Why I’m Boycotting Live-Action Mulan
A perspective from someone who is Chinese
Do you know that piece of therapy advice where they ask you to replace “but” with “and”? Compare:
“I love you but it really bothers me when you leave a mess in the sink.”
vs.
“I love you and it really bothers me when you leave a mess in the sink.”
The “and” presents two statements with equal weight, whereas the “but” minimizes the first half of the sentence while emphasizing the second half.
I’m here to present three reactions I have to the #BoycottMulan hashtag, which was trending a few weeks back. Please use the word “and” to connect them in your mind.
1. Animated Mulan
Animated Mulan was the first depiction of a Chinese person I saw on-screen, and a positive one. Her character set a strong foundation to counteract number of tokenized East Asian characters that I would later see in my life, and continue to see.
She was the first woman in an animated series who was depicted as strong, saving herself rather than waiting for a man to save her. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with princesses, I personally needed a strong role model ready to fight her way through adversity to carry me through years of obstacles growing up.
There are mixed views on how representative this story is for Chinese culture given its apparent deviation from the actual Ballad of Mulan. For me, it held significance precisely because it was one of the first Disney movies I remembered, and it was about someone like me. For a four-year-old, that’s huge.
2. The Ballad of Mulan
The Ballad of Mulan is one of two Chinese poems I can recite from heart. It’s a story etched into my understanding of my history and culture.
It’s a story of filial piety, a Confucian concept that means:
The important virtue and primary duty of respect, obedience and care for one's parents and elderly family members.
— Dictionary.com
For the longest time, I didn’t even know there was a word for filial piety in English, because no one ever mentions filial piety; in Chinese, the term is so often mentioned in media. Because of this divide, I had a complex relationship with this concept as an Asian Canadian child growing up with people telling me that my actions were dumb because filial piety doesn’t exist, yet others asking me why I wasn’t more respectful, obedient and caring out of filial piety.
This poem embodies a complex concept not often spoken about outside of communities that follow this principle. Disney’s Mulan was often the shortest explanation I could give to someone who didn’t understand.
To me, this poem holds a complex gravity.
3. Live-Action Mulan
The boycott of live-action Mulan isn’t just a knee-jerk reaction to one small flaw. It brings together a series of decisions that were made, that are far bigger than what is being explained as “just one actor’s opinion”. It’s the whole picture that matters.
Filming in Xinjiang
Part of the remake was filmed in Xinjiang with the film credits acknowledging the departments accused of being involved in administering the internment camps for Uighurs, persecuting religious minorities, intimidating Uighurs who have moved abroad. Discussion of this topic is heavily suppressed, with China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating:
“Xinjiang affairs and Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs; No foreign government, organization or individual has the right to interfere.”
Internally, the Hong Kong security law criminalizes the discussion of such topics, punishable by a maximum life sentence not only for those within the borders, but for non-permanent residents and people from outside of Hong Kong who are not permanent residents.
China also bans media coverage of the movie release to cap the ongoing discussion.
Support for police brutality
The actress who plays Mulan, Liu Yifei, took to Weibo to say (in Chinese): “I also support Hong Kong police. You can beat me up now.” (in English) “What a shame for Hong Kong”.
These comments are related to the police brutality occurring in Hong Kong during protests for the right to vote and freedom of speech, which an Amnesty International field investigation has described as:
“Hong Kong Police Force deploying reckless and indiscriminate tactics, including while arresting people at protests, as well as exclusive evidence of torture and other ill-treatment in detention.”
Amnesty International
Liu is a naturalized US citizen. She has not made any comments regarding police brutality within the US.
Lack of representation
On the one hand, it’s important to acknowledge that at the very least, Chinese characters are being portrayed by East Asian actors. There is a long history of East Asian characters being portrayed by white actors. However, acknowledging this is a low bar.
Representation matters — both in front of and behind the camera.
Keshav Kant
As Kant points out, none of the screenwriters on the team are Chinese or have other connections to China. The traditional ballad of Hua Mulan is thus being translated into this movie through a narrow lens of writers who have no experience with this story or history.
Sure, to four-year-old me, simply seeing a Chinese woman in an animated film was powerful enough. However, I hope to say that if I had my own four-year-old daughter, that representation has advanced far enough to be comparably better than it was two decades ago.
Change takes time. I believe that twenty years is a reasonable time to expect better.
These three points are co-existing thoughts for me. They’re complex. I want to support the depiction of more Asian stories in television and films. I also have a baseline for what values those depictions should hold.
I know, I’m publishing this article a few weeks late, considering that the hashtag #BoycottMulan trended and has fallen off the trend charts.
This topic is not a trend for me. It is an every day lived reality. That’s why I took the time to sit with these thoughts. I deleted the original draft that I crafted the day I saw the trending hashtags; I was too afraid to speak up, to say things out of (justified) anger, but to not get the right words out.
Publishing this article now goes against all the advice of only writing about things that people care about at the moment when the topic is at an emotional flashpoint. Rebecca Stevens A. 🦋 discusses how discussions onBlack Lives Matter have considerably died down. Anti-racism work is an ongoing process.
I am acting intentionally against the idea of contributing to a flashpoint. I am acting intentionally to continue the discussion of ongoing work.
Let’s not let discussions die off after a trending hashtag.
Key takeaways
- The discussion on Mulan is a complex one beyond one single reason. Listen to the lived experiences of those who write about it, especially those who write about it at the risk of persecution.
- Don’t let important discussions die off after the trending hashtags. Amplify the writing of those who continue to do the activist work, to bring light to the issues that are ongoing.
- It’s your choice whether you want to boycott live-action Mulan. These are my reasons. Whether they also hold any weight for you is your choice.
Lucy (The Eggcademic) writes tiny poems, poems about kindness, and poems about anger. She wants to amplify this article: “Why I gave up the dream of leading diversity efforts in medicine” by Kali Cyrus, MD, MPH.
