THE COLONIZATION OF “THE BALLAD OF MÙLÁN,” OR, THE

ADVENTURES OF A TRANSCULTURATED FOLKTALE IN AMERICA

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

San Diego State University

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

English

______

by

Anni S. Perheentupa Mackey

Fall 2018

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Copyright © 2018 by Anni S. Perheentupa Mackey All Rights Reserved

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

The Colonization of “The Ballad of Mùlán,” or, The Adventures of a Transculturated Folktale in America by Anni S. Perheentupa Mackey Master of Arts in English San Diego State University, 2018

The legend of Huā Mùlán, the maiden who joined the army to save her aging father, has been passed around since at least the 4th or 5th century. From her beginnings as the heroine of a simple Xianbei folk ballad, Mùlán has made her way into a household name throughout China – and, thanks to the grinding gears of the Disney marketing machine taking a hold of it in the late 1990’s, throughout the world. Mùlán’s explosion of fame after Disney’s treatment of her story lead to other new adaptations and re-imaginings of the Mùlán legend in the United States, all of which are more or less indebted to work Disney did in domesticating and familiarizing the traditional Chinese hero within the American cultural sphere. In my examination of Mùlán’s cross-cultural existence in the United States, I focus on three works: Mulan, the quintessential Disney movie that brought the story to a new generation in 1998; Wild Orchid, a more literary take that is nevertheless heavily indebted to the Disney movie, published in 2009; and the 2013 graphic novel Mulan: Revelations, a more adult-oriented reimagining of the possibilities of the Mùlán legend. Though the plots of the stories are superficially similar to the “Ballad” that began Mùlán’s legend, very little remains of the cultural context of the story or the character. The Chineseness of Mùlán/Mulan in these adaptations remains almost purely a matter of aesthetics – an East Asian girl superimposed onto a fundamentally American narrative – leaving no room for depictions of ethnic difference or any kind of diversity. Ultimately, I also argue that while many mainstream books and movies claim to include diverse characters, their characters hew too closely to American cultural standards to depict any real difference or diversity. Instead of providing representations of Asian characters, these American versions of Mùlán are fraught with Orientalist tropes and motives and end up perpetrating stereotypes rather than dismantling them.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT ...... iv LIST OF FIGURES ...... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 The Xianbei Past of Mùlán ...... 5 Mùlán in Han Culture ...... 7 Mùlán Crosses the Ocean...... 9 The Colonization of Huā Mùlán ...... 12 2 FA MULAN JOINS THE NATION: DISNEY’S MULAN AND THE ASSIMILATION OF THE FOLKTALE...... 15 A Careful Application Of The Disney Formula Later ...... 16 “Ultimate Dishonor” – Cross-dressing, Gender, and Feminism ...... 21 The Disney Formula – Adapting Tales for Children ...... 27 On the Dark Side of Diversity: Racial Capitalism ...... 32 3 WILD ORCHID: MULAN RETOLD AS A FAIRYTALE ...... 35 Mulan Turns to Romance ...... 37 Orphan Mulan and Ethnic Ambiguity...... 43 Not Like Other Girls and Other Failed Feminisms ...... 46 The Queer Stepmother ...... 51 Conclusion ...... 55 4 THE FUTURE IS TECHNO-ORIENTALIST: MULAN: REVELATIONS AND POSTFEMINIST CYBERPUNK ...... 57 Mulan in the Cyberpunk Future ...... 60 Techno-Orientalism: China, Technology, and Other Evils ...... 63 The Specter of Contagion ...... 65

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Mulan as a Neutral Avatar for Western Values ...... 70 Conclusion ...... 77 REFERENCES ...... 79

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LIST OF FIGURES

PAGE

Figure 1 The iconic shot of Mulan with half of her face cleaned of make-up...... 19 Figure 2 The cover art for Wild Orchid ...... 44

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Professor Serrato for his invaluable advice and support throughout this project – it may well have been impossible without him. His willingness to give his time so generously has been much appreciated, and he has taught me more about writing and academic work in general than I can possibly give him credit for in a single paragraph. I would also like to thank Professors Howard and Yeh for their expert advice and suggestions that helped me refine my thesis. My special thanks are extended to the ever- supportive faculty and student body of the Department of English and Comparative Literature, particularly Professor Matos, Professor Thomas, Mary Garcia, Elizabeth Allison, Chris Deming, Alexander Elliott, Lauren Luedtke, Eric Mata, Michaela Nasello, Gayana Parsegova, Sequoia Stone, Katlin Sweeney, and Kiedra Taylor. And, of course, a big thank you goes to my parents and husband for their unwavering support. This project would have been impossible without the financial help provided by the English & Comparative Literature Master of Arts Scholarship, the Mindy Gates O’Mary Memorial Scholarship, and the Rosario J. Patti Memorial Endowed Scholarship for the Humanities.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Mùlán sighs as she weaves by the door. Her elderly father has been called to war, and she has no elder brother to go in his place. She decides that she must buy a horse and a saddle and go to war to save her father. She takes leave of her family and rides far and wide in the Khan’s wars, over the Yellow River, past Black Mountain, and never hears how her family cries after her. In ten years, she has seen generals die in hundreds of battles and gone ten thousand miles astride her horse. The Khan calls her in to give her a promotion for her bravery and asks her what she desires. Does she wish to be a minister? Does she wish for riches? No, she replies. She only wants a fast horse to carry her back home. Her family hears of her return and prepares a feast in her honor, celebrating the return of a much-missed daughter. At home, Mùlán dons once more her woman’s clothes and puts her hair up in the shape of a cloud, transforming herself from soldier to daughter. When she walks out the door, she sees her comrades from the army, and they are astonished to find out that she is a woman – something they never noticed in their twelve years fighting together. This legend of Huā Mùlán (花木蘭), the maiden who joined the army to save her aging father, has been passed around since at least the 4th or 5th century. From her beginnings as the heroine of a simple Xianbei folk ballad, “The Ballad of Mùlán,” Mùlán has made her way into a household name throughout China – and, more recently, throughout the world. Each generation and culture has adapted the story to its own needs, changing details and even plot points at will, from the specifics of Mùlán’s life to the ending of the tale. Still, through all the changes and cycles of appropriation the tale has gone through, the core has remained the same. Throughout centuries, audiences have remained fascinated by the tale of the girl who went to war to save her family and asked for nothing but a journey home in return. It should, perhaps, be no wonder that Mùlán’s tale took off as it did when the grinding gears of the Disney marketing machine took a hold of it in the late 1990’s. Two – soon to be

2 three – affiliated movies, a stage musical, two video games, and countless Disney franchise cameos later, Mulan is a character just about any Western child or adult can easily recognize. Through her inclusion in the immensely popular Disney Princess franchise as its eighth – and only non-royal – member, Mulan, or at least Disney’s vision of her, has become a marketing force unto itself. Unsurprisingly, this sudden explosion of fame lead to other new adaptations and re-imaginings of the Mùlán legend in the United States, all of which are more or less indebted to work Disney did in domesticating and familiarizing the traditional Chinese hero within the American cultural sphere. Of course, the apparently sudden introduction of Mulan into the American children’s canon did not come out of nowhere, but resulted from long-term efforts to include more diversity in children’s and teen media. This persistent lack of representation has been more recently highlighted by social movements and organizations like We Need Diverse Books, started by Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo as a hashtag expressing their frustrations on Twitter in 2014, or the 2015 campaign 1000 Black Girl Books, spearheaded by 6th-grader Marley Dias. The ubiquity of online communities and book blogs now dedicated to ‘diverse’ YA and children’s books clearly show the need readers have for representation in the literature they consume. This drive for inclusion runs back decades – scholars have been discussing the hegemonic whiteness in books for young readers since at least the 1964 publication of Nancy Larrick’s “The All-White World of Children’s Books,” and librarians, particularly women of color, have been pushing against stereotypical portrayals since the 1920’s (Horning 7-8). Disney itself made particular efforts to capitalize on this need in the 90’s with the release of Aladdin in 1992, Pocahontas in 1995, and of course Mulan in 1998, all movies that were smash hits in the post office but have since suffered significant critical backlash for their depictions of characters of color.1 Little by little, the situation has improved over the years, and today the bestseller lists for children’s and YA literature regularly feature books starring

1 Thankfully, some of their more recent efforts, such as Moana in 2016 and Coco in 2017, have been much more critically successful. The fact that Disney involved artists and writers from the cultures in question is likely not incidental.

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‘diverse’ protagonists. So, in a sense, the efforts to diversify children’s and YA literature have been successful. Still, even with the increased efforts and emphasis on characters (and authors) of color, the proportion of these books in comparison to those featuring white characters is still tiny.2 At the same time, the increasing awareness about questions of diversity has also caught the eye of publishers and marketing forces and opened the market for more predatory attempts to financially benefit from depictions of the racialized other. In a phenomenon described by Nancy Leong as ‘racial capitalism,’ for-profit publishers begin to treat “nonwhiteness as a prized commodity rather than as a cherished and personal manifestation of identity” in an effort to cash in on the growing prominence of progressive attitudes of inclusion (Leong 2155). This type of superficial representation of ‘diversity’ allows both the publisher and the author to reduce racial difference to “a useful means … to acquire social and economic benefits while deflecting potential charges of racism and avoiding more difficult questions of racial equality” (Leong 2155). In other words, racial capitalism turns diversity and representation of difference into an empty rhetoric with little to no impact and very little regard as to how said representation might affect the minority groups being depicted, all for the sake of positive public perception and the profit associated with it. In this way, increased ‘diversity’ can lead to adverse effects if the authors and publishers involved never pause to examine their motivations and the substance of the material they put out. The fact that Disney began the mass-market Americanization of Mùlán in a textbook example of capitalism is, then, a potentially dangerous precedent for the indebted adaptations that followed it. As a marketing giant, especially one owned and catered to a white majority, Disney’s racial capitalism is almost unavoidable. As a case in point, the changes Disney made in domesticating Mùlán’s tale are strikingly similar to the societal forces that work to

2 For example, in the 2017 statistics collected by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin, out of 3500 children’s and teen books published in the US, only 300 were about Asian or Asian- American characters, 205 about Latino characters, and only 44 about Native American characters. The proportions of authors of color are even lower. See more at https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp.

4 domesticate Asian immigrants upon their arrival in the United States. While the story still carries an outward marker of otherness, of being foreign and “exotic,” the themes at the core of the retelling are fundamentally and unavoidably American. Disney’s Mulan, then, as well as the American adaptations that have followed it, are domestic products wrapped in the appearance of superficial foreignness – stories divorced from their Chineseness and remarried into the family of the American pop culture canon. In this way, these adaptations inextricably deal with not only questions of transculturation but also of Orientalism and, of course, racial capitalism. In order to facilitate my discussion on these adaptations, then, I would like to first open up these terms to better explain the forces behind these cross-cultural narratives. Transculturation concerns the unequal mixing of cultures that occurs within complex colonialist intersections. The term itself was coined by Fernando Ortiz, a Cuban anthropologist, in 1947 “to express the highly varied phenomenon that have come about in Cuba as a result of the extremely complex transmutations of culture that have taken place here” (98). In introducing his neologism, Ortiz suggests that it could replace the previously predominant term ‘acculturation’ which he finds inadequate to describe the cultural evolution of Cuba, in particular (97). He stresses the importance of acknowledging and expressing “the different phases of the process of transition from one culture to another because this does not consist merely in acquiring another culture, which is what the English word acculturation really implies, but the process also necessarily involves the loss or uprooting of a previous culture” (Ortiz 102). It is here that the term becomes most pertinent to the treatment of foreign-origin folktales: in bringing the story to the American cultural sphere, some aspects of the original themes and context are necessarily excised from the narrative. American adaptations of the Mùlán folktale are not simply the story of Mùlán, with American elements added on top, but a more complex product of intermingled additions and deletions necessitated by predominant cultural forces such as marketing trends or versions of Orientalism. Likewise a product of colonialism and unequal power structures, Orientalism, in critical studies, refers to the Western tradition of depicting the ‘Oriental’ Other. The term was redefined from its earlier, broader definitions by Edward Said in 1978 in his book Orientalism. He discusses the term as “a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based

5 on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience,” this ‘special place’ being derived from a long history of the Orient as a “cultural contestant” and “one of [the] deepest and most recurring images of the Other” in Europe (Said 1). This historical relationship is fraught with inequality and prejudice – Said describes it as “a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony” and notes that “The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be “Oriental” but also because it could be – that is, submitted to being – made Oriental” (Said 5-6). In many ways, Orientalism as a cultural tradition of representation is engaged in upholding and bolstering the Western image of self-superiority. As Said explains it, “Orientalism depends for its strategy on this flexible positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient without ever losing him the relative upper hand” (Said 7). In other words, Orientalism is also a cultural apparatus of condescension, a way to patronize the Other under the guise of interest or scholarship. While these attitudes have traditionally applied particularly to England and France and their relationship with the Middle-East, they have quite easily transferred to the US through its self-identification as a Western country. Much like in Europe, Orientalism in the US is concerned with maintaining an East/West split to more easily contain and neutralize the cultural threat of Asia, as well as to bolster the West’s status as superior. Historical events such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and ‘foreign war’ after foreign war on Asian soil have concretely demonstrated the US political commitment to Orientalist attitudes. As years have passed and social progress advanced, many of the more overt policies have disappeared, but their shadow is nevertheless visible in the Orientalist motives still present in popular media. American adaptations of the Mùlán legend are, of course, no different, and I will demonstrate their conformity to Orientalist motives in later chapters through my examples.

THE XIANBEI PAST OF MÙLÁN In order to fully understand the transculturation and Orientalism performed by American adaptations of the tale, it is important to discuss the cultural history of the folktale in mainland China. Even in its homeland, the tale of Mùlán has never really been thematically stable but has changed with the tides of its cultural and temporal context.

