling from it, and fortunately for us writers, here is a podcast from Scriptnotes interviewing the writer and co-director of frozen, Jennifer Lee.   The interview is an hour and a half, but well worth the time.  The insights into how the story developed were fascinating and very insightful.  But they discuss the entire movie, so don’t listen to it until you’ve seen the movie, and you want to see the movie, trust me. 

Below are several points made in the interview which I believe are important to think about when writing.  These also contain spoilers for the movie, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, just walk away.  This blog post will still be waiting here for you when you are ready.

 

1.   Keep the love, but lose the memory of Elsa’s power.  When the trolls save Anna after she was struck by Elsa’s power, the trolls save the memories of the love her and Elsa shared, but remove all the memories of Elsa’s power.  This was just stated, and when I saw the movie, I just accepted it.  But the writers struggled with this a lot.  They had a hard time figuring out what to do.  If they removed all the memories, then Anna wouldn’t remember the love her and Elsa shared and there wouldn’t be anything for Anna to fight for, but if she remembered Elsa had the ice power, then Anna came off as selfish.  It was a real struggle to figure out how to find a logical reason for Anna to keep the memories of Elsa, but forget that Elsa had ice powers.

 

Then someone, who's probably a bigwig in the screenwriting world but I don’t remember his name, told Jennifer Lee (Frozen writer) that “sometimes you have to just do what you have to do and just make a real point of it” and that the audience would accept it.  Jennifer struggled with this idea, but once she went with it, everything else fell into place.   

 

I know a lot of times in writing my stories that I want everything to make perfect, logical sense, but I think there are times when you just have to “do what you have to do” for the story and hope the audience will be invested enough to suspend that belief.  I don’t think you can get away with very many of these per story, but sometimes you just have to do it.  

 

2.  “Let It Go.”  The writers struggled a lot with Elsa.  They had this idea to make her turn villainess and give her a redemption story arc.  They struggled with fitting all of the plot elements in:   turning Elsa evil, Anna’s romance with Kristoff, and Elsa’s redemption.  The story wasn’t working.  There was just too much for one movie.

 

Then the song writers (Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez) decided to stop thinking about Elsa as a villain, but just focus on what it would feel like to finally let yourself be who you really are, and they wrote that amazing song, “Let It Go.”  When they played the demo for the writers, Jennifer immediately thought, “I have to rewrite the movie.”  The song captured exactly what she wanted, but it didn’t work for the way they had written Elsa.  Elsa’s story had to be redone without her being the villain.

 

I know from my experience that stories to some extent develop as I’m writing them, and there have been times when things aren’t working and I get the feeling that I am going in the wrong direction.  As hard as it is to start over or even redo a section of the story, I think the story is always stronger for it.  Sometimes you just have to “let it go” and start over.

 

3.  There were no hints that Prince Hans is evil.  I knew it.  I watched closely for any hint that Hans was evil from the beginning.  I already suspected from commercials that Kristoff was the guy for Anna, so I knew the prince had to go somehow.

 

Jennifer confirmed my suspicions.  They purposely left out any indication that Hans was the bad guy.  They didn’t want the audience to know.  But in order to make Hans believable, they had to get into his calculating psychopathic head to figure out exactly how he was seeing everything. The way the saw him was that he became a mirror of whoever he was around.  So with Anna who was cute and goofy, Hans was cute and goofy.  With the duke who was Bold and aggressive, Hans became bold and aggressive.  He was such a good chameleon that he even hid from us savvy viewers.

 

I think this is an important lesson in characterization, how writers need to think about things through every characters’ point of view to make sure they understand how their characters would react to every situation, so that the characters feels like they have depth and consistency even if they are ultimately deceiving the audience.

  

4.  Earn that moment.  The moment when Anna sacrifices herself to save Elsa is big.  Jennifer was told from the beginning, “If you earn that moment, the movie will be fantastic, if you don’t, it will suck.”  So much thought and calculation went into it.  If you listen to the podcast, Jennifer goes into the things they did to earn that moment.  In the end, it was worth it.  I thought that moment was beautiful.

