Intent vs. Impact: A Trans Reading of Mulan
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Because gender-bending in imperial China is pretty cool, and I was interested how other trans people felt about it.
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I hope you get big soon, you really deserve it
I mean, I wouldn't hold my breath on that, but I really appreciate the sentiment/encouragement! ❤️
@@MilaWren you should ,I mean you have nothing to lose in being confident in yourself....well you might figuratively asphyxiate yourself but try not to think about that
*grins in suffocation* l will keep that in mind 😊🙏
@@MilaWren This might be prying or inappropriate, but have you considered ThoughtSlime's shout-out corner? They have a segment where they shout-out lefty RUclips projects. I've been thinking of signal boosting your Trans Erasure essay there, but obviously I won't submit someone else.
Otherwise, post it to Reddit? I don't know where to and don't want to make an account just for that, but if you (or anyone reading this) did so, I am sure people would love it.
@@borealmarinda4337 Not prying or inappropriate at all! I actually really appreciate it. I generally share to Reddit and various Facebook groups when I post, but to be honest, I always feel a little slimy when I do it--I hate self-promotion, so I loove any sort of signal boosting 😅 I didn't realize Thought Slime had a shout-out corner, though. I've seen some of his stuff, and generally like his perspective on things. I'll definitely look into that!
And also, thanks for all your support--seriously it means so much to me! 😊
ive seen more trans mascs and genderfluid people outright headcanon Mulan as something, but it's clear that the relation is a pretty universal. My bias is probably the communities ive been most associated with though. . - .
Before i heard the song reflection as a kid, i didn't really have words for why i felt so bad. eventually, after transition both socially and physically, it comes down to i felt like a beautiful woman, but that felt *bad*. i couldnt see myself. i couldnt feel myself. my Inside wasnt Outside, and the inside that was me had a shell of someone else i had to chip my way out of.
Finding what your Reflection is can be a hard journey. Sometimes you find that you don't look like you WANT to, but it still matches who you are, the face you had has become the face you couldn't see. The body you couldn't feel is closer than before.
Mulan is a powerful movie.
"Finding what your Reflection is can be a hard journey. Sometimes you find that you don't look like you WANT to, but it still matches who you are, the face you had has become the face you couldn't see. The body you couldn't feel is closer than before."
Beautiful. ❤️❤️
I'm a hetero cis woman, and this movie and song resonated with me so much as a kid. Both can be interpreted in so many ways. Just because it's not text, doesn't mean you can't see yourself and your experiences reflected. For me, it was comforting to have a female character who went against norms that were expected of her, and obviously this is how so many trans people and other LGBTQ+ folks feel. I'm not making any points you didn't already make, but mainly commenting for support. I found you in the comment section of a Mia Mulder video, and I think your channel is really good. I'm about to watch more of your stuff right after this video. Also, I loved Lite Brite. 🌈
I really appreciate it! This video was made before I really started being comfortable in front of the camera/had a feel for editing, etc., but the content is still very near and dear to my heart. I'm glad that it also resonated with you :) and so cool that you actually found me the way you did! I absolutely love Mia Mulder's stuff, so I see this as a very high compliment 😊
Great video! Binary FTM here. I totally loved Mulan as a kid. It was the first time I saw someone like me on screen. At the time my gender expression was being policed so it was cool to see someone transgress so greatly and still be embraced. I’m more partial to “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” myself.
I love that you were also able to find something in this! Thank you so much :) Oh, and I'll Make a Man Out of You is also a banger, and I've screamed it at the top of my lungs many times!
This is fantastic. I love the thorough explanation behind finding a narrative in a piece of work that resonates within who you are as a person. I think interpretation of media and art is a huge thing, especially for people in the trans community. There isn't exactly a surplus of mainstream work that sings our song. P.S., Reflection makes me cry EVERY TIME.
I'm so happy that a fellow lover of "Reflection" was able to get something out of this :)
As a young trans man, Mulan was(and still is) special to me because it showed me that I could be myself even if it wasn't about me.
So I am a straight black guy but I did want to give my take on Mulan.
I think the movie came out at a time where it couldn't fully explore values that would be cemented in the 2010s.
However, it's a movie that sort of started the conversation so to speak because Mulan does not really follow societal norms and she is the de-facto hero of her own story who even gets to turn her weaknesses into strengths.
The issue isn't Mulan it's Society and that's a very powerful message especially from the 90s
"make a man out of you" was my favourite song throughout my childhood, I remember being with my peers at a camp and they decided to perform something new and someone came up with this song and I was ecstatic, but than they cancelled it, saying it's not inclusive and I was like "no, it's a powerful boy anthem, everyone wants to be like that", I was so oblivious back than
And reflection hits different, especially right now, because I know who I am
it's so close to my heart (makes me cry every time I listen to it)
I love your take on this. I kind of stumbled on this topic after a discussion with my non-binary friend about the different interpretations of this film. One take I've heard is about the performative aspects of gender - you can draw comparisons between the matchmaking scene and the army camp scene. Mulan fails as a "perfect bride" and as a "manly man". Mulan doesn't save the day because she was "manly" or "womanly" she saves the day because she was brave and clever.
As a bi girl I always found it to be a "girl power" movie, but a unique one. Lots of media that features women doing traditionally masculine things makes a point of them discarding or sacrificing femininity. Tough girls don't play with dolls, they don't like make-up and girly things, and they must be like "one of the guys" in order to be accepted. Not to say that women like that are invalid, but it makes it seem like in order to do noble things or bring about change to society you must somehow conform to traditional masculinity (idk if that makes any sense). Tropes like those made me both really confused as a kid and led me to this toxic "I'm not like other girls mindset". Mulan never says "I'm too cool for fans or dresses". In fact Mulan only emerges victorious when she blends the "traditionally feminine" (like fans and dresses) with the "traditionally masculine" (fighting). I guess if you put that into a binary-gender concept of society, you could read that both "masculinity" and "femininity" are virtuous.