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Although contemporary audiences, especially in modern China, usually consider her a straightforward Han Chinese national hero, this was not always the case. Based on the history of the ballad, she should instead be a part of the Mongolic Xianbei people of the Tuoba dynasty. As such, it is important to note that the Disney adaptation – and the other American versions to which it has given rise – is not at all the first version of Mùlán’s tale to assimilate the story to a majority culture. The story of Mùlán, recounted in “The Ballad of Mùlán,” is believed to originate in Northern Wei, sometime between the 4th and 6th century, although its oldest extant version is from a 13th century collection of music (Dong 2, 56). This means that the origins of Hua Mùlán are not in Han Chinese culture, but instead rooted in the 4th-6th century Tuoba dynasty, founded by a proto-Mongol ethnic group known as the Xianbei. Originally a nomadic people, the Xianbei spoke their own language and had their own customs until the later Tuoba emperors began to Sinicize Northern Wei – for example, they changed their own clan name, Tuoba, into the Han name Yuan, and finally banned nomadic languages in court in 495 (Lim 62). Perhaps it was this Sinicization that allowed the tale of Mùlán to spread beyond the borders of its original culture, and, indeed, outlive the dynasty it originated from. Somewhat ironically, as a Xianbei woman, Mùlán would have had less in common with the Han Chinese she is now associated with than the Huns – the people chosen as the villains of American adaptations of Mùlán’s story. The Xianbei legacy is visible in many of the details the poem focuses on. It opens with Mùlán weaving, sighing as she recounts hearing the Khan drafting soldiers, Mùlán’s father among them. Seeing as how “[her] father had no first-born son” (Dong 54), Mùlán decides to go to war in her father’s place. The poem goes into great detail as it describes Mùlán’s separation from her family, who call for her but go unheard because all Mùlán can hear are the sounds of war. After ten years on the campaign, Mùlán is presented to the Khan for her achievements and offered great positions and “riches abundant” (Dong 55). She turns down these gifts, asking only for a fast camel to take her home. Mùlán’s family rejoices as she returns, her sister putting on make-up and her brother preparing a feast. Mùlán herself goes to don her woman’s dress and do up her hair. At the end of the poem, her fellow soldiers come to see her, astonished to discover that she is a woman – something they never realized while serving in the army with her. Mùlán concludes the ballad:

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The feet of a male rabbit were leaping. The eyes of a female rabbit were bleary. When the two walk side by side, How can you tell the one from the other! (Dong 55) Ivy Haoyin Hsieh nd Marylou Matoush deem this version of the ballad “a good example of northern Yueh-Fu,” a genre of “ballad-like folk poetry” that was popular among the Xianbei (215). Throughout the poem, the themes of war and family are emphasized, but Mùlán’s unconventional behavior and cross-dressing are barely acknowledged. Rather, the poem seems to portray Mùlán’s gender as inconsequential to her actions, especially with the final four lines. This version of the ballad opens up possibilities for reinterpreting gender roles and even allows for a genderfluid interpretation of the character. Considering that the ballad originates from a literary tradition entirely separate from the Han Chinese tradition it has since been appropriated into, the common interpretation of Mùlán as nationalistic hero comes to question. The Xianbei literary tradition has some marked differences to that of the Han people, such as its portrayal of women, who were customarily “portrayed as sturdy, to the point of being tough” (Hsieh and Matoush 215). Read in the context of its original culture, the Khan’s summons to war and Mulan’s sacrifice for her family can be interpreted as criticism of the Khan and “a critique of the culture of warfare prominent during the Northern Wei dynasty” (“The Ballad of Mulan” 153). The Xianbei tale of Mùlán, then, is more a social commentary on the demands of war on the population than anything else – an interpretation that is supported by the lack of attention given to actual warfare in “The Ballad,” as well as Mùlán’s rejection of the Khan’s reward at the end.

MÙLÁN IN HAN CULTURE Of course, the “Ballad” itself is sparse on detail, leaving plenty of room for future generations to adapt and interpret both the story and the character. By the first extant adaptation of Mùlán’s story in the Tang dynasty, written by Wei Yuanfu, Mùlán is already being appropriated as a patriotic figure. Wei’s poetic imitation of “The Ballad” ends with praise for Mùlán’s patriotic loyalty: “Only if the heart of an imperial subject / Could be as laudable as Mulan’s integrity!” (Guo Maoqian, qtd. in Dong 63). As Mùlán’s story spread and was retold time after time, her ethnicity became less important (Dong 66), while her

8 status as an example of filial piety and patriotism came to be emphasized more and more as she became the national heroine of China. The next steps in Mùlán’s Han transformation came in 1500’s, in the Ming dynasty, when poet and dramatist Xú Wèi (1521-1593) rewrote the tale into a play. This play, The Female Mulan, or The Female Mulan Joins the Army in Place of Her Father, retells Mùlán’s story explicitly in the historical context of Northern Wei, identifying the titular character as ethnically Xianbei. It is also the first adaptation that shows the character participating in battles and even includes a scene of “Mulan unwinding her foot bandages as a part of her transformation into a man” (Kwa and Idema xvii) – a detail anachronistic to the historical setting of the play, but nevertheless a significant step in showing Mùlán’s transformation from one gender role to another. Xú can be credited with both resurrecting the story and giving Mùlán the family name she still carries to this day: Huā. His play renewed interest in the folk tale, and many retellings followed in the next century. These focused primarily on Mùlán as a symbol of filial piety (Kwa and Idema xx). Summaries of these plays can be found in Shiamin Kwa and Wilt L. Idema’s book, Mulan: Five Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend. Later, around 1675, Chǔ Rénhuò included the tale of Mùlán in his popular Historical Romance of the Sui and Tang. This version places the story in the political turmoil of the end of the Sui dynasty, and reimagines Mùlán as the daughter of a Turkish father and a Han Chinese mother (Kwa and Idema xx). While the familiar elements of the story are indeed there – Mùlán goes to war to save her father from conscription, and so on – Chǔ takes some liberties with the ending. In this version, “Mulan returns home to find that her father has died and that the khan wants to take her into his harem” (Kwa and Idema xx). Mùlán, finding this an unacceptable fate, chooses to commit suicide instead, and passes her duty – and her crossdressing – on to her sister. This goes along with a cultural trend of “emphasizing chastity and loyalty,” leading Mùlán, as the ideal heroine, to kill herself “to express the pureness of her heart” (Kwa xx). This is perhaps the most notable earlier example of the folk tale being appropriated to the then-contemporary cultural climate. Overall, the ending seems to be the busiest site of cultural conformation, and various plays have since seen Mùlán through other suicides, such as in the anonymously authored The Story of the Loyal, Filial,

9 and Heroic Mulan from late eighteenth century; and marriages, such as in A Couple of Hares by the Manchu prince Yong’en (1727 – 1805). Especially in the 20th century, Mùlán has starred in increasingly patriotic and nationalistic productions, such as the 1939 film Mulan Joins the Army, released during the Second Sino-Japanese War to boost morale among the Chinese people – a task in which it succeeded (Dong 159). A popular opera version was released as a film, Hua Mulan, in 1956, and a second movie by the same name came out in Hong Kong in 1964. These films promoted “the political agenda of ‘women holding up half of the sky’” and are not well known outside of China (Dong 159). More recently, Mùlán has appeared in the 2009 big- budget movie, Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (simply Huā Mùlán in Chinese), directed by the Hong Kong-based director Jingle Ma. This movie, while not especially popular outside of China, did actually see a DVD release in the United States. There have also been two recent drama series starring the character, the Hong Kong-based Mu Lan in 2012 and the CCTV- produced The Legend of Hua Mulan in 2013. Through its complicated history of adaptations, Mùlán has gone through a number of culturally significant revisions, going from an ethnically marked folktale of a local tradition to a Han Chinese national hero. As each generation and culture has retold the story to suit their own cultural needs, the themes and tone have changed and Mùlán has been cast as anything from a tragic heroine to a disciplined patriot. Considering this history of transculturation, the American domestication of the Mùlán folktale could be seen as nothing particularly new or alarming, but simply a westward step in an already ongoing process. However, it is notable that invariably all notable Chinese adaptations of the tale, from opera to serialized TV dramas, are aimed at a primarily adult audience – an indication of the cultural significance and perceived seriousness the story carries in Han Chinese culture.

MÙLÁN CROSSES THE OCEAN Although the story of Mùlán reached the United States long before the smash hit Disney movie, it was not widely known to English speakers until 1976, when Maxine Hong Kingston published her work, The Woman Warrior. Blending Chinese folktales and autobiography to discuss her unique position as a first-generation Chinese American woman, Kingston’s book has since become a part of the Asian American literary canon (Dong 94)

10 and is widely studied to this day. However, Kingston’s tale of “White Tigers” is not so much an adaptation – Kingston “reinvented Mulan’s character and story” (Dong 95). She starts by recounting a childhood talk-story version of the legend of Hua Mu Lan, who is raised by an elderly couple in the mountains to become a great warrior. From the mountain, she watches her family and her people oppressed by an unscrupulous noble. Once she returns, she vows to save her husband and brother from the war, and her parents tattoo a list of the crimes of the rich upon her back to facilitate her vengeance. In her journeys fighting in the guise of a man, she builds an army, reunites with her husband, becomes a mother, and finally overthrows the corrupt baron who caused the suffering of her people. Kingston then contrasts this childhood story with her own life in America and her helplessness to save her people. She concludes that “the swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar” (Kingston 53) and refers to the grievances they both carry upon their backs. In short, she draws a parallel between the fight of the warrior woman and the struggle to exist as an equal in the United States. After Kingston’s book, it took a few decades before Mùlán’s story gathered momentum again. In the 1990’s, a number of children’s picture books offered English- speaking American children glimpses of the legendary folktale in illustrated storybooks. The most famous of these is the 1998 picture book The Ballad of Mulan by Song Nan Zhan, now available in multiple bilingual versions. The illustration style and layout of the book invoke the aesthetics of a scroll, a callback to Chinese history. Interestingly, Zhan’s book comes with a historical note on the origins of the tale as non-Han Chinese, despite using the usual modern Han trappings for the tale in the text itself, such as using the word “Emperor” and consistently depicting the titular character in Han clothing and armor. The true explosion in Mùlán’s worldwide fame undeniably came in 1998 with the Disney movie Mulan. Disney reinvisioned the folk hero as a gutsy tomboy who struggles to fit into her society but ultimately ends up saving it because of her unique, unconventional qualities. This animated version of Mùlán’s story was an instant hit with both domestic and international audiences, making it the 7th highest grossing movie in 1998 overall (“1998 Worldwide Grosses”). In Disney’s usual fashion, the movie expanded into an entire franchise following its success, with a multiple-platform video game release in 1999 and a direct-to- video sequel, Mulan II, in 2004. The titular character went on to become one of the original members of the 2000 smash hit Disney Princess franchise despite her conspicuous lack of

11 royal birth or marriage. Through numerous picture books, cameos in other Disney franchises, and a recent announcement of an upcoming live-action remake of the original animated movie, Disney’s vision of Mulan has permeated public consciousness and attained a household name status since her original appearance. Indeed, it has served as an introduction to the folktale for entire generations. I, too, came to Mùlán first through Disney’s adaptation. After Disney’s box office success, adaptations of the Mùlán tale began to sprout both in the United States as well as internationally. Besides the obvious movie tie-ins reusing the character established by Disney, numerous books reinterpreting the original ballad also appeared. Robert D. San Souci, the story writer for Disney’s Mulan, published his own unaffiliated picture book adaptation of the tale, Fa Mulan: The Story of a Woman Warrior, in 1998. His picture book, while nothing like the movie, also goes beyond simply retelling the existing story: Souci adds new details about both Mulan’s childhood as a tomboy and about her military service, revealing her to be a tactical genius. It is also illustrated to appear as a Chinese scroll. China Intercontinental Press published another take on the story in 2007 in the form of Courage and Wisdom: The Story of Mulan, The Daughter and the Warrior, a Chinese (but published in English) picture book illustrated with full-page oil paintings. A number of other children’s picture books, both independent and Disney movie knockoffs, also appeared on the market during the early 2000’s. As the original audience of the Disney movie grew older, Mùlán made her way into young adult literature, and later back into adult media. The Once Upon A Time series of fairy tale retellings, published by Simon & Schuster and targeted at teen girls, published its take on the folk tale in 2009. Wild Orchid, written by Cameron Dokey, refocuses Mùlán’s story as a teen romance, reimagining many aspects of the tale and borrowing heavily from Disney’s interpretation in the process. Here, too, it is the Huns who are attacking China, and Mulan must go and prove herself in battle. Once again it falls on her shoulders to save China from a vague but undoubtedly terrible fate. However, the main focus of the story is her romance with Prince Jian. Despite the continuing popularity of Mulan as a character, this rather mediocre reimagining of her tale saw comparatively little success. Today, while actual adaptations of Mùlán have become rarer, she nevertheless continues to appear in American popular media as a character. The ABC fairy tale mash-up series Once Upon A Time (2011-2018), currently going on its seventh and final season,

12 features Mulan (Jamie Chung) as warrior who is friends with Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora – the latter of whom she is confirmed to have feelings for, leading to perhaps the first confirmed queer depiction of the character. Similarly, the immensely popular anime-style online series, RWBY (2013 –), created by Monty Oum, also features a character based on Mùlán: Lie Ren, a Huntsman student who dual-wields machine pistol blades. Following the series’ habit of having fairy tale and mythological characters appear as the opposite gender, this version of the character identifies himself as male, leading to another new twist in the interpretations of the character. Mùlán has also appeared in comics, both as a main character and in cameos. Notable examples include the Deadpool Killustrated series (2013) where Hua Mulan, among other characters (such as Sherlock Holmes and Beowulf), attempts to stop Deadpool from destroying the literary universe by killing every literary character; and the Dark Horse comic Mulan: Revelations (2015), a “Shanghai cyberpunk” tale where Mulan is brought back in the future to save humanity from tech demons.

THE COLONIZATION OF HUĀ MÙLÁN

In my examination of Mùlán’s cross-cultural existence in the United States, I have tried to choose a varied sample of different media and different takes on her tale. As such, as will primarily be focusing on three works: Mulan, the quintessential Disney movie that brought the story to a new generation in 1998; Wild Orchid, a more literary take that is nevertheless heavily indebted to the Disney movie, published in 2009; and the 2013 graphic novel Mulan: Revelations, a more adult-oriented reimagining of the possibilities of the Mùlán legend. While these retellings are fundamentally very different from one another, Mùlán is nevertheless brought closer to the audience by Americanizing her character and Westernizing her story in all three of them. Though the plots of the stories are superficially similar to the “Ballad” that began Mùlán’s legend, very little remains of the cultural context of the story or the character. Ultimately, the Chineseness of Mùlán/Mulan in these adaptations remains almost purely a matter of aesthetics – an East Asian girl superimposed onto a fundamentally American narrative – leaving no room for depictions of ethnic difference or any kind of diversity.

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Through my examination of these American retellings of “The Ballad of Mùlán,” the quintessential Chinese folktale, I work to shed light on the representation of ethnic diversity and gender roles in American entertainment. In this new era of diversity and representation, have we finally graduated from the racism and Orientalism that permeates previous depictions of Asian characters in media?3 Perhaps unsurprisingly, I argue that this is not the case. Orientalism is alive and well in mainstream American media – is has simply changed forms to better correspond with the worldviews of the modern reader. In some ways, it is now more subtle, hidden in microaggressions and ‘positive’ stereotypes instead of explicitly racist language, so as to enable wholesale consumption by the more discerning readers cultural awareness has produced. At the same time, it is perhaps all the more insidious in its new forms. In the hands of contemporary writers, the newly Americanized Mulan becomes a weapon against her exoticized, often backward or otherwise deplorable culture and society. While she works toward the American dream of personal freedom by defeating the huns all by herself, marrying princes, and developing magic powers, the society around her becomes demonized for its repeated attempts to stop her from doing what she must do. If there is one thing that connects these adaptations, it is their commitment to the Orientalist motives of containing China and reinforcing its inferiority to the ideals of the West. Ultimately, I also argue that while many mainstream books and movies claim to include diverse characters, their characters are too assimilated to the American cultural standard to depict any real difference or diversity. Instead of providing representations of Asian characters, American versions of Mùlán are fraught with Orientalist tropes and motives and end up perpetrating stereotypes rather than dismantling them. Through transculturation, the story has been removed from its Chinese cultural heritage and reworked to satisfy American cultural (and often racist) appetites. Mulan, as she now exists in the American canon of pop culture characters, may look “other” in her visual appearance or

3 See James Moy’s Marginal Sights: Staging the Chinese in America for a more in-depth discussion on the history of depicting Chinese characters in American media.

