In this post, I'm going to talk about a strong Disney character who does actually manage to stay strong. I feel as though I've been a bit tough on Disney and fairy tales, so I'm going to begin with one of their more redeeming movies and female characters today. When watching the movie Mulan, there are mainly two songs that jump out as illustrating the type of sexism I've been focusing on in this blog. The first one is the scene before Mulan meets the matchmaker. If you don't recall the scene about which I'm speaking, I've included it below.
This scene talks a lot about what makes a good wife. It mentions beauty, obedience, having good breeding and good taste, and being a hard worker. It encourages reaching for the impossible idea of perfection by describing girls as "perfect porcelain dolls." It's also mentioned several times that a girl's only purpose is to get married and have sons. It claims that that is the only way for women to bring honor to their family.
The next song is from men's perspective, unlike "Bring Honor to Us All." It's called "A Girl Worth Fighting For."
In this song, three of the main men in the movie describe their ideal women. The important things about these women are that they're beautiful, they're good cooks, and they adore their man. Then when Mulan mentions a woman "who's got a brain, who always speaks her mind," the men don't even pause for an entire second before dismissing the idea. However, these songs are not the main parts of Mulan that bother me. Rather, it's the need for Mulan to dress as a man in order to prove herself and the fact that it's widely accepted that if she's caught, she'll be killed.
Mulan isn't the only piece of media that's about a woman having to pretend to be a man. This idea reaches all the way back the the Elizabethan Era and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, in which a woman pretends to be a man after being shipwrecked. The popular movie She's the Man is actually a modern adaptation of this particular Shakespeare play. In this adaptation, the character of Viola won't be allowed onto her school's soccer team because she's a girl. As a result, she disguises herself as her brother, Sebastian, and takes his place at his school when she finds out he's putting off coming home from a trip. She uses this disguise to join his school's soccer team and prove herself as a soccer player.
Another old example with a modern adaptation is an old English folk song about a woman who dresses as a highwayman to discover if her suitor truly loves her. In the poem, Sovay, the woman in the poem, gives her suitor a ring. She then proceeds to dress as a man and attempt to rob him of it. The man holds true and refuses to give the "highwayman" the ring, so Sovay knows that he loves her. However, in the modern adaptation, the book Sovay by Celia Rees, the man gives the ring to the "highwayman." Then when Sovay reveals to him that she is the highwayman, he gets defensive and dumps her, before she has a chance to dump him. Sovay then discovers that her father is being accused of treason and begins life as a highwayman in an attempt to save her family's honor. Disguised as a man, she finds she is more liberated and has more freedom than she ever had as a woman.
A more recent story, one more along the lines of Mulan is Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet, a fantasy story about a girl who wants to fight. In this series, Alanna is a girl who wants to be a knight. Her twin brother wants to be a mage and detests the fighting arts, so he and Alanna switch places. He goes to a convent where young boys and girls can be trained in magic, and she goes to the castle to be trained as a knight. Only the twins and two of their servants are aware of the deception, since Alanna would likely be executed if she were ever discovered. Sound familiar? Like Mulan, Alanna disguises herself as a boy to fight under the threat of death if she's discovered.
All of these stories emphasize the freedom of being male and the idea that men are worth more than women. However, I would be remiss if I did not also talk about the positive things that these specific female characters represent. These girls rebel against social norms. They prove that a woman is capable of more than just being a wife. It's because of this that Mulan is one of my favorite Disney girls. She's not a damsel in distress or, coincidentally, a princess. She's unorthodox, and while her movie may emphasize some stereotypes, she does not.
References:
Mulan (movie)
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
She's the Man (movie)
Sovay by Celia Rees, as well as the traditional English folk song by the same name
Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce
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