Overall I think that people, especially cis-women and LGBTQ people, see themselves in Mulan and also see her as a role model. She's clever, she's kind, she's brave, and she's a good friend. When she joined the army, she didn't do so to "find herself" or for "personal glory", she did it out of love for her father. I think she embodies a lot of qualities people would want to emulate and goes on a personal journey that lots of people can relate to.
Can't wait to see more from you! Subscribed!
As a child my neighborhood was struck with Hurricane Sandy(2012),it took my whole first floor and I had no Power or heat for 2 weeks. My dad always used our generator and Mulan was the only DVD me and my sister had. We watched it every second of the day and I still remember the whole script to this day. Growing up I always felt so out of place,I hated dressing feminine and I would beg my mom if I could wear a button up with pants to parties. I hated even being called a girl and my birth name. Mulan was definitely a role model for me in that way. From the song Reflection I always cry when I hear “I’ll never pass for a perfect bride or a perfect daughter” and “who is this that girl I see staring straight back at me,why is my reflection someone I don’t know” because that’s the exact way I felt as a child. Like I wasn’t in the right body and I hated the way I looked in the mirror. Mulan was an eye opener for me,feeling like I’m not crazy and that I can be too like Mulan. She’s still my favorite Disney princess I have a snow globe of Mulan in my room too.
The algorithm is working obi after playing reflections on repeat for 3 days
As a trans masc person myself, I would argue that Mulan is NOT an adequate representation of my gender identity. Mulan's maleness is not given legitimacy because it's only a disguise. When her fellow soldiers find out that her body is female, she is punished and forced to go back to femininity, and she's perfectly okay with that as long as her rights expand (and they do). This is the story of a woman masquerading as a man, not because she identifies as a man, but because she doesn't want to be a passive housewife. The creators told the story of a cis woman's liberation by exploiting the trans male identity.
The story of Mulan contributes to this notion that people are better off performing the gender they were assigned at birth. It is not pro-trans, because if it was, then Mulan would have stayed male. She was only truly happy when she was completely honest about her femaleness while also acknowledging her desire for a more active role in society. I find this problematic because I still wonder when Disney will give LGBTQ community people a legitimate voice. They still have yet to depict a canonically homosexual or bisexual character. It's going to be a long while before Disney makes that leap. Especially considering how much money they would lose making a movie so "controversial" (we all know some people would try to get it banned)
Yes, she is a cis girl who acted as a man. No one said she is trans. Many women in history have done this to get the social benefits of being a man. Its actually useful to contrast this experience of trans men, who do not want to go back to living as women and don't transition for social benefits but because its who we are. Still, the exploration of gender in the film understandably appeals to many trans people.
You have one of my favorite channels.
😊💕💕💕💕
Ok. As I've said before (and I don't even mind getting some amount of flack for this), my reading of Mulan (the character, as well as the film itself), isn't about "trans" issues at all, at least not in its essence. As you've mentioned yourself, it's more about her personal struggles, which in this case involve saving her father, as well as proving to herself that she can finally do something right, The whole cross-dressing and acting aspect of it just happens to be one of the major hoops she has to jump through just to accomplish that, it's not an end in itself. Plus, this whole debate about whether Shang is bisexual is pretty silly in my opinion. I mean, sure he may have had some degree of attraction for Mulan as she was playing Ping, but hey, she still WAS a woman all the while, which would explain why he could have felt this strange attraction to her, even though he thought she was a man. But I can fully get how some people in the Trans community might see this film and this character as a worthy example they can identify with. (BTW, I'm completely ignorant in regards to this whole (trans) topic, so please feel free to fill me in to any detail that might be relevant).
Reflection is definitely the 'trans' song. I can hear my story in those lyrics.
Pretty much everything you said and summarized from others reflect my own feelings, and yes, I instantly cried on both clips of reflection that you played, damn it
I think I'm with you, the story resonated, though not specifically as a direct trans allegory, Mulan was 98, I saw it in cinemas and at that time the only trans rep I had was from places like Lauras and Susans, and I totally didn't resonate with so much of what was going on there. I was however the oldest 'son' of the oldest son of blah blah in an upper middle-class family and felt a mountain of pressure to be the perfect 'son'.... (took a while, but I failed spectacularly on that, I'll let you know how dissapointed father is if he ever talks to me again.)... So I don't think it needed to be a 1 for 1 stand-in for the story to be powerful. I suspect many of the writers and animators also felt that way, and I think with much of disney, if you're comforatable enough to, you can appreciate what the artists got through the cracks and onto the screen. Of course, having a strong female protagonist was cool too, finally figured out why I prefer those too :)
Thanks for sharing! I always feel sort of self-conscious about these earlier videos (when I had much less of a grip on how I liked to do things), but I'm so glad others are still able to find value in them! I was the last "male" of my line (so much pressure) and used to make jokes about how Netflix would literally recommend "Movies with a Strong Female Protagonist" to me in my egg days...so a lot of this resonated with me 😅
Im like 1000% sure it wasnt about trans rights the whole point of mulan was about woman empower meant were are talking about disn
Everyone knows mulan wasn't ABOUT trans people. But every single trans person I know has strongly related to it, and it should really not surprise any cis people that this happens. And no, it wasn't about female empowerment either. It was about standard "not fitting in" narratives. lIke rudolf the red nosed reindeer. It's about how people who may not be accepted as normal may still be valuable in other ways. classic disney "ugly duckling" narrative. Underdogs are popular.