14 sound superficially Chinese, but at heart she is yet another all-American hero ready to sacrifice herself to defend American values: individualism, personal freedom, nationalism.

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CHAPTER 2

FA MULAN JOINS THE NATION: DISNEY’S MULAN AND THE ASSIMILATION OF THE FOLKTALE

When The Walt Disney Company set out to make the story of Mùlán into a full- length animated film in 1994, a robust body of adaptations was already in existence. As discussed in the introduction, all of these different versions of Mùlán’s story adapted the tale to meet the cultural needs of their contemporary situations. Unsurprisingly, Disney, too, adapted the story to fit the cultural needs of end-of-millennium America. In the process, the context of the story changed in a variety of ways – from China to America, from poem to animated movie, from the 5th century to 1990’s, and, notably, from an adult story to a children’s tale. Through an elaborate process of transculturation, Mulan, as it was released in 1998, had become an American story: the story of Fa Mulan, a tomboy and a misfit, who joins the army to save her father and show the world that she’s good for something. To differentiate between these vastly different versions of the character in this chapter, I will refer to Disney’s version as Mulan, and to the character more familiar from Chinese adaptations as Mùlán. In many ways, Mulan’s treatment in the movie mirrors the ideal assimilation of the Asian immigrant. Through her transculturation, Mulan is initiated into what Lisa Lowe calls “the terrain of national culture”: “a terrain introduced by the Statue of Liberty, discovered by the immigrant, dreamed in a common language, and defended in battle by the independent, self-made man” (2). Disney’s Fa Mulan follows Lowe’s proposed pattern exactly, from her idiomatic American English to her personal accomplishments in battle. She is, in essence, the independent, self-made woman the national project of US culture calls for. Notably, through her transformation from a Chinese folk hero into an American national subject, Mulan’s Chineseness becomes effectively lost in translation. Of course, this type of transformation is

16 far from incidental. As Patricia P. Chu argues, “culture … is a site for transforming readers and protagonists into national subjects” (3). Disney, as an entity in the center stage of American children’s entertainment, is in an especially good position to participate in this type of cultural production. In this chapter, I build upon the thoughts of Lowe and Chu to argue that although Disney made a genuine effort to adapt Mulan’s tale faithfully, the treatment of the titular character in its film closely follows the idealized assimilation of the Asian immigrant in the United States. From language to central character motivations and plot points, Mulan’s transculturation into the American children’s film canon sees her removed from her Chineseness and initiated into membership in the American cultural sphere. While the gender politics in the film allow for some exploration of racial and gendered difference, the film overall presents a flat, normative view in which characters may look different, but deep down they all have an American heart with American values. Additionally, I want to point out that Disney’s deliberate choice to adapt the story for children changes the narrative treatment of the story and carries the condescending notion that, in order to become a part of American mainstream culture, the Chinese story of Mulan must be repackaged as a children’s story. Overall, while the movie does offer a refreshing respite from the hegemonic whiteness of children’s entertainment in America, its reductive representation of China and ethnic difference in general is inadequate.

A CAREFUL APPLICATION OF THE DISNEY FORMULA LATER Considering the history of transculturation already surrounding Mùlán, Disney’s domestication of the Mùlán folktale could be seen as nothing particularly new or alarming, but simply a westward step in an already ongoing process. Indeed, critics disagree whether Disney’s Mulan is a “positive product of transculturation and globalization” or a more problematic result of “re-Orientalizing China and Chinese sources for American viewers to consume” (Dong 165). The movie’s undeniable success worldwide – and lack thereof in mainland China – makes this question an especially interesting one. That Disney’s depiction of the all-Chinese heroine has attained much greater reach than any of the Chinese adaptations points to its successful reinvention of the folktale as a culturally hybrid product. The film’s lack of success within China proper, however, suggests that something of the tale

17 has been lost in translation. As is often the case, Disney makes its own additions to the established storyline, such as including a wider conflict in the center stage of the movie and introducing a love interest for Mulan. This modified story is then peppered with action sequences and musical numbers. Whether these added features are in line with the original content is less of a concern for the producers – this is the formula Disney has demonstrated time and again will lead to profits at the box office. As such, Disney’s movie opens on a very different note than the “Ballad” by first introducing the primary external conflict of the story. The first three minutes show the Huns’ attack on the Great Wall and the Emperor ordering a military draft to protect his people. It is only after this set-up of the external conflict that we meet our protagonist, who appears transformed from her traditional depiction. Unlike the weaving daughter of the “Ballad,” Fa Mulan starts her story by feeding her family’s livestock and being late for an appointment with her mother to see the matchmaker. Although Mulan tries her best to fulfill the traditional feminine role, she is uncomfortable in this role and apparently unsuccessful at fulfilling it, as evidenced by the fact that she needs a cheat note to remember the list of feminine virtues. Her visit to the matchmaker ends up being a disaster, and Mulan is ashamed of herself and the way she is affecting her family’s honor. Right after, the Emperor’s men arrive in town to summon a man from each family to fight for China. Mulan attempts to stop her ailing father from taking the summons, angering him in the process. This leads to a disagreement in the family, and Mulan ends up stealing her father’s armor and running away in the night, dressed as a man to join the army in his place. When her parents discover that she is gone, her mother wants to go after her, fearing that Mulan might be killed. Mulan’s father replies: “if I reveal her, she will be,” alluding to the severe punishment that awaits her if she is found out. Arriving at the military encampment, Mulan – who now goes by the name “Ping” – has a difficult time blending in with the young men and performing the duties expected of her. Through the song “I’ll Make a Man out of You,” we see a training montage of the new recruits, who all initially underperform. However, Mulan is significantly behind everyone else, and Li Shang ends up sending her home. Just as she is about to go, she finds a way to complete a task no-one else has been able to complete previously, using only her wits. This convinces Li Shang, and she is allowed to stay. Meanwhile, Mushu, the comic relief sidekick character, feels like things aren’t moving fast enough and falsifies a report from the front,

18 requesting the new recruits join the main army. When Mulan’s unit arrives at the scene of the battle, they discover the Chinese army utterly destroyed by the Huns. Realizing they are now the only obstacle between the Huns and the capital, the small band of soldiers makes their last stand in a mountain pass, facing an overwhelming Hun force. Through her quick thinking, Mulan is able to cause an avalanche that destroys the entire Hun army, getting grievously injured in the process. In tending to her wounds, the medic discovers her true gender, and the villainous Chi-Fu tosses her out on the snow to be killed for her cross- dressing. Li Shang chooses to save her life instead, repaying his debt for her saving his life previously. The soldiers then abandon Mulan to fend for herself in the snowy mountains. Disappointed in herself, Mulan examines her own motivations for leaving home, and says, “Maybe what I really wanted was to prove I could do things right, so when I looked in the mirror, I’d see someone worthwhile,” but concludes that she sees nothing in her reflection. She is about to head back home in shame when she discovers that the Huns’ leader and a select few of his men are still alive and about to enter the capital in search of the Emperor. Realizing she is the only one who knows this, she hurries down into the capital to warn everyone that the Huns are not defeated yet. However, now that she is back in her normal women’s dress, no-one wants to believe her, and even her military friends refuse to lend her an ear. Determined to still do something to save the Emperor, Mulan concocts a plan and convinces her three friends from the army to help her – dressing them as women to infiltrate the Forbidden City, thus reversing the previous cross-dressing situation. Li Shang decides to join them after all, and together they are able to stop the Emperor from being taken prisoner by the Huns. In order to destroy the Hun leader, Mulan reveals that she was “the boy from the mountains” and lures him to follow her onto the roof. With Mushu’s help, she is able to destroy the Hun leader with fireworks and escape to safety. Having now saved China, the Emperor offers her a position as his advisor, which she promptly turns down, stating that “[she] think[s] [she’s] been away from home long enough.” She returns home, is joyously reunited with her family, and is soon pleasantly surprised to find that Li Shang has followed her home, implying a mutual romantic interest between the two. The movie closes on this happy family occasion, with Mulan having finally found a way to be herself through her

19 society’s (and Li Shang’s) acceptance of her unusual, more masculine traits.

Figure 1 The iconic shot of Mulan with half of her face cleaned of make-up.

Both the visit to the matchmaker and Mulan’s self-reflection after it show the character struggling with the way society sees her versus the way she sees herself. This process culminates with the song “Reflection” (Mulan 11:40-13:05). The song begins as Mulan sees her reflection in the water and turns away from it. She sings that she will “never pass for a perfect bride or a perfect daughter,” calling back to the earlier scene, where the matchmaker told her she “may look like a bride, but [she] will never bring her family honor.” Mulan begins to remove her bridal outfit, piece by piece, wondering if she’s “not meant to play this part,” and concludes that if she were “truly to be [herself],” it would make everyone around her unhappy. This is all in stark contrast with Mulan’s carefree introduction in the movie before. Her encounter with the matchmaker – and thus the expectations of the society around her – has shown her the degree of her difference from the expectations set upon her. While she is within the walls of her family compound, within the private sphere of her life, she is more or less free to express herself in ways that are natural to her. However, encountering the world outside, in the form of the matchmaker, has crushed her self- confidence, and she is now confronted with her own gendered difference.

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In the refrain of the song, Mulan plays with the imagery of the reflection to express the discrepancy between her inner and outer selves. “Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don’t know?” she asks, again watching her reflection in the water. Once more she turns away, rejecting the reflection in the water. Seeking solace, Mulan walks into the family shrine, only to discover that the memorial stones there show her multiples of her own reflection, her face still hidden under the bridal makeup. This time, she doesn’t turn away, however, and instead faces her reflection and kneels to pray to her ancestors. The music swells as she faces herself, asking, “When will my reflection show who I am inside?” In what is perhaps the most iconic scene in the movie, she begins wiping off her makeup, revealing only one half of her face at first (fig. 1). This stark and memorable image makes Mulan’s internal struggle visual: the expectations put upon her (the mask-like bridal makeup) are at odds with what she wants for herself and what she feels best embodies her self. As the music hits its climax, Mulan faces her multiple reflections again, now without make-up. However, the removal of her mask does not help, and she turns away once again, dejectedly leaving the shrine as the music dies down and the song is over. It is clear that this Mulan is an outlier in her society, a misfit, and has no idea what her place in life is meant to be. “Reflection” foregrounds the most important theme of Mulan’s character arc in the movie: that of finding oneself and one’s place in society. This aspect of Mulan’s character is not present in any previous retelling of the tale and adds a new dimension to her story: that of self-discovery. This theme of “finding oneself,” as Hsieh and Matoush note, is “a modern American concept and a noble goal from a western perspective, but one that conflicts with East Asian perspectives regarding the more communal nature of the self” (219). Disney’s inclusion of these elements is far from incidental: after Mulan is revealed as a woman, she explicitly states that her decision to join the army was motivated by a desire to “prove [she] could do things right,” that she could be someone worthwhile (Mulan 1:00:20-34). And, indeed, the final resolution of the battle against Huns ultimately hinges entirely on Mulan and her actions. While she is assisted in her efforts by the other characters, the resolution comes down to her leadership and ingenuity, thus validating her decision to run away from home in search of her selfhood. Although the theme of self-discovery is standard to Disney characters, especially female protagonists, assimilating Mulan, as a racially and ethnically marked Chinese character, into the distinctly

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Western mold of individualism is problematic. Through the plot of the movie, Disney’s Fa Mulan becomes emblematic of the self-made (wo)man, exemplifying the “heroic quest, the triumph over weakness, the promises of salvation, prosperity, and progress,” all of which Lowe calls “the American feeling, the style of life, the ethos and spirit of being” (2). Mulan is not merely a heroic character, she is a specifically and markedly American character, despite the ethnic markings of her appearance, name, and surroundings. Through her journey of self-discovery and her Western individuality, and thus the neutralization of her Chineseness, Fa Mulan is allowed citizenship in the American children’s movie canon.

“ULTIMATE DISHONOR” – CROSS-DRESSING, GENDER, AND FEMINISM A significant change in the Disney version of the folktale is the attempt at an explicitly feminist theme for the movie, which helps align it with American cultural values. Where Chinese adaptations are generally uninterested in exploring gender roles through Mùlán’s story, Disney makes it a major theme throughout the film. Mulan’s gender both motivates her decision and complicates her position. For example, after Mulan runs away from home, her parents are too afraid to come after her as the punishment for cross-dressing is death (Mulan 19:10-23), and Chi-Fu calls Mulan’s transgression of her assigned role “the ultimate dishonor” (Mulan 58:40-44) after her true gender is revealed. This kind of consequence for cross-dressing is not present in the “Ballad,” nor is it a feature of Chinese adaptations of the story, or, indeed, in other premodern Chinese literature, where cross- dressing nevertheless repeatedly occurs (Dong 180). Likewise, no Chinese adaptions include the revelation of her gender while she is still in the army, making Disney’s decision to include it as a turning point of the plot an especially interesting choice. This narrative change has Mulan fight in the climactic final battle and receive the favor of the Emperor not in her borrowed soldier’s armor, but rather as a young woman. Presenting herself as a woman in this situation forces both the Emperor – the patriarch himself – and the surrounding society to acknowledge her accomplishments, which they do, however reluctantly and however symbolic the gesture may be (Mulan 1:14:06-15:07). Disney’s adaptation, then, contains a “direct critique of the patriarchal family structure” (“The Ballad” 157) that “The Ballad” lacks and is consequently much more overtly feminist both thematically and in tone.

