Let's Talk About This Live-Action Mulan

*sigh*

Here we go again.

A few weeks ago, I read about the casting news for the new live-action adaptation of Mulan:

via Variety

At first, I was just excited to discuss the news with my students -- for three reasons:

1. Jet Li is being cast as the Emperor -- given Li's martial arts & action movie background, it seems an interesting choice for the Emperor (who is a very zen character in the animated film). I could be biased though -- Pat Morita is the Emperor for me -- I imagine this is how some Harry Potter fans felt when Richard Harris died and Michael Gambon replaced him as Dumbledore. 
2. Gong Li is "the villain as a powerful witch" -- WHOA. This is what I was most excited to talk about -- there's no witch in the animated film and the implications of this are fascinating. Not only are we seemingly getting rid of the Huns/Shan Yu, but we're adding in a female villain. And not only a female villain -- a witch. More female-female conflict? And what are the ramifications for the empowerment storyline? (i.e., the fact that Mulan was so awesome because she beat all the boys and proved she was just as good -- if not better -- than them.)
3. Fun tidbit: Mulan gets a sister.
   Interesting on several levels because (1) Mulan was one of the only Disney Princess films to show an intact nuclear family -- Dad + Mom + Mulan + Grandma. Up to this point, only Aurora had both her parents alive -- but I don't really count that since her mother is so underdeveloped it's painful and has maybe one line of dialogue in the entire film. So, yes, while Mulan's relationship with her father is still the central relationship of the film (like all of the other 2nd wave princess films) and while her mother is a relatively flat character, it's still important.
   And (2) Mulan doesn't have any other siblings in the animated film -- least of all male siblings who could have ostensibly taken her father's place instead of the daughter. But more importantly, Disney Princesses don't usually get female friends or siblings. Sure, Ariel has her sisters, but she's the "different one" (with her red hair and her mismatched shells and tail) and doesn't seem particularly close with any of them. Sure, Pocahontas has Nakoma -- but that friendship has disastrous results. It's not until we get to Tiana that we have a princess with a "good" friend -- and whatever you say about Lottie, she is a good friend -- and it's not until Elsa and Anna that we see a developed sisterly relationship with depth. So while we don't know anything about their relationship, it's at least another step in the right direction.
   Although, as some of my Chinese students pointed out, Mulan does have siblings in the original ballad. 

But the discussion turned into something more than I could have hoped for. My students had questions -- really good questions. They wanted to know more about who was playing Mulan, about this witch, about Shang, and about the release date. 

Which led me to this Elle article: "Everything We Know About Disney's Live-Action Mulan" -- where we zeroed in on this:

Wait--there's a character replacing Shang? As in, THERE WILL BE NO LI SHANG IN THIS MOVIE?!

via GIPHY

Obviously, this was worth investigating. So, we clicked the link, which led us to this Tweet:

Wait a hot second, why is Captain Li Shang being replaced by this dude in the new #Mulan. First no music, now this. Grrr pic.twitter.com/tE17hM1G7p

— Jo-Anne Rowney (@JoAnne_Rowney) March 19, 2017

Let's break this down. First up, this not-Shang Chen guy:

"Full of himself, with a mean, bullying streak to him" -- we quickly drew parallels to Gaston (possibly because we'd just watched that live-action film for discussion), which does not bode well, given the type of toxic masculinity Gaston represents.

While we were also confused by the phrase "something like love" (what does that even mean?!?!), the more problematic part is the part where "after learning that his rival is a woman, his intense feelings of rivalry turn into something very different." On the one hand, it seems as if this is Disney's answer to any sort of queer subtext that might have existed in the animated film -- Shang may or may not have had some sort of attraction to Ping, which made him sort of a bisexual icon. (People were not happy.) And, on the other hand, all of this smacks of that silly thing parents used to say "if a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you." I don't know -- I find it extremely problematic that when Honghui thinks Mulan is a boy, he's a rival who he can/should bully; but as soon as he finds out Mulan is a girl, BAM! He's in love.

But in case you thought that was the worst, it gets better:

So, on the positive side, one of my students pointed out that while the casting call for Chen Honghui mentions his attraction to her, at least there's no mention of Mulan's romantic feelings for the men in her life, so...silver lining?

But here are the interesting things:

• The Huns are out. (Which means, at the very least, that if this isn't a musical, we'll have to change the iconic line, "Let's get down to business / to defeat the Huns.") I have no idea who the Gokturks are, and the Wikipedia entry isn't super helpful.
• My students focused on the "strapping down her breasts" line as an odd thing to mention specifically. I mean, yes, one would assume that dressing as a man who necessitate that, but it's an odd thing to mention in a casting call. Unless they were specifically looking for a busty, female female -- as in, one who was clearly female. 
• But the most interesting -- and potentially problematic -- part is this: "There is a mysterious power inside Mulan." 

• At first, I thought it was just the dramatic language of a casting call (you know, like "something like love"). But the more we talked about it -- and especially in conjunction with the revelation of the addition of a WITCH -- the more it seemed plausible that this "mysterious power" could actually be supernatural in nature. 

Just to be clear:

Apparently, this news -- the casting calls -- aren't really news, as this article from March of 2017 makes clear. Donya Abramo also makes clear the significance of this information, in a very eloquent way:

I don't remember this information going viral a year ago, but with the explicit addition of a supernatural character, the theory is gaining traction. As is the outrage that the fundamental message of the story could potentially be changed. As Abramo points out, "The beauty of Mulan is in the indisputable truth that what she achieves is down to her own skill and stubborn determination — both mental and physical." In other words, Mulan was a revolutionary character not only for her representation -- don't delve too deeply into Disney's past representation of Asian characters; it isn't pretty -- but for her deviation from past Disney princesses. She wasn't passive or focused on romance -- she was every bit as strong, resilient, intelligent as the boys, and, in the end, was the one to save China and the Emperor. Her story -- however much it deviated from the original Chinese ballad -- was empowering and inspiring. 

But if you give her powers? If you make her supernatural? I suppose it doesn't necessarily take away from her individual uniqueness, but it turns the story into another Chosen One narrative. She becomes another Harry Potter, specially chosen to defeat the supernatural evil. 

Yes, at this point, most of this is just speculation, since we're going on rumors and casting calls, not concrete facts. And, yes. Scripts undergo rewrites and films undergo reshoots, so it's all fluid and up-in-the-air right now. 

But still.

The rumors paint a very troubling picture -- not in the least because, up to this point, Disney's live action adaptations have been extremely faithful to their source material. Some critics question why even remake the film if you're just going to essentially remake the movie, but with actors not animation. Which begs the question -- why start deviating now? In the case of a film like Dumbo, the answer is kind of obvious: there's not a terrible amount of substance to the original, so, yeah. You're going to have to create a story there. 

But that's not the case with Mulan. 

Maybe they were trying to be more faithful to the original source material? Or, as Yohana Desta points out in her Vanity Fair piece, "casting a Chinese star helps the studio cater directly to Chinese audiences, the all-important demographic that can bolster or destroy blockbuster's global box-office hopes." But, as my Chinese students angrily and frustratedly pointed out, there's no magic in the original ballad -- and, to them, changing the story so significantly was not likely to curry favor with them. 

So, I guess we'll wait and see. But I do not have high hopes.