Remember way back to last week when I gave Disney a modicum of praise for searching for a Chinese actress to play Mulan in the live-action version of the movie? I felt stupid for being so grateful, but that’s the low bar that I’ve set for Hollywood concerning Asian actors in movies. Well, I rescind even that modicum after the latest news concerning the movie has been leaked. A script has been written, and an Asian American insider has spilled the beans as to what it contains. I’m going to quote the money shot here because it’s just so fucking unbelievable. You can read the rest of the article here.
A white merchant’s business brings him to the heart of a legendary Asian conflict — he unwittingly helps save the day while winning the heart of the Asian female. Am I describing the plotline of the Netflix series Marco Polo? No. I’m describing the spec script that Disney bought for its live-action feature film, The Legend of Mulan, which is projected for release in 2018.
….
The man is a 30-something European trader who initially cares only for the pleasure of women and money. The only reason why he and his entourage decide to help the Chinese Imperial Army is because he sets eyes on Mulan. That’s right. Our white savior has come to the aid of Ancient China due to a classic case of Yellow Fever. In this script written by Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin, more than half of its pages are dedicated to this merchant who develops a mutual attraction with Mulan and fights to protect her in the ensuing battles. To top it all off, this man gets the honor of defeating the primary enemy of China, not Mulan. Way to steal a girl’s thunder.
I had to read this a few times before what I was reading really registered. I was certain that somebody was punking me because no way it could be this bad, right?
Wrong.
It’s exactly as bad as I thought it was upon first read. Disney wanted to take the badass warrior woman, Mulan, and turn her into a delicate lotus blossom who has to be saved by the colonizing white dude. To make matters worse, Mulan is supposed to be 16-17, so there’s that level of ick factor involved as well.
I never cared for the romantic aspect of Mulan, but I shrugged because I knew it was a Disney princess movie, and at that time, they always shoved romantic relationships into their princess stories. I tolerated it because Mulan had agency and plenty of it. She disguised herself as a man, enlisted in her father’s place, trained with the soldiers, and fought alongside them. She was smart as well as strong, and she was the fucking hero of her own story. I don’t even remember the love angle because frankly, who the fuck cares? It’s her guts, determination, and bravery that really stood out for me.
You want to know the saddest part? When I read the article, I wasn’t even mad. I had been fooled in this manner so many times before, and by now, I’m expecting it. My title is click-baity, yes, but it also describes my resignation when it comes to Hollywood. I once tweeted that you could tell me Trump ate a baby on live television, and I would shrug and say, “Yeah, that sounds like Trump.” He’s so vile, there’s nothing he could do that would surprise me. Disgust me? Yes. Surprise me? No. I’ve reached this point with Hollywood, and nothing you could tell me about them in context of Asian issues would surprise me. They cast Brad Pitt as Jet Li in a biopic? Sounds about right. They cast Jennifer Lawrence as Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan? Of course they did! They decided to do a live-action movie of Spirited Away and set it in Omaha, Nebraska? I wouldn’t expect anything less from them. This particular news puzzles me, however, because who are they trying to appeal to by making Mulan’s love interest white? It’s a Disney princess movie, which means the targeted demo is tweeners/young teen girls. It’s not as if teenage boys/men in their twenties (the prized demo) are going to have any interest in this movie in the first place. It just makes no fucking sense.
I’m tired of being grateful for crumbs. It bothers me that I have this much emotion invested in a movie I don’t even care that much about. I love the legend of Mulan, but I hate that Disney felt they had to wrap it up in a trite love story. I re-watched the avalanche/fight scene from the movie, and I would have been thrilled if the movie had been all about the training and the fight scenes. Take a look at the mountain scene below to see what I mean. In it, Mulan is the one who’s resourceful, clever, and who saves her general (the man she has a crush on). It’s a neat twist on the man saving the damsel in distress, and I appreciated that Mulan was the best soldier in the unit. She’s wholly self-sufficient, and she doesn’t need a man to take care of her.
Side note: I’d forgotten how campy the movie can be in places. I’ve only seen it once because of my aforementioned loathing for the romantic aspect of the story. Also, I will allow for Eddie Murphy to be the voice of Mushu, but that’s it as far as non-Asians in the leading roles.