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Despite working to explicitly produce this more generally feminist thematic within the narrative, many of the narrative choices, particularly the humor in the movie, work to reproduce a binary gender paradigm rather than challenge it. For example, Chi-Fu is repeatedly the butt of various characters’ jokes due to his perceived femininity, encompassing both his way of speech and his clothing preferences. One especially conspicuous joke involves his slippers, which he wears to go bathe, in contrast to the soldiers who simply rush in naked – the implied masculine choice for bathing. It is certainly no coincidence that Chi-Fu also functions as a secondary villain in the story, being both the primary obstacle standing in the way of Li Shang as well as the person who exposes Mulan as a woman. In another instance, Mulan reveals her master plan to defeat Shan Yu and has her army friends dress up as concubines. The movie makes sure to squeeze as much humor out of this crossdressing as possible, paying homage to a long cultural tradition of laughing at men in dresses – especially Asian (American) men, whose subject formation has historically involved “humiliation and shame” in a central, “decisive role” (Nguyen 19). Notably, Li Shang, as the hypermasculine romantic interest, never wears a dress like the other soldiers despite participating in Mulan’s plan. Cross-dressing, it seems, is only reserved for male characters functioning as comic relief. Spared this apparently humorous role, Li Shang goes on to get the girl in the end. All in all, this does not seem like a coincidence. The fact that most of these jokes poke fun at the femininity of the male characters in the movie is not, of course, incidental to their intentionally visible race. Overall, the way in which the movie treats gender is not only conspicuous in its normativity, but also in the choice to depict this normative narrative using Asian bodies. Issues of masculinity and femininity are especially pertinent to Asian male bodies. As David Eng notes, “sexual effects … are also racial effects, a reiterated racializing practice” (5). The “historically enforced ‘feminization’ of Chinese American men” (Cheung 234) makes it impossible to discuss the problems of gender within the movie without also acknowledging issues of race, which, as Cheung notes, are “closely intertwined” (234). In this sense, the male characters in Mulan are almost more indicative of how gender is treated in the movie. Li Shang, given his status as the exemplary man in the song “I’ll Make a Man out of You,” clearly stands as the ideal for masculinity within the movie, subscribing to the kind of “very narrow conception of” male Asian identity that relies on “reinforc[ing] white male patriarchal hegemony” to

23 remasculinize the Asian male subject (Nguyen 4). He, then, works as an ostensibly anti-racist but nevertheless normative masculine male figure within the movie. The other male characters, meanwhile, are presented with varying levels of traits usually considered feminine. Chien-Po, despite his large size, is a soft and peaceful personality; Ling, despite his machismo, has a visually slight build, a high-pitched voice, and is shown to be weak and sometimes cowardly; and even Fa Zhou, Mulan’s generally exemplary father, is denied his masculine role as a soldier due to physical infirmity. Seen in the context of American representations of Asian masculinity as “both materially and psychically feminized” (Eng 2), each of these decisions becomes more important for the overall impact of the movie. Chi-Fu, of course, is a particularly notable example. He is strongly feminized throughout the movie (e.g. he even faints when the Emperor professes a preference for Mulan as an advisor over him) and cast in a villainous role, standing against Mulan at every possible turn. All the patriarchal attitudes Mulan’s society is implied to have are personified in Chi-Fu, who outright states that Mulan, being a woman, will “never be worth anything.” As a male character who is visually coded both Asian and feminine and billed as the secondary villain of the story through his prejudice, Chi-Fu’s character not only perpetuates negative stereotypes about effeminate or homosexual Asian men but also reinforces patriarchy by “slotting desirable traits … under the rubric of masculinity” (Cheung 237) and then denying him all of these traits. The other male characters in the movie, while certainly more positive as characters, do not necessarily fare much better as far as stereotyping goes. On the whole, Mulan does not do much to try and combat the stereotype of the Asian male as a feminine figure. Nonetheless, the movie does complicate the single-minded notion of this stereotype as a negative one by lending it a positive role in the narrative. Certainly, Chi-Fu in particular stands as a more uncomplicated example of negatively stereotyping an Asian male body as feminine, and he sees no redemption even at the end of the movie. Instead, he is cast aside by the emperor due to his sexism and cowardice. However, the feminine depictions of Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po are significantly more nuanced. They are never shown as being embarrassed while in female dress, nor do they express resistance to the idea of cross- dressing. Similarly, when they face the Emperor in their feminine disguise, they are neither ridiculed nor cast aside by this symbol of the ultimate male authority, which – perhaps

24 surprisingly – lends validity to the act of cross-dressing itself. This opens up new critical horizons for the movie’s treatment of gender. As Marjorie Garber notes, “one of the most important aspects of cross-dressing is the way in which it offers a challenge to easy notions of binarity, putting into question the categories of ‘female’ and ‘male,’ whether they are considered essential or constructed, biological or cultural” (10). Mulan’s crossing gendered binaries via sartorial expression enables her friends to likewise continue blending these boundaries – it is likely Mulan’s experiences in crossdressing that give her the idea to dress her friends as women. Rather than being excised or condemned by the narrative, the cross- dressing of Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po acknowledges the possibilities afforded by their ‘transgression’ into the feminine. And, indeed, it is precisely this blurring of the binary that allows Mulan and her friends to rescue the Emperor and save the day. In this manner, Mulan offers at least one way “to recover a cultural space without denigrating or erasing ‘the feminine’” that Cheung calls for (242). The movie thus delivers a potentially subversive way to treat masculinity, whether Asian or otherwise, and recuperates at least some of its feminist potential – even if this potential was unintended by the creators themselves. Mulan’s characterization and narrative work much in the same way: on the surface, they seem to strive to affirm the binary gender paradigm and normative status quo, but in fact work to challenge it in subversive ways. This should perhaps not be such a surprise – after all, Mùlán of the “Ballad” performs both her gender roles without issue. Furthermore, considering her final remark in the poem (“When the two walk side by side/ How can you tell the one from the other!” [Dong 55]), the “Ballad” seems to point toward a certain fluidity of gender roles. Disney approaches the issue from a different angle by showing Mulan struggling with both her role as a woman and as a man. Initially, this points toward the strict binary of gender roles: the movie spends a great deal of time pointing out just how different Mulan is from her brothers at arms and poking fun at male stereotypes as she tries to fit in. A particularly noteworthy display of Mulan’s apparent fundamental difference from her male companions happens during the song “A Girl Worth Fighting for.” Mulan’s expectations and worldviews are completely different from her fellow soldiers’, who simply see women as decorations or utilities. This scene also highlights the disparity in the treatment of men and women through Mulan’s reactions to the opinions of her comrades – and their reactions to hers. For much of the film, it seems like there is no opportunity for an intermediary position,

25 or something blending the two ends of the gender spectrum: gender appears strictly binary and unambiguous. However, once Mulan’s company finds itself in real combat, Mulan’s unique (among her peers) combination of abilities begins to show its possibilities. When given a chance to be the hero, Mulan does so by exhibiting not only the physical prowess and bravery she has been taught in the military, but also the inventiveness and flexibility of her former female position. She nearly defeats the entire Hun army single-handedly with the help of masculine- coded weapons (the rocket and the sword) as well as a feminine-coded behavior (seeing her reflection on the sword). When it comes time to save the Emperor, she once again blends the different skills she has learned from both sides of the supposed masculine/feminine binary: she uses the ‘invisibility’ of women to get both herself and her cross-dressing friends into the palace and combines this with the lesson about “discipline” and “strength” taught by Li Shang in the military (Mulan 37:10-36). One of her final tools for defeating Shan Yu is a fan, the quintessential symbol of coy (and Asian) femininity. Likewise, her decision to undergo the final battle in female dress rather than her perhaps more practical male disguise is not incidental, but points at the acknowledgement of the possibilities afforded to her by her blending of the gender binary. Perhaps, then, she does indeed occupy an intermediary position of some sort, and offers new possibilities for ambiguity within the gender paradigm. At the end, Mulan willingly returns to her earlier role in what amounts to Disney’s attempt to re-stabilize cultural notions of gender for the audience. Although she is unhappy with the societal expectations for women, she is still more comfortable presenting herself as a woman, and does not attempt to return to her male disguise after she is first found out. This, perhaps, points to a deliberate move by Disney to curtail the ambiguity of gender opened up by the cross-dressing in the movie. At the same time, Mulan also never returns to her original dress, and wears darker, more masculine colors for the remainder of the movie. Similarly, her shorter haircut cannot be undone, and thus her appearance remains altered from what it was in the beginning of the movie. Visually, this appears to be something like a reconciliation of her two previous roles: the shorter hair and darker colors of the soldier Ping combined with the feminine dress and silhouette of the daughter Mulan. As such, while she does apparently return to her original role, she is clearly changed by her experiences, and consequently she retains at least of some of the gendered ambiguity the narrative has afforded her.

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In a more conspicuous move to curtail this ambiguity, Disney also works to re- domesticate Mulan and solidify her conventional role as a cis straight woman within the presumed binary gender paradigm by pairing her off with the male lead at the end of the movie. Certainly, Mulan manages to avoid the Disney trope of ending the movie in a wedding dress, but the final exchange between Li Shang, Mulan, and her family is clear enough on the fact that she is very much interested in Shang, and that the interest is mutual. She is thus safely paired off in a heterosexual relationship, containing some of the potential ambiguity that might otherwise be caused by her unusual gender expression or history of cross-dressing. Whether Disney makes this move as a nod to their previous pattern of ending their movies on a romance, or as an attempt to affirm Mulan’s status as an uncomplicated, conventionally female role model for children is less clear, but the end result is the same: despite her initial rebellion, Mulan ultimately remains generally within the borders of conventional and culturally accepted paradigms of gender and sexuality. Although the intentions behind refocusing the story on gender roles are primarily concerned with providing young girls with “a great role model” (Dong 186) vis-à-vis self- discovery and fulfillment, it is nevertheless significant that Disney chose to explore American cultural issues in the context of a Chinese folk tale. In taking Mulan’s character and her decision to join the army in her father’s place – which, in Chinese interpretations, is seen as motivated by her filial piety, “the supreme virtue of children in traditional Chinese culture” (Tian and Xiong 872) – and appropriating them to engage in a Western dialogue on society and patriarchy, Disney further domesticates the folk tale. As a movie that is inextricably tied to the American cultural sphere, it is clear that the gender roles and attitudes criticized in the movie apply to the American society more so than the Chinese. However, in treating the subject through a Chinese story, with an all-Chinese-coded cast, the concerns are externalized to a different society altogether. While this may indeed provide some useful distance that can even prove productive in the discussion of a complicated subject like gender roles, it risks vilifying the culture onto which the concerns have been projected. As testament to this, some of the details, such as the death penalty for Mulan dressing as a man, are not generally present in any of the Chinese versions of the story but are instead added to the Disney version to increase the stakes for Mulan’s actions – and for the general discussion of gender roles as a whole. As such, Disney manipulates the parameters of the story to best

27 deliver what is considered the message of the movie, and in the process assigns values and practices to the facsimile of a historical Chinese society that may not have any basis in truth. The (American) narrative is then more important than the (Chinese) context. Here, too, the transculturation of Mulan’s tale works to Americanize both the character and the context of her story. To be accepted as a mainstream American movie, Mulan’s central conflict has to be engaged with something Americans can identify with. As Chu puts it, “stories of individual subject formation must fit, or at best challenge, recognized forms” (8). Even as Mulan’s overall message challenges the norms of patriarchy, it must still engage with its subject matter in accepted forms which are “negotiated in relation to public accounts defining the nation” (Chu 8) – in this case, the story of the self-made (wo)man. This attempted – if somewhat unsuccessful – thematic shift towards (white) feminism then helps define and disseminate the national spirit even as it seeks to challenge parts of it. Overall, the shift in Mulan’s character makes her read as more culturally American, further assisting in her own domestication into the American national spirit.

THE DISNEY FORMULA – ADAPTING TALES FOR CHILDREN Along with the general Americanization of the Mùlán legend, Disney also changes the context of the tale by adapting it specifically for children. Considering that the story of Mùlán has traditionally been adapted for adults in the Chinese cultural context, Disney’s decision to make it into a children’s movie becomes especially interesting. Although the full implications of this decision are unclear, it gives rise to some important questions. Firstly, what are the implications of such a transculturated adaptation for the child audience? Secondly, how does the change in target audience affect the folk tale itself? Considering the prevalence of ‘ethnic’ or ‘multicultural’ folk tales being adapted for child audiences in contemporary American society – or Western societies in general – these questions become especially important. While much academic work has gone into finding out how child audiences respond to these transculturated tales, it seems that the question of how it has affected the stories themselves has been largely neglected. When it comes to the long-standing effects children’s consumption of transculturated adaptations such as Mulan, the answer is twofold. On one hand, there is a wealth of

28 scholarship examining the effect of “multicultural” or foreign folktales on children. For example, M. J. Fitzgerald discusses both how multicultural folktales show monocultural children “that the literary conventions used in [folktales] transcend national and cultural boundaries” as well as how they “provide an anchor and a crutch for newly arrived ethnic minority group children” (15). Complicating this perhaps one-sided view is Chu, who points out that “the American literary canon has come to function as a site for debate about the nature and proper boundaries of American identity” (8), which she argues holds especially true for bildungsroman-style narratives – a category into which Disney’s version of Mulan, as a form of coming-of-age story, easily fits. In other words, as the multicultural folktale is assimilated into the national canon of children’s literature, it, too, becomes a vessel of this debate on national identity. In essence, this makes it one of the many pieces of media subtly involved in the introduction and, ultimately, the indoctrination of children into the national spirit and citizenship. The domesticated, “ethnic” folktale can then be both potentially beneficial as a symbol of diversity, and yet problematic in its unavoidably normative indoctrination of the child audience – what Tian and Xiong call “the double face of transculturation” (872). Although Mulan was not the first non-white Disney heroine, having been preceded by Aladdin’s Jasmine in 1992 and Pocahontas in 1995, her addition into the Disney canon of protagonists as an unequivocally Chinese-coded heroine was a significant and much-needed step away from the hegemonic whiteness of children’s entertainment. Still, much like the two earlier Disney movies depicting nonwhite protagonists, Mulan’s Americanization leaves little room for depiction of cultural diversity, and the coding of the characters remains almost exclusively a matter of aesthetics. For example, an important aspect of the folktale’s domestication into the American cultural sphere is the language used in the film. Rather than appearing as a Chinese text translated into English, the script of the movie is domesticized to the point of being idiomatically American, with language-specific puns and other culturally charged language. Whether this linguistic move targets children or simply American audiences in general, it is nevertheless a significant factor in how the movie is received. Through this linguistic transformation, Mulan’s tale is what Lowe calls a tale “dreamed in a common language” (2) for the benefit of the American viewer. The linguistic obfuscation of Mulan’s Chineseness

29 becomes especially apparent in Tian and Xiong’s examination of the differences in the original script and that of the Mandarin Chinese dub of Mulan. Superficially, the original script contains some markings of what is generally accepted to mean ‘Chineseness:’ the characters have Chinese names, with the last name given first, and several lines contain thematically “Chinese” sayings. However, many of these only have the appearance of Chineseness, and are not recognizable as idioms or names in any Chinese language. An example of this is the Emperor’s remark that “a single grain of rice can tip the scale” (Mulan 02:55-02:58) – an invented idiom that is notably missing from the Mandarin Chinese dub of the movie, where it is instead replaced with an idiomatic Mandarin Chinese expression (Tian and Xiong 870). Many of the puns included in the script are also specifically English, and not necessarily even translatable into Chinese, such as the question Mushu uses to dodge Chi- fu’s surprise in seeing a soldier riding a giant panda: “You’ve never seen a ‘black and white’ before?” (Mulan 44:48-45:02). Through this Anglocentric writing, several points in the movie become culturally charged and marked as American: these include repeatedly titling the Emperor as “Your Majesty,” in the British style; Chien-Po’s barely recognizable Buddhist chant (Mulan 29:10-15); and even Grandma Fa’s prayer to the Ancestors, which sounds strange and unidiomatic to a Chinese viewer (Tian and Xiong 868). In short, despite their ethnic marking, the characters in Mulan – including the titular character herself – do not sound Chinese, but instead speak in a way that is instantly recognizable to an American viewership. This linguistic distancing from the characters’ Chineseness provides yet another point of identification with the project of assimilation. Notably, however, some of the English voice actors – many of whom are Chinese-American – make an effort to infuse their performance with a sense of cultural Chineseness. Whether this is an effort to make the movie more culturally “authentic” or to work their own sense of culture into the script is unclear. An example of this is Ming-Na Wen’s performance as the voice of Mulan: when Mulan realizes she’s late for her meeting with her mother, she exclaims: “Ai yah!” (Mulan). Ultimately, however, despite the thematically and superficially “Chinese” language of the movie and the contributions of the voice-acting cast, the Chinese characters in Mulan speak idiomatic American English, fulfilling the cultural desire for a common language with the

