Dishonour on your cow!
One of the more entertaining moments of this past year in seclusion was the watching of multiple Youtube videos explaining why the new live-action remake of Disney's "Mulan" sucked so very much. I've not seen the actual movie, of course: just watching the criticism has been quite enough, and I'd just like to put a few of my thoughts down here.
Foremost among the complaints appears to be the introduction of Chi as a thing Mulan has but is not allowed to express because she is a woman and Chi is for warriors. It's an interpretation of Chi that even I, banana that I am, find utterly disconnected from the actual Eastern concept. I mean, you might say that someone is good at channeling their Chi, but, as one reviewer put it, saying someone has "strong Chi" is like saying they have "strong blood". Chi is not a superpower that some people have and some do not. So, right off the bat, it looks we're dealing with writers who have zero respect for the culture surrounding the source material. I think I heard some mention of one of the designers (costume or sets, I forget which) doing extensive research in museums across Europe, which makes me think someone decided to take a nice, long vacation on Disney's dime instead of actually working.
Another complaint is the introduction of a sister whose happily-ever-after is being married off by the matchmaker. I think more than one reviewer has said that the message they get from this, combined with Mulan's Chi superpowers mentioned above, is that the only way to have any agency in the world is to be born special. It's a shame. I think I can see what the point of the sister might have been, once upon a time when she was first thought up. I think she was brought in to be a foil to Mulan. I think she was meant to tell young girls that it's all right to be feminine and that they have a choice, except that that's not how it all came off. If I were one of the writers, I think I'd have made it so that it's the sister who has an innate talent channeling her Chi, not Mulan. That way, both sisters get the endings that they choose, rather than the one Fate funnels them into.
Quite aside from all these issues with the story, there's this collective horror over the movie filming practically next to a Uyghur concentration camp, and having the gall to thank the local authorities in the credits. I have to confess, though, that I would not have known what was going on with the Uyghurs in China if not for this movie doing what it did, so I have to wonder if someone in the larger Disney machine did this on purpose. Like, maybe the whole thing is an expensive and elaborate F*** YOU to the Chinese government. Maybe someone realised that people would be more likely to pick up on this one diplomatic screw-up if they hated everything else about the movie, so they deliberately made it awful to get people talking about it and about the Uyghurs. Hell, for all I know, Disney might have actually spent a quarter of what they said they did, and lied about it because it's all part of the ruse to get the word out there.
Foremost among the complaints appears to be the introduction of Chi as a thing Mulan has but is not allowed to express because she is a woman and Chi is for warriors. It's an interpretation of Chi that even I, banana that I am, find utterly disconnected from the actual Eastern concept. I mean, you might say that someone is good at channeling their Chi, but, as one reviewer put it, saying someone has "strong Chi" is like saying they have "strong blood". Chi is not a superpower that some people have and some do not. So, right off the bat, it looks we're dealing with writers who have zero respect for the culture surrounding the source material. I think I heard some mention of one of the designers (costume or sets, I forget which) doing extensive research in museums across Europe, which makes me think someone decided to take a nice, long vacation on Disney's dime instead of actually working.
Another complaint is the introduction of a sister whose happily-ever-after is being married off by the matchmaker. I think more than one reviewer has said that the message they get from this, combined with Mulan's Chi superpowers mentioned above, is that the only way to have any agency in the world is to be born special. It's a shame. I think I can see what the point of the sister might have been, once upon a time when she was first thought up. I think she was brought in to be a foil to Mulan. I think she was meant to tell young girls that it's all right to be feminine and that they have a choice, except that that's not how it all came off. If I were one of the writers, I think I'd have made it so that it's the sister who has an innate talent channeling her Chi, not Mulan. That way, both sisters get the endings that they choose, rather than the one Fate funnels them into.
Quite aside from all these issues with the story, there's this collective horror over the movie filming practically next to a Uyghur concentration camp, and having the gall to thank the local authorities in the credits. I have to confess, though, that I would not have known what was going on with the Uyghurs in China if not for this movie doing what it did, so I have to wonder if someone in the larger Disney machine did this on purpose. Like, maybe the whole thing is an expensive and elaborate F*** YOU to the Chinese government. Maybe someone realised that people would be more likely to pick up on this one diplomatic screw-up if they hated everything else about the movie, so they deliberately made it awful to get people talking about it and about the Uyghurs. Hell, for all I know, Disney might have actually spent a quarter of what they said they did, and lied about it because it's all part of the ruse to get the word out there.