Gender Roles In The Movie Mulan

What would lead someone to willingly change their gender just to be accepted? What kind of world do we live in that the discrimination of women leads them to desperately look for ways to assert themselves into this broken society? The movie Mulan is a great picture of how gender issues get in the way of letting people break away from the mold and become the person that they were meant to be. The movie, Mulan, brings up gender stereotypes, identity through gender, and gender inequality.
Mulan is based on an ancient Chinese legend. There was even harsher discrimination of women then than there is today. Any alternative gender roles were not acceptable and would result in death in this time period. Mulan, however, represents the “modern” woman, one who embodies certain traits of masculinity. The ways she tries to twist gender roles is seen through her attempts to disguise herself as a man. This rebelliousness is an extremely significant move in the context of the ancient Chinese culture. …show more content…
This blatantly shows a large contrast to how females were expected to behave in ancient China. Mulan, throughout the movie, reminds herself that she needs to be “quiet and demure, graceful…” so she might meet the expectations of a perfect Chinese daughter. This theme parallels to today’s society as we have to constantly remind ourselves to act out our gender roles accordance to what society thinks is correct. This brings in the idea of gender stereotypes. Rebelling from this cookie cutter mold often results in undesirable consequences. In the case of Mulan, her rebellious behavior worries her father, who prays she will “impress the matchmaker” despite her tomboyish