30 successfully assimilated immigrant. Language, then, is not a meaningful vector of difference in the movie. While Mulan may be unambiguously Chinese, if all vectors of difference are stripped besides her raced appearance, does her presence in the Disney canon increase diversity in any meaningful way? In striving for visually recognizable ethnic markings, both Mulan’s physical appearance and her surroundings are coded Chinese: Mulan has eyes that are both black and slanted, her hair is black, and her nose is small. She is surrounded by dragons, bamboo, and tea, and she writes in hanzi. All of these are commonly accepted or even stereotypical visual markers of Chineseness, making Disney’s depiction of Mulan a visual account of perceived race. However, this depiction is by its very nature oversimplified and fundamentally harmful, for the reality of ethnic difference is “inscribed in the subtle qualities of social relationships, social activities and the arrangement of space, making it inextricably part of the texture of everyday life” (Knowles 513). Instead of acknowledging the many- faceted and deeply personal effects of ethnicity on Mulan’s character and the world around her, Disney simply reduces her racial identity to aesthetics – she still perceives the world as though she were American, and more specifically white American, through her individualism and journey of self-discovery. Considering these changes, it is difficult to see Mulan adding to the ‘diversity’ of characters in the Disney canon in any meaningful way. The second and more complicated question about adapting the tale for children concerns the effect of the format and target audience of the adaptation on the folktale itself. How does it change the Mùlán legend to be retold for children? As a story that has traditionally been retold to adult audiences, “The Ballad of Mùlán” has a scope different from what is common for children’s stories, especially in America. It takes Mùlán ten (or twelve) years to achieve recognition in the military and return home (Dong 54). In effect, she sacrifices her youth for the sake of her family. As an 87-minute children’s movie, the duration of her military career is shortened from years to perhaps only months – although the duration of Mulan’s service seems to be intentionally left vague – and consequently the significance of her actions is changed. The focus of the story is also shifted from Mulan’s motivation and the consequence of her actions to her actions themselves. In the “Ballad,” we never see the heroics that lead to Mùlán’s decoration as a military officer, while the Disney movie constructs a brand new plotline to serve as the climax of the movie so that the viewer

31 gets to actually see what it is that Mulan does to earn her reward. This shifts the focus from the reward itself – and Mulan’s choice to return home – to the heroic actions she takes to reach it, which takes attention away from the more philosophical implications of the story in favor of action. In essence, the change into what is explicitly a children’s story dramatically simplifies the narrative, potentially changing the way both the folktale and its original context are understood in the target culture. Continuously repackaging ethnic or foreign cultural folktales for children sends a problematic message about the status of these tales on the stage of national culture, no matter how benevolently the tales are presented. Regardless of the level of “authenticity” or respect these retellings and translations aim for, the fact that they are aimed explicitly at children implies an infantilization of foreign folktales – a topic that appears to be woefully under- researched at the moment. For the American audience – or, indeed, the Western audience as a whole – folktales and creation myths from other cultures serve a convenient role of educating children about the curiosities of ethnic difference. They are not, it seems, generally worth adapting for adult audiences, despite this being the key demographic for adaptations of the Mùlán legend in China (see Introduction). This type of repeated pattern in cultural adaptations shows an underlying line of thought I find deeply troubling. While they may, indeed, serve as great educational material for children if adapted correctly, restricting folktales and legends from foreign cultures into literary genres on the margins sends entirely the wrong message about inclusivity and diversity. Instead of painting foreign or ethnic tales as worthwhile literary material, adapting them exclusively for children infantilizes and essentializes the ethnic difference represented. Important folk legends from other cultures then become nothing more than fairy tales used to facilitate a “culturally diverse” education for children within the white hegemony. Demoted from a cultural legend into a simple tool, these adaptations reinforce the view that even culturally or historically important tales and legends are fit for consumption only by children, having no cultural or “serious” value for adults in the United States. Although the Disney Corporation set out to adapt “The Ballad of Mùlán” with an intent to represent diversity and multiculturality within their canon, the ways in which the narrative is thematically simplified and culturally adapted carries a tone of condescension – the implicit suggestion that, in order to become a part of the American cultural sphere, the

32 story of Mùlán needs to be not only culturally hybridized but also infantilized and offered for a primarily child audience. This aspect of the relationship between the ethnic folktale and the child audience seems to be largely overlooked in current scholarship on folktales, which focuses primarily on the child’s perspective. It seems, however, that the folktales themselves, as well as the ways they are received in the target culture, are also affected by this systematic pattern of adapting “foreign” stories primarily if not exclusively for children, and is perhaps something to focus future research on. Nevertheless, Mulan’s transformation from a patriotic Chinese hero into a role model for American children has seen her story and character simplified in ways that, while generally in line with the “Disney formula,” serve to make her Americanization more thorough and conspicuous.

ON THE DARK SIDE OF DIVERSITY: RACIAL CAPITALISM An interesting question, then, is what Disney’s intentions were in adapting Mulan in this way – or, indeed, in adapting it at all. While their decision to depict a female action hero or an unambiguously East Asian hero might be seen as a socially progressive move, it is important to keep in mind the forces that guide the actions of a market giant such as Disney. As their decisions are ultimately predicated on questions of profit, questions that may otherwise be simple – such as the positivity of Mulan’s status as a Chinese Disney heroine – become much more complicated. As Leong observes, “In a society preoccupied with diversity, nonwhiteness is a valuable commodity” (2154). As a company spearheaded by primarily white men, Disney’s participation in the push for diversity risks commodifying racial difference as simply another trinket to be profited off of. Rather than amounting to a progressive move, something that pushes the accepted borders of children’s entertainment outward from their accepted position (which carries an inherent risk in terms of appealing to the majority) Disney’s inclusion of Mulan really just constitutes a response to an existing demand for more diversity. In this sense, the movie’s attempt to visually represent China and Chineseness “authentically” becomes a more interesting – and all the more problematic – choice: Disney is presenting a quintessentially American tale dressed up in an imitation of historical China. The movie, then, becomes a case of “[preserving] the form of the old in the context-content of the new” (Trinh 102). What is ostensibly “traditional” or “authentic” about the movie is nothing but an empty visual signifier, harnessed for the forces of profit

33 rather than cultural meaning. The visuals are important for providing a sense of exoticness for the audience to consume more so than they are for providing a sense of difference for the audience to contemplate and understand. If representations of diversity are reduced to a for- profit commodity, can they really be positive? To be sure, the film does offer a respite from the hegemonic whiteness of children’s entertainment in America. While Disney may be engaging in this type of representation out of a desire for profit, the immense reach and market force of a giant like Disney can still work to legitimize the presence of East Asians on the big screen. As a testament to the more positive aspects of this kind of move, Disney did include a primarily Asian-American voice cast for the movie, thus providing more reach to an otherwise underrepresented section of American actors. As discussed before, this allowed cast members of Chinese descent to reclaim some of the cultural and linguistic aspects of the movie. Furthermore, the effect of the characters represented to the child audience – some of whom may never have seen an East Asian character star as the hero of a movie before – should not be easily discounted. To have representation is powerful – that much can be said with confidence. What appears less clear is whether having this type of ultimately shallow representation, perhaps positive but generally lacking in any meaningful depiction of difference, really benefits the children consuming mainstream entertainment. In this sense, it seems that Mulan aims itself more at the white child curious of the world than the Asian-American child looking for a point of identification. How this type of cultural product affects either child viewer, however, is a question for a different project altogether. Whether Mulan is seen as a herald of new hybrid transculturality or a nefarious case of cultural appropriation for profit, it is plain that the movie’s depiction of the titular character is more as an American hero than as a Chinese one. Despite her racial coding as Chinese, Mulan acts and speaks in ways consistent with her subject formation as an American national citizen – or, following the thoughts of Lowe and Chu and as her racial coding suggests, as a successfully assimilated Asian immigrant. In this sense, the resolution of the movie becomes especially interesting – not only does Mulan, as the self-made (wo)man, overcome the limitations of her patriarchal society, but she also chooses to remain within the movie’s depiction of monocultural China. Despite her near-perfect assimilation into the American cultural sphere, Mulan remains safely outside its constructed borders even

34 at the conclusion of her story. Although the multicultural aesthetic and attempted appeal to a more international audience Mulan’s character brings to the Disney canon is undeniably real, the movie fails to challenge the monocultural status quo of American children’s movie canon in any significant way. As an American movie, Disney’s Mulan works very comfortably within the generally accepted parameters of national culture. Mulan herself overcomes her challenges by trusting in her independence and her abilities, and forces the surrounding society to accept her for what she is once she has completed her journey of self-discovery. As an idiomatically English-speaking, self-made (wo)man advocating for personal liberty, Mulan adheres to the American ideals of national citizenship and even transforms the imaginary China that is her home into a more Americanized society by the end. Undoubtedly her inclusion in the Disney canon, and especially the wildly successful Disney Princess line of products, is culturally important, and has been a much-needed push towards new forms of genuinely multicultural and diverse forms of children’s entertainment. It is definitely not my intention to diminish the importance of a cultural giant like the Disney Corporation depicting an unambiguously Chinese-coded heroine in a mainstream blockbuster, especially as Asian-American actors still struggle to get lead roles in mainstream movies almost 20 years later. However, the decision to Americanize the Chinese character of Mùlán, and especially to adapt the previously age-neutral folk story specifically for children, is not without its problematic consequences. Disney’s Mulan, as she emerges from the process of transcultural adaptation, is a great example of the idealized assimilation process of the Asian immigrant arriving in America – outwardly marked as a minority, but functionally American in all questions of culture, identity, and values.

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CHAPTER 3

WILD ORCHID: MULAN RETOLD AS A FAIRYTALE

Cameron Dokey’s Wild Orchid appeared in 2009 as a part of the Once Upon a Time series published by Simon Pulse, a children’s literature imprint of Simon & Schuster. Capitalizing on both the now-teenage audience brought up on Disney’s versions of fairytales and the booming fairytale retelling craze, the series ran from 2002 to 2010, after which it seems to have quietly stopped publishing new books. While many recent fairytale retellings seek to transform old stories “in the form of parodies, updates, role reversals, sequels, and prequels” (Joosen 2), the Once Upon a Time retellings tend to stick closely to existing fairytale tropes and the original material, emphasizing romantic themes and the triumph of good over evil. To cater to the target audience – given in many of the books as grades 7-9 and up – the main characters tend to be teenage girls. Most books in the series retell European fairytales, such as “The Frog Prince” in Water Song (2006) by Suzanne Weyn and “The Snow Queen” in Winter’s Child (2009), also by Cameron Dokey. In this sense, Wild Orchid, as a retelling of a traditional Chinese tale, is an outlier in the series.4 Amidst the overwhelmingly Euro-American lineup of the Once Upon a Time series, the inclusion of the Mùlán tales becomes a conspicuous move with two primary potential outcomes: either as a positive depiction of diversity that enriches the YA fairytale retelling lineup, or a shallow gesture toward inclusivity to ward off criticism.

4 It is accompanied only by The Storyteller’s Daughter (2002), a retelling of The Arabian Nights and the first book of the series, also written by Cameron Dokey

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It perhaps comes as no surprise that the end result is the latter. Wild Orchid, as seen through its central themes and the transformations of the story and the characters, is a perfect example of American media in which difference is only skin deep. As an adaptation of the Mùlán folktale, Wild Orchid is inevitably involved in the discussion of cultural diversity and representation of difference in children’s and YA literature. It is, after all, a specifically Chinese folktale being retold for a young American audience. And, indeed, throughout the narrative Dokey often underlines the fact that the story is set in China and the characters are, supposedly, Chinese. At the same time, however, the narrative conventions of the fairytale format, familiar from Euro-American fairytales and their retellings, make sure that the narrative never feels truly foreign to the American audience. Any depiction of difference, whether cultural, racial, or sexual, remains on a superficial, purely aesthetic level. This cannot be incidental, especially considering the track record of the Once Upon a Time series, which consists almost exclusively of romantic retellings of Euro-American fairytales with such gems as a colonial retelling of Beauty and the Beast in which a handsome Mahican man takes the role of the Beast, apparently by virtue of his racial otherness. The Mulan of Wild Orchid be ostensibly Chinese, but her values, sensibilities, and central problems are all quintessentially American. Since Mulan’s identity is in no way impacted by the visible markers of difference she carries, this is hardly the YA novel celebrating “diversity” it perhaps attempts to be. Rather, the whole book exemplifies racial capitalism as discussed by Nancy Leong in her writing (see Introduction). Trinh Minh-Ha also addresses this kind of phenomenon, in which “authenticity … turns out to be a product that one can buy, arrange to one’s liking, and/or preserve” (88). And, indeed, there are some explicit attempts at “authenticity” in Wild Orchid, but these are superficial at best, there to provide exotic flavor and very little else. Mulan’s Chineseness is commodified for the social value of “difference.” The publisher, Simon Pulse, gets to collect their bonus points for “diversity,” and their fairytale series gets to add another Euro-American fairytale to its line- up without bringing up difficult issues or raising any eyebrows. Indeed, it seems that Wild Orchid actively avoids engaging with any difficult topics, even when it comes to the feminism that other Western adaptations of Mulan have been engaged with. The novel makes a cursory attempt at acknowledging the unfairness of the gender roles it presents. It even offers the possibility for interpreting Mulan as queer through

37 her relationship with her stepmother. Since the text removes strong familiar relationships as a motivating force for Mulan, introducing the stepmother as a girl worth fighting for offers vast critical potential for discussing gender, gender roles, and queerness within the narrative. This also introduces a new type of ‘wildness’ into the story, one suggesting that Mulan cannot quite be contained by her normative society. However, most of the critical opportunities that arise are quickly snuffed out by the normativity of the narrative itself. Despite Mulan’s apparent reluctance to marry and general desire to live her life as she chooses, she ends up falling in love with a prince at first sight and ends up safely, heteronormatively married by the end of the narrative. Notably, she does leave her ‘civilized’ society behind, thus retaining a small crumb of her previous wildness. To further curtail the text’s critical or subversive potential, the author makes sure to underline Mulan’s special qualities, enforcing the view that she is an exceptional woman and thus not subject to the normal limitations on women within her imagined society. The tone makes sure that the reader never mistakes Mulan’s journey as one to prove women’s worth, but one to prove her personal worth as an exceptional, if unusual, woman. This new vision of Mulan, then, looks much like the cover art for the book: an ethnically ambiguous, white-passing woman on an exotic backdrop and ambiguously gendered clothing. The narrative presents difference as purely a question of aesthetics and depicts its racialized, gender-nonconforming, potentially queer protagonist as little else than a mouthpiece for Orientalist ideologies. At the same time, the narrative hints at queerness that isn’t quite contained by the overt normativity imposed upon it, particularly in its treatment of Mulan’s relationship with her stepmother. Despite its attempts to force Mulan’s tale into a normative, Euro-American mold, Wild Orchid does contain a ‘wildness’ that the Orientalist ideologies and normative gender policies aren’t quite enough to tame despite their best attempts. The end result is a text that is rife with subversive potential and feminist themes that is all the more frustrating for containing so much potential only to see it never pay off.