If I were to write the script for the live-action movie, it would go something like this. Mulan would be shown in her village, chafing at the bit. Not completely unhappy because she’s well-loved, but vaguely dissatisfied without really knowing why. When the edict comes that every family has to sacrifice a man to the war, she goes in her father’s place so he doesn’t have to enlist. That much is similar to the actual movie. I’d even let Mushu along for the ride. From here on out, however, it would be very different. Mulan would discover that the camp she’s enlisted at only has female soldiers, all disguised as men. Yes, I know that wouldn’t have happened, but this is fiction, after all. And, yes, I know there’s a book by Terry Pratchett called The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (shorted to Monstrous Regiment) based on the same premise, but so what? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or some such bullshit. In my script, the lieutenant would also be a woman, perhaps someone who studied martial arts with a master. The first hour would be of her training her unit in staff, sword, and other various weapons, interspersed with them having to deal with cramps and their periods. The second hour would be of them fighting the Huns, and after they are victorious, they vow to always be a sisterhood, no matter where their lives take them.
I know it’s a total fantasy and it probably wouldn’t do very well at the box office, but I would actually pay to see it in the movie theatre. This tripe? I wouldn’t even watch it on Amazon Prime for free. It pisses me off even more that the two writers of the spec script are women. Roger (@gwangung) on Twitter who’s in the know when it comes to acting and the way things work said they probably wrote it that way because they knew it would sell, but it’s still bad writing. I can’t get over how trite and stale the summary is and that Disney actually bought it.
The one thing that has heartened me is that there’s been an outcry, and not just from Asians. It’s been so loud, that Disney was compelled to respond. They said that the spec script was just a jumping off point, and THAT is what finally made me snap. I quickly dashed off a tweet:
Wot she said. Why is this the jumping off point? It’s a stupid fucking jumping off point. GO JUMP IN A LAKE INSTEAD. https://t.co/BzmhNV6NcF
— Minna Hong (@asiangrrlMN) October 11, 2016
It’s not one of my cleverer tweets, but I had had enough. Do not piss on my head and tell me it’s raining. It’s infuriating to hear the same tired old excuses again and again. Even if I take what they say at face value, the fact that they considered this the jumping off point is idiotic. What in that story is redeemable? It drips of colonization–I, the white dude, must save this savage land and this pretty lotus blossom. I no longer care only for myself. The love of an Oriental flower has opened my heart and made me connect with the tenderness within. The exotic Far East is so spiritual! OK, I’m making myself sick right now, so I’m going to stop.
It’s really hard to explain to some white people why this is such an affront. Yes, it’s just a movie, but it’s all we Asian Americans have. I’ve written about the lack of diversity in gaming before, and I’ll adapt it slightly for my purposes here. Imagine that 95% of the movies made in America starred mostly or solely people of color. Furthermore, 75% of them had female protagonists, and half of the main characters are queer. White people are only shown as ignorant, beer-guzzling, tobacco-spitting, flannel-wearing yahoos who are mostly used for breeding and/or servitude. They are pitied and mocked in turn, and they aren’t allowed to have meaningful relationships, especially with each other. If you’re a white person, wouldn’t that make you feel uncomfortable, unwanted, and as if you don’t belong? That’s how I feel on a daily basis when I consume American culture as a Taiwanese American bisexual woman.
Representation is important. What we see in popular culture is a reflection on what we value as a society in general. If we say that people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ folk, low-income people, and women aren’t important enough to be accurately depicted in our ever-present media, then those people aren’t important to us as a society, either. It’s not a malicious thing, though it can feel as if it is when it happens time and time again, but the casualty of the misrepresentation (or the absence of it) hurts more than deliberate malice. The fact that we aren’t even a consideration when all of this is being decided makes it even worse. It’s hard to fathom that not once during the process of acquiring this script, someone didn’t say, “Uh, guys? Maybe we need to rethink this.” Or, if people did speak up, they were simply ignored.
Disney is in scrambling mode. Their latest release, in addition to making the stupid jumping off point statement, promised that all the main roles, including the love interest, will be Chinese. They’ve also hired different writers than the two women who wrote the spec script. Now, you’d think I’d be happy about this news or at least embarrassingly grateful, but I’m fucking done. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I’m going to be a bitter-ass bitch who will never trust you again. The fact that they bought that egregious script in the first place is unacceptable. It speaks to how reflexive this noxious bullshit is, and I don’t believe that they’re going to produce a good movie. Let’s be real–when I first heard this movie was going to happen, I already had my reservations about it. The latest news does nothing to alleviate my concerns. It would be nice if I had enough movies catering to me so I wouldn’t have to care about this one, but we’re not in that world just yet. I hate that I so want this movie to be good, and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be. I hope Disney proves me wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.
ETA: I meant to write about how the problem is more than just the lack of diversity, especially Asians (and Native Americans) on screen. It’s the lack of diversity behind the scenes that is the bigger issue. The two writers hired for this movie are white, and I would bet most of the writing team will be as well. Which makes it too easy for this kind of shit to slide by. As I could write another whole post on this, I’ll just stop there, but keep that in mind.