 

I think every story has that one moment that needs to earned, and I think it is important to identify that moment and make sure you earn it.  The story pretty much hangs in the balance.

 

5.  Sincerity.  There are so many messages that audiences see from Frozen, and the writers knew that this would be the case going in.  A lot of complaints have been made about Elsa being a little too sexy during the “Let It Go” song, but if Elsa had displayed no sexuality at all, that too would’ve been seen a statement.

 

Jennifer stated that they didn’t want to “preach or make statements” but let the story speak for itself.  They really tried to shoot for sincerity and let the characters do what they would naturally do.  One of the interviewers made this profound statement about how it was important to “go with sincerity and reality and saying what is emotionally sincere here and let that be your guide and not looking at it from the outside.”

I think this is an important take home message for all of us writers.  Many stories have been criticized for their messages, intentional or unintentional.   It can be very stifling in trying to make sure your story has positive messages that don’t glorify unhealthy relationships or choices.  I think writers shouldn’t be looking at their stories from the outside, but try to come from a place of emotional sincerity.  Let the characters be who they are and behave the way they would naturally behave, and not worry about what your hypothetical readers might think.  Be honest, be thoughtful, be sincere, and don’t worry about the rest.

 

Those are my thoughts on the interview.  There is a lot more good stuff on the podcast, so check it out.

 

~MaryAnn

 

Frozen and the Evolution of the Disney Princess

I love Disney princess movies, especially the ones that came after The Little Mermaid.  Belle and Rapunzel are by far my favorite.  We own every one of the Disney princess movies, but my two girls hardly ever watch them.   Those movies have never had that shining moment of being watched over and over again for a week.  I have long since accepted that my girls just aren’t princess girls, and there is nothing wrong with that. 

But then came Brave and now Frozen.

Now I’ve realized that there is a different type of princess story that speaks to my girls, which seems to be the latest stage in the Disney Princess evolution.  So today, I'm decided to share my view of the evolution of Disney Princesses.

Warning:  Spoilers!!  Don't read a section if you haven't seen all of the movies in it.

Stage One:  Damsel in Distress

 

 

Princesses:  Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

What do they want?  To be saved (from the evil queen, domestic servitude, or a sleeping curse).

What do they do to get what they want?  Essentially wait and hope for someone to help them.

These princesses are powerless, but they are not passive.  Cinderella tries to get her own dress ready for the ball.  Snow White runs and does her best to escape.  Aurora can’t do anything once she falls into the sleeping curse.  The story locks them into situations where they are powerless to save themselves.  They have to rely on fairy godmothers, princes, etc. to save them.  

There are moments in real life when we are powerless, when we have to rely on others for help.  I don’t know about you, but I hate those moments.  I don’t want to feel that I’m not in control of what happens to me, so stories where the main character is powerless to help herself do not speak to me.  These are my least favorite princess movies.

Stage Two:  Active Princess

 

 

Princesses:   Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine.

What do they want?  To be human (Ariel), to save her father (Belle), to have a choice in who she marries (Jasmine).

What do they do to get what they want?  They take active steps to achieve their goals.  Ariel makes a deal with Ursula.  Belle vows to take her father’s place as prisoner, and Jasmine runs away from home.  These may not be the smartest choices (except for Belle of course, but that’s why Belle is so awesome), but they are actively trying to achieve their goals.

I love these princess movies. The choices these princesses make, good or bad, actually further the plot.  They are in control of their own stories.  But what they don’t do, that the next stage of princesses do, is go through a character arc. 