MULAN TURNS TO ROMANCE As a novel for teens, Wild Orchid changes the emphasis of the Mùlán legend to focus more on individual growth and romance. Mulan begins her first-person narrative by referring

38 directly to the “Ballad of Mulan” as a popular song. Within a single passage, Mulan admits she is “not yet twenty” (Dokey 1) and is legendary in China, implying her actions have gained her near-instant fame. The beginning of the novel is highly introspective, with Mulan ruminating on her feelings and recounting anecdotes from her childhood, using the animals of the Chinese zodiac to explain her qualities. She reveals that she did not know her parents growing up, because her father was off fighting in wars and her mother died in childbirth (Dokey 6). Growing up, she dislikes women’s tasks and instead likes to learn writing and archery from her friend and neighbor, Li Po. When, in her teens, her father finally does return, she makes a less-than-ideal first impression by falling out of a tree in front of him (Dokey 49), causing her relationship with the previously absent father to grow even more strained. Eventually, she begins to grow closer to her father, only to be foiled by her stepmother-to-be arriving in the house. Despite the difficulties, however, Mulan makes friends with her new stepmother, Zao Xing, and fully endorses her father’s remarriage. When Mulan’s father is summoned to war as a foot soldier, she decides to protect her newfound family’s happiness by dressing up as a man and going to war in his place. Here, the book’s debt to Disney’s Mulan becomes increasingly clear. As occurs in the Disney movie, the tomboy Mulan runs away in the night to prevent her family from stopping her. She rides to the muster camp and gives the officials a fake name (Gong-Shi, the meaning for which is given as “Bow-and-Arrow”) with her real last name. However, her war horse, stolen from her ex-general father, arouses suspicions, and she ends up needing Li Po’s help to clear the suspicion. As such, she is essentially found out as soon as she arrives in the army, although both Li Po and his superior, General Yuwen, decide to protect her secret. She is assigned to the archery corps, under Li Po’s command, and consequently meets Prince Jian in person in archery practice. In the middle of shooting with him, she suddenly hears his heartbeat, “pounding out a rhythm a perfect match to [her] own” (Dokey 136). Effectively, it is love at first sight. Prince Jian, unaware that Mulan is female, takes a shine to her archery skills and decides to involve her in an important strategy meeting with the three imperial Princes and the generals. She, of course, ends up blurting out the strategy that will solve all their problems, and ends up turning down the chance to command this new mission in favor of Li Po. Her strategy turns out to be a success, and she single-handedly kills the Hun leader with a

39 sole arrow, although she does almost die in the process. She wakes up, days later, to discover that Li Po has died and she has been found out for a woman, making her bourgeoning relationship with Prince Jian suddenly awkward. The Emperor arrives to give her a favor, and she instead asks him to give the favor to a person of her choosing. When he agrees, she hands the wish over to Prince Jian, who wishes to not become an emperor after his father. The Emperor praises Mulan’s wisdom, Prince Jian thanks her and reveals that he is also in love with her, and the story ends with Mulan and Prince Jian getting married in a small ceremony at her family’s house, where Mulan’s baby brother is growing strong. The romantic subplot between Mulan and Prince Jian takes up the foreground of the story, almost supplanting the main plot of saving China. This is especially apparent in Mulan’s final choice. Unlike the “Ballad,” this Mulan doesn’t ask for a fast horse home, but instead gives her one wish away for her love interest’s happiness. Prince Jian is often also her primary motivation throughout the later events of the novel. While she starts her journey out of feelings of duty toward her family and a wish to better herself, her narrative quickly becomes consumed by the search for romantic love as well as the resulting depression when this love seems impossible. An especially conspicuous display of the all-consuming nature of the romance over Mulan’s character occurs with the climax of the story. As in previous versions and the source material, the Emperor gives Mulan her reward – in this case, “the first wish of her heart” (Dokey 182). However, instead of refusing the reward and simply asking to go back home to her family, this version of Mulan chooses to bestow her reward on her love interest. When asked what her wish is, she realizes that it is to be with Prince Jian, but, assuming Prince Jian does not reciprocate these feelings, she decides she “cannot wish for love … but [she] can wish because of it” (Dokey 183). As a result, Prince Jian is instead given the first wish of his heart – in this case, avoiding the throne. The romance plot has changed Mulan’s narrative to such an extreme degree that she hands away its climax. The change in focus to romance, and its resulting changes to the narrative, completely re-contextualize Mulan’s tale. Mulan, as a character, is no longer the family-oriented, dutiful daughter who unwillingly leaves her domestic sphere and, at the conclusion of her story, wishes to be restored to her family. Wild Orchid’s Mulan is a character without close family relationships, so her motivations are necessarily placed somewhere else. However, instead of this becoming a liberating move that removes the character from her subservient position in

40 the patriarchy, she simply switches oppressors. Mulan giving her wish away to Prince Jian amounts to a narrative reinstatement of the patriarchal order that Mulan initially escapes in her disguise as a man. The fact that she gives her agency away so willingly, and that this is portrayed as a virtuous move by the narrative (the Emperor outright compliments her twice on her choice [Dokey 183, 186]) is troubling, especially in a YA novel aimed at young women. By the end of her story, Mulan seems to be entirely defined by her romantic affiliation with – indeed, her romantic enthrallment to – Prince Jian. Once their mutual affection is confirmed, the handful of conversations that Mulan has with her family, especially her stepmother, are centered on marriage and the prospect of having children. The novel ends with Mulan and Prince Jian, now married, riding towards their shared future through a forest filled with wild orchids (Dokey 199). Incidentally, in this final scene, her namesake flowers change, like Mulan herself, from suggesting an interpretation of difference and nonconformity to symbolizing normativity and domesticity. While this type of ending may be a fitting one for a fairytale narrative, it is perhaps less fitting as the final resolution for a gender-nonconforming female character. The first half of the novel expends great effort in painting Mulan as a tomboy. For instance, she is a girl who would rather climb trees than do her embroidery. She is also motherless and thus without an appropriate female role model, which is a key characteristic from which “tomboyism … emerges” (Abate xix) in tomboy narratives. Almost every facet of the young Mulan’s character points toward her gender-nonconformity and unconventional desires, such as her general lack of interest in marriage and family. Why, then, does the narrative introduce this emerging queerness only to resolve it by forcing Mulan into the heteronormative, patriarchal relationship she initially wishes to avoid? This is a common feature of tomboy narratives, especially ones written for younger readers. As Michelle Ann Abate explains: “In spite of the libratory potential and personal benefits of tomboyism, it is not often seen as a lifelong identity … Indeed, while tomboy narratives are often seen as critiquing women’s traditional gender roles, many eventually capitulate to them” (xix-xx). This is precisely how the characterization of Mulan in Wild Orchid ultimately works. While it undeniably pays lip service to challenging gender roles and norms, and even flirts with queerness in terms of Mulan’s future plans prior to her military career, it nevertheless ends up reinforcing them through Mulan’s seemingly inevitable heterosexual coupling.

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This is further made troubling by the apparent power imbalance at play in her relationship with Prince Jian. Not only is he royalty, but also at least nine years older than the 15- or 16-year-old Mulan. This type of age pattern is common in older versions of fairytales, and in that regard perhaps pays homage to the fusion fairytale origins of Wild Orchid. However, in a narrative specifically about an independent young woman and clearly intended to contain a message about ‘girl power,’ this age and power imbalance of the “happy ending” seems misguided at best. It is especially conspicuous when the source material neither contains a romance at all nor implies Mulan to be a teenager. Combined with the teenage target audience, the message this new dynamic sends about healthy relationships is troubling, if not outright toxic. This harmful message is further driven by the other “happy couple” in the narrative: Zao Xing, the hyperfeminine stepmother, is implied to be of a similar age to Mulan, while Mulan’s father is middle-aged. Their somewhat hasty relationship is presented in an unambiguously positive light – as a union of true love, even. This union is also proven fruitful in the most desirable way when Zao Xing becomes pregnant almost immediately and later gives birth to a son. The age imbalance of the relationship is never pointed out or discussed in the novel, leading to an oversimplified adulation of idealized romantic relationships founded on “true love,” regardless of what other factors may be in play that complicate such a situation. Such a simplified view of heterosexual romantic love then ends up transforming the novel’s message to a troubling one: it is acceptable for the teenage heroine to be removed from her family and existing support network completely for the sake of the much-older love interest, because their relationship is one of “true love.” This concept of “true love,” a conspicuous Euro-American fairytale trope notably very much absent in Chinese adaptations, shows up again and again in the narrative. It is first introduced with Mulan’s origin story in the first chapter, wherein readers learn that the reason Mulan is “different from even before [she] drew that first breath … different in [her] very blood” because her parents “married for love” (Dokey 6). As Mulan explains it, this was only possible for them because her father did a great service to the Emperor and was allowed to choose any reward he wished. In this case, it was to marry his sweetheart. Throughout the novel, this type of marriage – a marriage of love – is portrayed as something generally disdained by the society as something “not to be desired” and “unnatural” as “it complicated more things than it solved” (Dokey 15). Mulan’s father even wonders if it was their marriage

42 for love that drove Mulan’s mother to her early grave (Dokey 82-83). However, the narrative itself seems to disagree with his interpretation of “true love” as harmful, since Mulan’s special qualities are directly attributed to the ‘unusual’ relationship between her parents. Additionally, all major characters – Mulan, Prince Jian, Mulan’s father (twice), and Xao Zing – marry precisely for love, completely ignoring the principles of advantageous union between families that the “Chinese” society around them holds important. While this may be entirely in line with common Euro-American fairytale narratives, it becomes a very problematic choice in a novel that depicts a “foreign” society with which (presumably) neither the author nor most of the readership have intimate familiarity with. As the market forces of the YA marketplace aim this type of story toward a white, teenage readership, this means that the novel simply perpetuates the ways in which white Western media customarily speaks about romantic love. The priorities of the society within the book become secondary to the priorities of the reader, and so the romance is comfortably domesticized to the white, Western cultural sphere it aims for. While the romantic elements are not altogether new or unique to this adaptation, the narrative in Wild Orchid emphasizes them much more than other American adaptations. It remains unclear whether this addition is trying to improve on the elements Disney had previously added to the story, or if it simply attempts to pander to the young female target audience of YA fairytale retellings. Many European fairytales – especially the ones that get retold over and over again – have a strong romantic element, after all. It is possible that Dokey makes this effort to add romantic love as a prominent theme to better fit the narrative into the themes of the Once Upon a Time series. This seems especially likely considering the emphasis on “true love.” When Mulan and Prince Jian share a kiss she describes it as “a kiss of true love” (Dokey 195) in the tried-and-true fairytale fashion. The changes in the story allow readers familiar with the fairytale form of narrative to find additional points of identification or familiarity, such as the prince or the concept of “true love,” but ends up obfuscating and outright removing themes that were considered important in Chinese adaptations. In Wild Orchid, it appears that the conventions and politics of the narrative form – as well as the time and place of publication –supersede any attempt at depicting cultural difference.

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ORPHAN MULAN AND ETHNIC AMBIGUITY While the setting points to Mulan’s identity as ethnically Chinese, very little in the narrative itself actually supports her ethnic, racial, or cultural identity as a Chinese woman. Certainly, the novel describes her as looking Chinese: her hair looks “like a river of ink” (Dokey 19) and when the narrative talks about her clothing, she is said to wear traditional Chinese garments. However, her physical appearance gets very little attention. This stands in stark contrast with many other similar YA romances, where the narrative makes a point to discuss the main character’s looks, as in the case of the Twilight saga or even the Hunger Games series. Interesting, too, is the publisher’s choice of cover illustration for the paperback edition. A young woman dressed in a padded jacket, wide belt, and black pants, stands in front of a background of plum flowers with a bow in her hand (see fig. 2). The obvious implication is that the cover depicts the Chinese main character, but the woman pictured, with her pale skin and round eyes, appears racially ambiguous. From the very beginning, then, Mulan’s ethnicity represents itself with a level of ambiguity. Combined with many of the details in the narrative, such as Mulan celebrating her birthdays, contrary to Chinese traditions (Dokey 12, 14); talking back to her father much like a modern American teenager might (51); or standing, instead of kowtowing, in the presence of the Emperor (182), not many aspects of ethnic or cultural difference remain for the character to exemplify. Most of the thematic elements present in Chinese adaptations appear missing altogether in Wild Orchid – these are instead replaced with tropes from Euro-American fairytales. Instead of being a site for exploring concepts like duty, filial piety, or gender, Mulan’s character becomes engaged with the concepts of destiny, true love, and proving oneself to the society. All these themes help align her more closely with Western values and ideals, particularly those of the traditional Euro-American fairytale narrative, and thus work to distance her from the themes considered important in the Chinese adaptations.

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Mulan’s ethnic and cultural ambiguity is further enhanced by her orphanhood. In Wild Orchid, Mulan spends the majority of her life with no meaningful familial relationships: her mother died in childbirth, and her father is permanently absent from her life. The older sister and younger brother she has in the “Ballad” are likewise missing at the outset, although she does finally see the birth of her brother at the end of the narrative. Mulan comments on her family situation herself: “I had no cousins to run with, no aunties to help raise me, no

Figure 2 The cover art for Wild Orchid uncles to manage my father’s estate while he was away fighting the Huns. … Save for my father, I had no one.” (Dokey 16). This lack of family is by far the most conspicuous change to Mulan’s narrative considering the heavy focus on familial relationships in both the original “Ballad” and almost all adaptations, Chinese and otherwise. Considering the other new elements included in the novel, such as “true love” and the stepmother, Mulan’s orphanhood appears to be yet another device to make the narrative more consistent with Euro-American

45 fairytales, especially as the orphan hero is a very prevalent trope in these tales (Kimball 559). It also works to advance the romantic plot of the story: with no family to hold her back, Mulan is free to bind herself to whomever she chooses. The effect of Mulan’s orphanhood is twofold. Firstly, as an orphan, she serves as a “[symbol] of human individuality, independence, and strength” (Nelson 79) or a representation of “the possibility for humans to reinvent themselves” (Kimball 559). In short, as an orphan hero, she functions as a blank slate, unencumbered by family expectations or prescribed destinies. This becomes important with her upbringing. In the absence of a mother or a father, she is educated and influenced by her servant, Min Xian, and her best friend, Li Po. Li Po is particularly influential on her, since, perhaps due to his young age, he does not deny her access to the more masculine aspects of his own education, but instead actively helps her in “learning how to read and write, to shoot a bow and arrow, and to ride a horse” (Dokey 13) as well as teaching her sword fighting. Without restrictive family influences, Mulan is free to choose which activities to dedicate her time to. At one point, she is frustrated with her more feminine chore of embroidery, and thinks, “What difference did it make that I was trying hard to learn my lessons? Trying to make my absent father proud?” (Dokey 21). Concluding that her father will never return to see her accomplishments, she leaves her embroidery and runs outside to be taught to write by Li Po. In this sense, she is, much like other orphan heroines like Katniss Everdeen, “in an especially good position to challenge the traditional gender binary” as her absent father enables her “stepping into the role vacated by their lost parent and exhibiting stereotypically masculine traits” (Bewley 373). As an orphan without family obligations, Mulan is free to be a tomboy and fulfill her desire for more masculine activities. Some of this freedom leads to the second effect of her orphanhood, which is the ability to leave behind her racial and cultural “baggage.” Having no parents to bind her to her cultural and ethnic heritage, Mulan is essentially adrift in terms of her culture. Being an only child of absent parents, Mulan notes that her family “fell outside the norm” (Dokey 16) culturally. Furthermore, Mulan does not even know the name of her mother, which her servants are forbidden from telling her. Consequently, she has no shrine or gravesite to visit, and is instead left to make sense of the world on her own. Despite growing up in China, among the Chinese, she is not initiated into the culture of her ethnicity in any significant way,

46 especially as she works to learn both the duties of women and men. As someone who exists slightly outside of her own cultural sphere, she is, in effect, perfectly positioned to challenge the norms and rules of that culture and its surrounding society. In terms of the traditional folk- or fairytale, this neatly positions her as someone who can “stand on [her] own to conquer [her] problems” (Kimball 564) – in other words, it puts her in a position of empowerment. However, within the context of a YA fairytale written by a white author for an audience that is assumed to be primarily white, this change in Mulan’s cultural affiliation becomes less empowering and more simply problematic. Mulan becomes the hero with distinctly modern American values and ideas who stands against her racialized society with its ideas that run contrary to American sensibilities. Instead of using this as an opportunity to discuss diverse cultural values on equal footing, the underlying thought that Mulan’s way of thinking is inherently superior to those around her is conveyed over and over again in the text. And, as someone who has more in common with a 21st-century American teenager than the historical Chinese heroine, Mulan’s cultural and ethnic affiliations are obfuscated and her difference is effectively erased. Furthermore, since she is positioned as being outside of her own cultural sphere and generally superior to those around her, the text ends up effectively using her as a tool in the service of its ultimately Orientalist project to delegitimize the “Chinese” culture depicted in the narrative. Interpreted in this way, Mulan becomes not only an outsider or a simple avatar of the Western ideas she represents, but a weapon to use against her own culture. As such, this positioning of Mulan culturally within the narrative is not only problematic, but outright sinister. It is, I would argue, also indicative of the values and underlying attitudes of the culture – and industry – that produced this iteration of the character.

NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS AND OTHER FAILED FEMINISMS As I mentioned previously, Wild Orchid owes a noticeable debt to Disney in the thematic treatment of the story, and so the feminist tones introduced by Disney’s tomboy heroine are similarly present in Dokey’s depiction of the character. However, where Disney occasionally succeeds in teaching its audience some level of “girl power,” Wild Orchid is, at best, misguided and ineffective in the delivery of its feminist message. From the very

47 beginning, the narrative makes sure the audience is aware that Mulan is not like other girls. And, certainly, as far the narrative is concerned, Mulan’s separateness from other women is indeed true: the other female characters in the novel are very neatly confined by their roles and the society’s expectations. There are only three other female characters overall, these being Mulan’s maid and surrogate mother, Min Xian; her young stepmother, Zao Xing; and Li Po’s unnamed but oft mentioned mother. Out of these three, Min Xian is wise but illiterate and domestic, Zao Xing is hyperfeminine and something of a damsel in distress; and Li Po’s mother is only ever mentioned in a negative light due to her domineering wishes for her son’s advantageous marriage and dislike of Mulan. In terms of agency and being able to forge her own place in society, Mulan is entirely unique among the female characters in the story – although she does share this honor with Li Po and Prince Jian, both of whom are able to pursue their dreams, if in part due to Mulan’s intervention. Mulan first positions herself as unlike other girls when she recounts the story of her own birth. Her servant Min Xian has told her that “Never had she heard a baby shriek so loudly … particularly not a girl. It was as if [Mulan was] announcing that [she] was going to be different from the start” (Dokey 5-6). While other characters, such as Mulan’s father and Li Po, occasionally draw attention to this, the reminders are primarily delivered through Mulan’s own narration. She notes that “the blood in [her] veins” makes her “different from any other girl in China” (Dokey 12), she reminds the reader that “there wasn’t a girl in all of China who had [her] unusual combination of skills” (31-32), and she ultimately decides to go to war in her father’s stead because her skills make her “a girl unlike any other girl in China” (106). This constant underscoring of Mulan’s difference from ‘other girls’ diverges from earlier depictions of the character, particularly in China where she is commonly portrayed as an ordinary woman. Unlike the previous adaptations, then, Wild Orchid isn’t so much a story about the capabilities of women, or a critique on societal roles of women, but the story of an exceptional woman with little to nothing in common with ‘ordinary’ girls. Indeed, Mulan has almost no homosocial relationships in the novel, and the two she does form are with a servant and the stepmother who needs Mulan’s protection. In this sense, Dokey’s Mulan – and her entire narrative – falls into the “semantic trap … of separatism,” where “difference” means “division” (Trinh 82). Mulan is different, and therefore divided from ‘other girls,’ and

48 therefore the primary narrative problem isn’t the societal role of women, but rather Mulan’s unwillingness to conform with it. Since many of her interests lean toward the masculine, the narrative concerns itself primarily with finding a way for Mulan to partake in her masculine interests while still identifying – and presenting herself – as a woman. While it is worth noting that Mulan does lament the lot of women in general and occasionally expresses anger at the expectations placed upon her and other women, this ends up ringing hollow as she consistently positions herself above “other girls.” In this regard, Mulan resembles Trinh Minh-Ha’s example of the artist who, perhaps meaning well, alleges to create “for the masses” (13). The wording implies not only a split between the artist and the ‘masses,’ but also a “lack of personality or … dim individualities” for the latter and thus leaves the existing paradigm of opposition and power relations intact (Trinh 13). In other words, in attempting to bridge the power gap, the artist reveals an underlying attitude of condescension. Similarly, Mulan discusses “other women” only in patronizing terms, perhaps meaning well but ultimately perpetuating the very paradigm she ostensibly opposes. By positioning herself as separate from other Chinese women, Mulan preserves the opposition of men vs. women throughout her story rather than challenging this type of dichotomy. Rather than perceiving women in general as worthy of more power and freedom, Mulan focuses only on her own struggles as the exceptional woman. As such, the narrative as a whole works to reproduce the existing paradigm of patriarchy and never meaningfully challenges it – or even really perceives it as something that might need to be challenged. She plays what Trinh calls a “double game:” she “loudly assert[s her] right, as a woman, and an exemplary one, to have access to equal opportunity; on the other hand, [she] shall quietly maintain [her] privileges by helping the master perpetuate his cycle of oppression” (86-87). In short, she is perfectly happy with the status quo as long as she is allowed her existence as ‘not like other girls.’ Since Mulan’s unusualness is underlined so often and so thoroughly, and her eventual breakthrough only sees her “accepted” by her love interest – whom she very conventionally marries – it is difficult to read the text in any feminist light. This “Not Like Other Girls” syndrome turns up again and again in the book, and is conspicuously present in the way other characters treat Mulan. Regardless of whether others know her true gender or not, she can effectively do no wrong. As a case in point, when she accidentally interrupts the three imperial princes having a meeting, she is not punished for

49 this, but instead encouraged to speak her mind (Dokey 147-148). Once she does explain her thinking, she is able to come up with a plan to solve the strategical problem the princes have been struggling with for what is implied to be weeks, and is praised for her wisdom – all within her second day in the army. She barely ever has to struggle to break societal norms, but is instead invited to do so by people in power, such as being invited to the princes’ meeting and being told to stand in the presence of the Emperor. When her father wishes to remarry, he comes to ask for her permission first (Dokey 96). Nearly every interaction Mulan has with anyone throughout the novel shows that she is unique and special, and ultimately this undermines the feminist message the book is trying to convey. Mulan does not set out to prove that women can do what men can; she sets out to prove that she can do what men can. Her struggle is not against an oppressive society that wishes to keep her silenced. Instead, she is set up to succeed and rise above the limitations of her gender without ever challenging the status quo. When she finally succeeds in breaking free of the expectations that try to confine her, it is clear that this is not how it is to be for other women. She is the exception that proves the rule. Where the “Ballad’s” Mùlán stands as a symbol of the underlying sameness of different genders, and Disney’s Mulan embodies (or at least tries to embody) “girl power,” Wild Orchid’s Mulan happily accepts her status as a model minority in exchange for getting better treatment for herself. And, indeed, perhaps the greatest failure of Wild Orchid’s interpretation of its source material appears in its lack of synthesis of the male and female roles that Mulan assumes in the story. This synthesis is present in the “Ballad,” where Mùlán explicitly points out the hypocrisy of essentializing genders, and in Disney’s Mulan, where the heroine is able to save the day precisely by blending aspects of the two different roles she has assumed in the story. As a retelling that borrows heavily from both sources, one might expect to find a similar solution here: Mulan saving the day because of who she is and how she builds her identity, not because of the gender role currently imposed upon her. Instead, the narrative engages in an artificial conflict between feminine and male interests that are presented as irreconcilable. This is largely based on Western gender stereotypes, or “white-constructed gender norms,” where men are seen as “independent, capable, powerful” while women are “dependent, ineffectual, and weak” – a “naturalized sexual division” primarily based on the traditional middle-class white constructions of gender (Espiritu 111). As a child, Mulan, frustrated with

50 her feminine chore of embroidery, leaves “[her] embroidery in a heap on the floor” and runs off to learn the hànzì for “courage” from Li Po (Dokey 21-24). This, it seems, is a summary of her experience of her womanness in general, as she sees everything female-coded as she sees embroidery, as something she “simply [can] not see the purpose of” (Dokey 20) and something that “[does] not also fire [her] imagination or touch [her] heart” (32). There can be no middle ground, no synthesis or deconstruction of gender roles or gendered activities: she mentions no feminine-coded chores she actually enjoys or considers worthwhile, but instead focuses on praising masculine-coded activities. The result of this is that the narrative privileges masculinity over any other type of gender presentation, but only insofar as it doesn’t hinder Mulan’s potential for heterosexual coupling. This privileging of masculine-coded traits is not strictly limited to Mulan, either, but seems to apply to all major female characters. According to the narrative, the moment in which Mulan loves and respects her stepmother the most is when she refuses to show any emotion upon receiving the news of her husband’s conscription (Dokey 104) – in other words, it is her refusal to openly express her negative emotion that makes her exemplary as far as the narrative is concerned. This overly simplified attitude towards feminine-coded behaviors ends up reinforcing the patriarchal paradigm rather than challenging it. Instead of a union of “femaleness and masculinity” the novel deconstructs their binaristic opposition only to create what Halberstam calls “another binary in which masculinity always signifies power” (Halberstam 29). As such, the treatment of gender in Wild Orchid is not critically productive. Rather than “[produce] alternative masculinities” (Halberstam 19), or alternative femininities, in the way it could have, the novel presents masculinity vis-à-vis Mulan as the key attribute that leads to female success. For instance, Mulan’s ultimate act of masculinity – defeating an entire army by herself – is rewarded with the promise of a husband and the status of a princess. Despite the traditionally feminine connotations of these rewards, they come here with a twist: the husband is one who ‘accepts’ Mulan’s more masculine interests, and the marriage comes with the promise of living in the borderlands, far away from the society that enforces the feminine/masculine separation. Nevertheless, there is an element of ‘taming’ to this resolution, as it places Mulan in a traditionally heterosexual institutionalized relationship – the marriage that is considered, in many traditions, to be the pinnacle of female achievement.

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THE QUEER STEPMOTHER Notably, within the heteropatriarchal dynamics of the novel, there still exists some potential for nuance in the representation of gender within the narrative. It is here that Zao Xing, Mulan’s stepmother, becomes of particular critical interest. Zao Xing is presented as the hyperfeminine counterpart to Mulan’s tomboyish desire for masculine-coded activities: she is frail, with “delicate features, gorgeous and elaborate clothes” as well as “a light, musical voice” (Dokey 88). She pales, blushes, and casts down her eyes; she is described as graceful and elegant; she is, in all aspects, hyperfeminine. She is also, in effect, a damsel in distress that needs multiple kinds of rescuing when Mulan first encounters her, having just experienced both a traffic accident and the distressing fate of being sent back home to her family in disgrace after the tragic end of her brief first marriage (Dokey 92). To further her positioning as Mulan’s counterpart, it is implied that they are roughly the same age, with Zao Xing being perhaps a few years older (an interesting point related to this is that Mulan invariably refers to herself as a “girl” despite being in her mid-teens, but uses “young woman” for Zao Xing instead). Despite her soft and quiet exterior, Zao Xing does also embody the frustrations of being a woman in the society presented by the narrative, with Mulan describing her fate as being “passed around like a piece of fruit on a plate – one last, spoiled piece that nobody wanted” (92). As a character in a narrative that tries to challenge gender norms, Zao Xing is a character with vast potential, whether it is as a foil, a mother figure, or a chance at female companionship for the main character. Due to her age, she never does attempt to function as a mother to Mulan – despite technically being her mother after her marriage to Mulan’s father – but the narrative does toggle between positioning her both as a foil and a companion to Mulan. At her first appearance, it seems that Zao Xing is introduced precisely as a foil to Mulan, and the cues of Euro-American fairytales suggest that she will become an antagonist in the story. Soon after her arrival, Mulan notes that “Zao Xing’s presence changed everything in [the] house” and caused the relationship she had forged with her father to evaporate (Dokey 91). Zao Xing makes Mulan both self-conscious about her own lack of femininity and jealous over her father’s affections. In short, she disrupts the established daily flow of Mulan’s life. A primary way in which she does this occurs through the queer tension that quickly develops between her and Mulan, as evidenced by Mulan’s preoccupation with

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Zao Xing’s looks. This goes as far as to interrupt passages to note, for example, that Zao Xing had “the finest skin” Mulan has ever seen (Dokey 88). The most telling scene in this regard happens right as Zao Xing discovers that Mulan is, in fact, a woman: “Oh, but I thought…” She broke off, a blush spreading across her cheeks so that now she looked like a rosebud that was just about to open. I felt a corresponding heat in my cheeks, but doubted I resembled a flower in any way. “I’m sorry my clothes are so deceiving,” I said, deciding an explanation my help. “I’ve been practicing my archery, and I can’t wear a dress, you know, because of the sleeves…” My voice trailed off as I watched our guest’s eyes widen. It could have been surprise, but it looked an awful lot like alarm. (Dokey 89) The language used in this scene, from calling Zao Xing “a rosebud that was just about to open” to the mutual blushing and awkwardness, is strikingly similar to the awkward first meetings of couples from other YA romance novels. This is especially significant considering that, at this point, Mulan has expressed no romantic interest in her friend Li Po, and in fact finds it “ridiculous” that someone should think they might marry (Dokey 39). For a character who so ardently rejects feminine chores and the idea of marriage to a man, the implications are plain: through the influence of her stepmother, Mulan can more readily be interpreted as a queer character. The queer romantic tension between Zao Xing and Mulan grows stronger as it becomes clearer that she is staying as a member of the family. When Mulan’s father first begins to show signs of wanting to marry Zao Xing, Mulan is initially upset and refuses to discuss the matter. In response to the news, she runs off to think by herself. Instead of going to the plum tree that symbolizes her dead mother, as she usually does when she wants to think, she instead goes to a bamboo grove, which she describes as an “eerie place.” “It always seems like the long and supple stalks speak to one another,” she muses, “Even when I can barely feel the breeze upon my face, the bamboo quivers” (Dokey 93-94). Instead of running to the feminine-coded space she associates with her mother, she rushes into the grove of phallic bamboo that she has previously found “unsettling” but now feels like she needs. As a narrative move, this aligns Mulan more closely with the masculine, and further queers her as a character. Perhaps, then, her jealousy was not over her father, after all. Of course, when Mulan’s father comes to ask her if she is okay with the marriage proceeding, she consents despite her apprehensions, and Zao Xing becomes her stepmother. This,

