Mulan: Set in China, Japan, or Who Cares?

Orientalism is defined by Said (2001, p. 1991) as “a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience”, that is domination of Western ideals over the East. Disney movies were always such a huge part of my childhood, but I never realized the stereotyped ideals and Western perceptions of the East. One movie that shows these characteristics is Mulan.

Mulan showcases the idea that people of the Orient worship and are devoted to their ancestors. This is shown through Disney’s portrayal of Mulan’s ancestors, who characterize the idea of mystery and connection with the spirit often associated with people of the Orient. The film also has several Asian motifs throughout including cherry blossoms, chopsticks and Asian style costumes. It is as though the West considers China and Japanese cultures as one, which completely disregards the significant differences between the two worlds. Similarly, all of the characters in Mulan are characterized in the same way- yellow skin, thin lips, small eyes- even though real Asian people all have different characteristics. Also, they had set lots of prototypes which are so-called ‘Asian’ things. Characters eat with chopsticks, drink tea after the dinner, go around with bare feet. The problem is that some of those settings don’t make sense. For example, when they portray Mulan, her outfits and makeups are much similar to that of Japan’s rather than China’s. She wears the cloth similar to Japanese traditional cloth ‘Kimono’, and her hairstyle is the one which was famous in Japan at that time. Furthermore, the flower that is mainly used in the movie to emphasize the theme is cherry blossoms, which is the national flower of Japan. 

Also, there are items that don’t fit the time background; people wear glasses and the Great Wall appears in the movie even though it didn’t exist in the time period during which the story of Mulan took place. Mulan used dynamite as a major tool to defeat the enemies, but dynamite also was not invented at that time. Whether the directors knew this or not, this could be considered as one kind of Orientalism since they thought of Asian culture as one, and didn’t care if things became mixed.