At the beginning, Ariel wants to be human and marry Eric, and at the end she still wants the same thing, and her happy ending is getting to be human and marrying Eric.  Belle starts out as an overall awesome person and ends as an overall awesome person.  Of course at first she doesn’t like the Beast and wants nothing to do with him, but for a good reason.  He is mean to her.  It is not her shallowness or her inability to see past his beast-likeness.   HE IS MEAN.  After the Beast saves her from the wolves, she does decide to give him a chance, but only because he’s done something selfless in saving her.  There is never any indication that she struggles to see the man behind the Beast, so Belle goes through little if any change.  She starts out a brave, intelligent, self-sacrificing character, and she ends as a brave, intelligent, self-sacrificing character without a real measurable character arc.  The Beast is the one who has the character arc.  And finally, the movie Aladdin isn’t Princess Jasmine’s story.  She really is just a “prize to be won” story-wise even though she says she’s not.  I love irony.  Aladdin has the character arc, but then again, it is his story.  So while these princesses are active (which is much better than the damsal in distress princesses in my opinion), they do not grow as characters.

Stage Three:  Active Princess with a Character Arc

 

 

Princesses:  Tiana and Rapunzel

What do they want?  This is where we see the difference in these princesses versus stage two princesses because what these princesses want (or think they want) changes in the story.  Tiana wants to fulfill her father’s dream of opening a restaurant in the beginning, but at the end she realizes what is really important is sharing her life with people she loves, and she sacrifices the chance of having her restaurant to be with Naveen.  Rapunzel wants to see the floating lights in the beginning, but she goes on a journey of self-discovery and learns who she really is and how she is being exploited by her “mother.”  At the end, she wants to be free.  When a character wants something different at the beginning than at the end, it usually is a good indication that the character has gone through a character arc, and these princesses definitely have.  At the end of the story, hey have learned something about themselves, and they have grown as characters.

What do they do to get what they want?  These princesses are very active in achieving their goals.  They are tenacious and keep looking for ways to achieve their goals.  In the beginning, Tiana helps (kisses) Naveen for the chance to buy her restaurant, and Rapunzel hides the crown to force Flynn to help her and tricks her mother into leaving.  They remain active in reaching their goals throughout the movie.  Like the active princesses, they are very much in control of their own stories.

Romance is still a major part of these stories.  Prince Naveen and Flynn Rider also go through their own character arcs, and while there is slightly more emphasis on the princesses, in a way, the princes are almost co-protagonists with the princesses, and the boys play a big role in the story.

Stage four:  Stage Three Princesses, but with a Focus on Female Relationships

 

 

Princesses:  Merida (Brave), Anna (Frozen), and Elsa (Frozen)

What do they want? Once again this changes because these princesses go through a character arc.  Merida wants her mother to see her point of view, and in the end, she is able to see her mother’s point of view.  She changes her fate like she wanted to, but she changes herself as well.  She grows up and is willing to take more responsibility.  Eventually, she will marry one of those princes, but she and the princes will get to choose.  Anna wants companionship.  She is so lonely that she just wants someone to be with.  In the end, she is willing to sacrifice being with her true love to save her sister who rejected her over and over again.  Elsa wants to protect her sister and her people from her power, so she isolates herself from everyone.  In the end, she realizes that letting herself love the people in her life is the way to control her power.   So while she still wants to protect everyone from herself, she has to grow and change in order to do so.

What do they do to get what they want?  Once again these are very active princesses.  They work hard to achieve their goals.  Merida buys a spell from the witch to change her mother.  Once the gate is open, Anna actively seeks out companionship and immediately falls in love. And once Anna understands why Elsa has kept her distance, Anna actively tries to reconnect with Elsa and bring her back.  Elsa keeps herself isolated as much as possible and runs away from her kingdom as soon as she loses control of her power.  Like stage three princesses, they remain active through the story always trying to reach their various goals.

The main difference between stage four and stage three princesses is who they share their story with.  In stage three, the story was shared between the princesses and their love interests, but in stage four, the story is shared with other female characters (Merida’s mother in Brave and the sisters, Anna and Elsa, in Frozen).  Kristoff plays the role that female characters usually play in stories centered around male characters, the love interest on the side line, the prize to be won, the Princess Jasmine.  There really isn’t a huge difference between stage four and stage three except that these stories no longer rely at all on male characters to help carry the story.

