![]() ![]() This is almost completely opposite to the conception of dragons in the West, where they are usually depicted as monsters. In Chinese culture, dragons are lucky and a positive association. Mushu is a particularly poignant example of cultural deformation from the 1998 version of Mulan. Still not the 柔然 (rouran), but at least the 匈奴 (xiongnu) did actually invade China. In the Chinese dub, the invaders are the 匈奴(xiongnu), speculated predecessor of the Huns. This people group was the first to refer to their leader using the title “Khan”, the name given to Mulan’s horse. In the original ballad, the name for the invaders is not specified, though historically, it should be the 柔然 (rouran). This included more benign instances such as correcting the speech of the emperor or removing spoken references to Western snacks like corn chips.Įven the name of the enemy, the Huns, is a deformation. ![]() When Mulan was translated and dubbed in Mandarin Chinese, translators had to restore some of these borrowings. In cultural deformation, the original culture is “decontextualized” and “universalized” in an attempt to make it more palatable to an American audience. This was analyzed by Professors Mingwu Xu and Chuanmao Tian as a process of cultural deformation and reformation. In the process, it also distorted many of these borrowings into something unrecognizable to a Chinese audience. When Disney adapted the legend of Mulan, it borrowed linguistic elements, cultural ideas, and styles from China. On multiple occasions, we’d go around and say which Disney Princess everyone was. Armed with flashlights and extra blankets, we would huddle around, talk about boys, and speculate who our counselors were dating. I have college-age friends who have told me that Mulan was their only point of reference for what life is like in China. For some, the film is their first exposure to Chinese culture. It matters not only in children’s understanding of other cultures/ethnicities, but it also plays in self-conceptualization. In short, Disney’s representation of people of color and culture matters. In our current era of quarantine, the amount of time kids spend streaming from services like Disney+ has only gone up. Producers of these films have “almost unquestioned access to children” with little oversight. In Rosina Lippi-Green (Ph.D.)’s 2012 book, English with an Accent, she argues that the interrogating Disney’s linguistic and cultural messages are important precisely because they capture such a large share of the market. After the March 2019 Disney-Fox Merger, Disney owns a historic 36% of the movie market. Sherryl Graves, children use television to learn about ethnicity. According to this handbook on child development and media done by Dr. Which Disney Princess are you? (I’m always Mulan) Disney’s 1998 version of the story has come under criticism for inaccurately portraying Chinese culture. Over the years, this legend has been retold and adapted in literature, movies, TV, and even video games. ![]() The film aims to be more faithful to the Ballad of Mulan (AKA Ode of Mulan), a poem from the Wei Dynasty (386–534 AD) which details the story of 花木兰 (Hua Mu Lan), a girl who cross-dresses as a man to take her father’s place in the army. Initially, I was disappointed by these changes, but I have since learned that they were made to rectify some cultural missteps from the 1998 retelling of the legend of Mulan. ![]()
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