Who Will Make a Man Out of Mulan?

Only recently have I found out that Disney is making a live-action film of Mulan. I was ecstatic – Mulan is one of my favourite Disney characters and ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ is a mother-fucking tune. Only problem – Li Shang isn’t in the film.

Although there is no official statement from Disney explaining Shang’s disappearance, it’s pretty clear – Disney is heteronormative, and Shang is a threat from the gay agenda. Shang is a bisexual icon; people theorise that he loved Mulan when she presented as herself and as her male-self, Ping. If they have a potentially queer character, this will upset the homophobes. They will lose consumers and face backlash – which happened when they made LeFou in Beauty and the Beast Disney’s first ‘openly’ gay character. Say bye-bye to the bisexual character and this will appease the homophobes.

But Shang isn’t bisexual. Yes, it is hinted at, the evidence is there to support this great theory, but at the end of the day did him and Ping make out and engage in cheeky bum sex? No. Viewing them from the standpoint that they are both men, it was a lovely bromance.

They’re replacing Shang with two characters: Commander Tung, who will train Mulan, and Chen Honghu will be the love interest. Honghu wants to be the best soldier and feels threatened by Mulan’s skill which makes her his main rival, causing him to hate her. When he finds out she’s a Female™ he falls in love with her. Not only are they bringing in the hate to love trope (which is harmful as when executed poorly it promotes the idea that if someone is bullying/abusing you it’s a form of affection) they are getting rid of the bromance. A bromance which could teach boys that it’s okay to be emotionally vulnerable and close with other boys, it’s not ‘gay’.

They’re cutting out a crucial character because of a queer association. They’re afraid to show a male being close with another male. I cannot emphasise the sheer absurdity of this.

This isn’t the only character change though – Shan Yu, the Hun leader, is now a witch who most likely will not have a Hun army. Looks like we’re not getting down to business to defeat the Huns. My main concern with this change is that due to the villain having magical powers, will Mulan have magical powers as well in order to defeat her? It’s hinted at, as in the casting callout it describes Mulan as having a ‘mysterious power’, and if she does it’ll ruin her character . Why, you ask? Well because she won’t be the greatest warrior in all of China due to pure hard work, it’ll be because of a magical power she has. The whole reason Mulan is badass is because she’s a woman who trained hard and her skills were equal and even better than some of her male counterparts, showing that women can do as well as men in male-dominating areas.

I think it’s safe to say that the more I’ve learnt about this film, my excitement has dwindled and is being replaced with dismay. With the other live-action films, they’ve kept the original story and added to it. Like in Beauty and the Beast, the story was the same, no character cuts, but they added in Belle’s backstory and had more feminist undertones. It allowed the audience to relive their love of the animation and fall in love with it all over again. With Mulan, they’ve ruined it. Dishonour on you, Disney.