And I want to make it clear that I do not think that any of these stages are superior to the others (I think all of these stories have value), but I think this evolution in princesses shows us an evolution in the views of women in general by society.  Princesses started out as being made powerless by their stories.  I do not fault the princesses.  The stories themselves were designed to force them to be reliant on male characters.  One powerless princess story alone doesn’t indicate anything.  A powerless princess story can be interesting, but three powerless princess stories in a row suggest a belief in society that women are powerless. 

But in the later princess stories we see a progression where the princesses become more and more active in their stories and less reliant on the men, until in age four, only female characters are at the center of the story.  Not only are these princesses powerful (Elsa is the most powerful character in her story and is only defeated by the crushing realization that she killed her sister) and not reliant on men saving them, but their stories are focused on mainly female characters.  So we go from princesses needing men to save them to princess stories where men aren’t needed at all. 

And while I will always love a good romance, I like the idea that princesses can carry their own stories and still be wildly successful at the box office.  I think that is progress.

~MaryAnn

Disney Channel and Body Images

We all know how TV and movies and even books usually feature thin, beautiful heroines, and we all know what kind of messages this inadvertently sends us.  I think most women have felt at some point in their lives that their worth measured by society is tied to their physical appearance.

 These messages come through loud and clear without explicitly being stated.  I know I have been affected by it, and the importance of beauty is embedded so deeply in me that I don’t think I will ever stop feeling inadequate in some ways for not measuring up to society’s narrow and unattainable view of beauty. 

 So Disney Channel, there is no need for you to send direct messages to our young, impressionable daughters that beauty is the only thing that is important.  Please stop doing that.

 My oldest daughter is moving away from cartoons to Disney live action tween shows.  She started with Good Luck Charlie which from what I've seen is pretty cute, and I have no problems with her watching it, but lately she’s moved on to two shows which I feel a little less comfortable with for many reasons beyond body image, but I’m only going to address body image here.

Jessie

Quick run-down:  Jesse is a Texan girl who goes to New York to make it in the entertainment business (acting or singing not sure which) and ends up being a nanny.

I really don’t like this show for so many reason, but a big part of it is the many, many jokes about how some characters look and dress.  The worst being the very ugly rival nanny named Agatha, who’s rather mean-spirited, in contrast to the main girl Jesse who’s very beautiful and supposedly very sweet.  However, when Agatha and Jesse take jabs at each other, Jesse always puts down Agatha’s appearance rather than calling Agatha out on her bad behavior.  The heroine, Jesse, takes the low road to cheap laughs by making fun of Agatha’s snaggle tooth, calling her the beast in Beauty and the Beast, etc. (not exactly as “sweet” thing to do).  This constant focus on Agatha’s appearance (which she has no choice over) rather than her actions (which she does) is sending a direct message to our kids (especially girls).  That what we do isn’t as important as how we look, and if you are pretty, you are good and if you are ugly, you are bad. 

Not good.

Shake It Up

Quick run-down:  Two teenage girls become dancers on a TV show called Shake It Up Chicago.

My daughter just started this one, but I haven’t seen as many problems as I’ve seen with Jesse (although that could change), but this one episode really aggravated me.  The two main girls imagine their future without each other, and each of them ended up as fat in their nightmarish futures.  Of course there were other issues of not having a great job or a husband (maybe, I can’t really remember), but the jokes that carried through the rest of the episode all focused on them being fat, like the worst possible future these girls could imagine was being a little overweight.  What kind of message is that sending to our daughters?  How does it make those girls who are a little overweight feel? 

I know these are just television shows, but when what is implied on TV is reinforced in real life, our impressionable, young children will internalize it.  I know, Disney Channel, you’re not the only one who is sending these messages to our daughters, but if you put a little more thought into your programming and stopped going for the cheap laugh, you could be that one bright spot on the television that does it right.  Think about it.

~MaryAnn