53 however, leads to another interesting scene between the two young women, when Zao Xing – much to her surprise – discovers that Mulan does not wish to marry: “Do you really mean that?” Zao Xing asked, a tone in her voice I couldn’t quite read. “You would rather stay here than have a household of your own to run someday?” “I think I do mean it,” I answered slowly. … “But of course I will do as my father wishes,” I said. The decision of my marriage would be his, not mine. “But if we could convince him,” Zao Xing said, abandoning my clothing to move to my side. “Together, you and I. If you stayed… If you and I could learn to be friends. I would like to have a true friend, Mulan.” (Dokey 99) As the scene continues, Mulan and Zao Xing do end up putting aside many of their differences, and determine to work to become true friends, with Mulan saying that she “will be content to stay home if [Zao Xing] will be content to have [her]” (Dokey 103). For the first time within the novel, Mulan is able to form an intimate relationship with another woman – one she certainly appears to have a keen, queer interest in. This is the point in the narrative where the queer tension between the two characters seems to be actualized as the two promise to stay together instead of allowing Mulan to succumb to heterosexual marriage. While the romantic tones are not explicitly stated and remain a subtle undercurrent, the queerness of the relationship is clear enough. The fact that it is confined to the home makes it possibly even more conspicuous. After all, because of a history of female-female bonds being “private, invisible, and structurally opposed” and thus excised from the public eye, literature has found ways to hide them in plain sight through the familial structure: “the most profoundly emotional and physical relations between women emerge from the family itself” (Haggerty 75). As a result of this, Haggerty argues, “the family is where female-female desire is first articulated precisely because from outside the relationship itself, it is impossible to distinguish love from love” (75). For Mulan, as a character who has previously expressed disinterest in romantic love, this seems especially fitting: it becomes easier for her – and the text – to articulate her feelings in a setting where some type of love is both expected and, perhaps, initially indistinguishable from its queer, romantic version. As a final testament to this, Mulan ends the scene by stating that, for the first time since her father’s return, she “felt like [she] was home” (Dokey 103). It was not the restored familial relationship with her father that restored her feeling of normalcy, but instead the increased and queered intimacy with a female peer – who happens to be her stepmother.

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And, indeed, when she decides to go to war soon after, it is precisely to protect the happiness of Zao Xing and her father, not specifically to save her father’s life. However, immediately after the scene where the tension is actualized, the narrative forecloses any possibility of a queer union between the two characters and attempts to neutralize any potential queer readings. The text carefully underlines this denial of a queer relationship by having Zao Xing tell Mulan that she will try to become a mother to her, perhaps in an effort to call back to the key familial relationships of the “Ballad.” Indeed, as the narrative continues, Zao Xing’s relationship with Mulan becomes increasingly maternal and much less intimate as she is primarily mentioned in her relation to Mulan’s father. However, considering the similar ages of the two characters – Mulan is stated to be 14, while Zao Xing got married to her first husband mere months ago and marrying age for women is given as 15 – and the overwhelmingly emotional content, the intended platonic mother- daughter relationship does not seem convincing. When viewed against the long Western history of lesbian erasure and banishment into the private sphere Haggerty discusses, this move to familiarize the relationship becomes especially ineffective. While it does, perhaps, work to curb some of the queer reading of Mulan’s character, it certainly does not erase it, and Mulan’s intimacy with her mother-in-law remains one of the most in-depth relationships described within the novel. In this sense, Mulan’s ‘wildness’ – her queer characteristics – prove untamable even by the ostensibly normative ending. While these developments are crucial in the early half of the book, and are perhaps not so easily forgotten by the reader, the novel itself works to actively undo all and any queer associations Mulan may have built as a character. As soon as she leaves home, the female intimacy Mulan develops with Zao Xing is neutralized by the narrative structure. By the time she reaches the army, the narrative abandons all previous indications of queerness and instead works to establish Mulan as a straight heroine who instantly falls in love with Prince Jian almost at first sight. Similarly, when she is restored to her family at the end of the story, she is married off to Prince Jian immediately – despite her ripe old age of 15 years, and his considerably more advanced age – and the only conversation she has with Zao Xing is about her father and her younger brother. Despite her initial queerness – vis-à-vis both gender nonconformity and close female friendship – she ultimately manages to avoid any lasting, meaningful relationships with female characters. In a way, introducing a queer Mulan as a

55 possibility and then changing gears to recast her as unambiguously straight instead makes the text even more frustrating as a potentially feminist, potentially ground-breaking text. After toying with other possibilities, the conventional ending and its conventionalist gender roles and outcomes are even more conspicuous than they might have been otherwise. Zao Xing as a character is forgotten for the bulk of the text, only to make a final, comfortably domestic cameo as a mother and homemaker, holding her baby son in her arms. Likewise, toying with this queer potential, only to then toss it aside for domestic heterosexual relationships, gives the text problematic undertones of conceptualizing queerness as a “phase” or something one grows out of when the appropriate heterosexual relationship comes along. In the end, the outcome is that Mulan abandons even the possibility of female friendship or deeper bonds in favor of her royal marriage and further isolation among men, carefully snuffing out any hint of a queer reading of her character.

CONCLUSION Wild Orchid is a text rife with possibilities that never pan out. It introduces Mulan as a potentially queer tomboy, only to curtail all of that potentiality by locking her into a patriarchal, heteronormative relationship at the end. It offers the possibility to explore ethnic and racial difference through the point of view of a racialized Other, but chooses to only show contemporary American ideologies and attitudes. It makes an attempt at a feminist message which simply falls flat in the lack of any substantial support. In fact, the narrative actively hinders its own attempts at a positive message about different forms of femininity. Most importantly, it sets out to retell the Mùlán legend, a folk tale with ethnically specific connotations, and ends up only following the model set by other iterations of the tale in the most languid of terms. Where the intent was to diversify the Once Upon a Time series portfolio of retellings and perhaps send a positive message about inclusivity – not to mention to capitalize on the market demand for more “diverse” fiction – the novel ultimately ends up being problematic, if not outright harmful. A part of this problem is that, at its core, Wild Orchid is a fairytale before it is a retelling of the Mùlán legend. Rather than treating the story in the ways that make the most sense for its particular context as a Chinese folk tale, especially considering Mùlán’s status in the Chinese national canon, this retelling forces the narrative into the tropes and patterns laid

56 out by the conventions of Euro-American fairytales. The inclusion of these elements – the prince, “true love,” the happy ending with a heterosexual marriage – inescapably alter the context of Mùlán’s character. More specifically, this process Westernizes both her character and her narrative, masking their existing difference and domesticizing them for the American market. It is no wonder, then, that there is very little in the way of genuine representations of Chineseness or even ethnic difference in general within the story. As such, despite her racialized name and appearance, Wild Orchid’s version of Mulan is virtually indistinguishable from the heroines and princesses of other Euro-American fairytale retellings. The name of the novel becomes almost ironic: like the titular flower, Mùlán has become the exotic prop to distinguish this story from the dozens of other, almost identical American YA fairytale.

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CHAPTER 4

THE FUTURE IS TECHNO-ORIENTALIST: MULAN: REVELATIONS AND POSTFEMINIST CYBERPUNK

Mulan: Revelations is a sci-fi miniseries published by Dark Horse Comics in 2015. It was created by first time creator Robert Alter, co-written by Marc Andreyko (known for his work on DC comics like Batwoman and Manhunter) and illustrated by Micah Kaneshiro. The comic introduces a new, futuristic cyberpunk interpretation of the Mùlán tale, but rather than retelling or adapting the tale into a new genre, Mulan: Revelations extrapolates a completely new story, using the “Ballad” as only a starting point in a complete revision of Mulan’s character and story. In this new tale, Mulan’s adversaries are no longer mere foreign armies, but actual hordes of demons. To win the war against these demons, Mulan’s spirit is sent into the future, to the year 2125, where she must face the technological corporate empire the demons have built in the dystopian cyberpunk future of Shanghai. Humanity is further threatened by a new disease that kills anyone with cybernetic enhancements. In the search for a cure, Mulan’s part-Immortal blood becomes a coveted ingredient, and soon she is on the run from both corporate goons and religiously motivated Americans who believe her to be an angel. The series ran for four issues before quietly disappearing without explanation, and the storyline was never properly finished. The fourth and final issue ends with a text box indicating the story is “to be continued.” What little exists of this miniseries is nonetheless noteworthy in its own right, for in revising the Mùlán legend into a cyberpunk tale, the comic introduces a completely new type of attempt to integrate Mulan into the Western cultural consciousness, and, perhaps even more importantly, into the Western marketplace. Like many other revisionist comic books, it tries to “expand on the possibilities of a certain character or type of story” (Harris-Fain 108) rather than follow existing material. As

58 demonstrated in previous chapters of this thesis, both Disney’s Mulan and Wild Orchid work hard to take something Chinese and make it culturally palatable to an American audience while still retaining the “exotic” or “authentic” qualities of the original tale. Mulan: Revelations, however, sets itself up as a very different type of cultural production from the get-go. Instead of being a simple adaptation or a retelling, Mulan: Revelations is a complete reimagining of the Mùlán legend. Considering the history of the Mùlán legend, which consists of a string of revision after revision, it is not all that surprising that Mùlán should have found her way onto the pages of a comic book. Comics, as an art form, have a long history of adapting and revising existing material, especially in the United States where comics have historically defined themselves as “emergent, oppositional and underground” (Freedman 29), which makes comics a fertile ground for the discussion of marginalized identities. Even as a medium, comics, particularly the graphic novel, is one that challenges borders, from “the border between high art and popular culture” to “the distinction between academic and amateur scholarship” (Freedman 29). As such, it is a medium well suited for cultural fusion and revisioning folktales. In this sense, Mulan: Revelations takes the possibilities afforded by the medium and runs with them. The end result is a revision in which the setting, the genre, the stakes, and the themes are all heavily altered from what most adaptations of the tale generally show. Instead of a historical Chinese story, this revision brings Mùlán into the futuristic world of cyberpunk and makes her a superhero who fights for all of mankind. Since the narrative falls resolutely into the genre of cyberpunk, it seems clear that the creators did not get the memo that cyberpunk is dead. Various critics have placed the ‘death’ of cyberpunk at different points in time, but the general consensus is that the genre has been without a pulse since at least the 1990’s (see Murphy, Vint). In recent years, however, creators of cyberpunk narratives have come up with various ways to inject new life into the otherwise lifeless genre with varying levels of success. The most successful effort has probably been the project of using cyberpunk worlds to explore the “unique concerns” of “Asians and Africans and Latinos,” and, of course, women (Kelly and Kessel, qtd. in Allan 152). This new form of the genre has come to be called feminist post-cyberpunk to separate it from the less diverse cyberpunk tales of the 80’s. As an adaptation of a Chinese story, and with a main character who is not only a woman but a woman of color, it may seem like

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Mulan: Revelations would most comfortably fit in this post-cyberpunk framework. However, the comic adopts a very different approach to its ostensibly diversified world. Rather than going for post-cyberpunk, the story pursues a ‘post-race,’ post-feminist narrative where markers of identity become meaningless. Through a process of borrowing from both Chinese and Western traditions, Mulan: Revelations emerges as a culturally hybrid product. Here, Mulan is co-opted into the world of superheroes and chosen ones, and the original legend is more of a background detail than a key part of the story. Notably, instead of standing in for Chinese culture, or for womanhood in general, Mulan is allowed to exist as her own character, and her story is once again thematically broadened. Much like in the Chinese adaptations of the Mùlán legend, Mulan: Revelations harnesses Mulan’s character to discuss societal issues rather than focusing on her gender or ethnicity as a defining point of her story arc. Of course, this doesn’t come without its own set of problems. Eliding Mulan’s ethnicity and gender, the story struggles with its depiction of diversity. The cultural fusion of the depicted future is heavily weighted toward the Western side rather than the Chinese, and the societal problems the story explores also seem to be more Western than anything else, which risks the erasure of the Chineseness of the setting and its characters. At the very least, this problem is somewhat remedied by the vivid and colorful art that reintroduces – or reclaims – race into the story by deliberately depicting the characters in visually specific ways. As a whole, Mulan: Revelations is a product of cultural hybridity through and through. It is an American comic book using a Chinese folk character to explore supposedly universal issues, peppered with the message that, deep down, we’re all really the same. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this message of unity backfires in its conflation of Western and Eastern religions and futures into one. Rather than appearing as a character motivated by her filial piety and sense of duty to her family, this Mulan – once again orphaned – expands her sense of duty and loyalty to all of mankind and the Immortals besides. Perhaps this could be seen simply as the next development in the process that has seen Mùlán go from a family- focused folk hero to the national heroine of all of (Han) China. However, through the general erasure of racial or ethnic difference in the storyline, it seems that this Mulan has abandoned both of her earlier affiliations altogether.

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Despite – or, perhaps, because of – its attempt to avoid discussions of race and gender in a sort of post-race, postfeminist approach, Mulan: Revelations does not escape these considerations. Rather, it is haunted by the specter of contagion – racial, pathological, technological – and becomes entrenched in its techno-Orientalist fear/desire for its own vision of future China, where Asianness is both fetishized for its alignment with technology and power and made monstrous for the threat it poses to the West. In other words, through its resolute refusal to discuss questions of race, gender, and ethnicity, Mulan: Revelations reveals itself as a mirror that reflects the underlying attitudes of the ‘colorblind,’ postfeminist line of thinking where race and gender are mere details of no real consequence. It comes as no surprise that these philosophies are suffused with exactly that which they claim to overcome, whether it’s racism, sexism, or a general desire to maintain the status quo. Ultimately, Mulan: Revelations stands as a testament to the fact that, whether in its original guise or in a new technologically enabled form, Orientalism remains alive and well in popular culture despite recent developments in diversity and representation.

MULAN IN THE CYBERPUNK FUTURE While the story is primarily set in the future, in the year 2125, Mulan: Revelations opens with a battle between humans and demons in 500 B.C in what is effectively a reimagining of the original Mùlán legend. Mulan battles against a horde of demonic creatures while a group of godlike Immortals watch on. From the dialogue between the Immortals and the opening narration of the demons, the reader learns that the demons are hybrids resulting from the intermingling of the Immortals with humans. The demons intend, apparently, to destroy their Immortal parents. On the battlefield, Mulan is about to lose her battle against the leader of the demons, when the Immortals whisk her away from the fight, calling her “[their] last hope.” They tell Mulan to “gird [her] soul … for [her] destiny” and envelop her in a colorful light. Mulan’s soul is sent into the future, where she now exists as a rich young woman in 2125 Shanghai, evidently with no recollection of her past life as a warrior against demons. While Mulan herself seems to be much better off in the future, the world has not fared as well. Through a newscast that plays while the future Mulan waits for a dress to 3D-print on her body, the reader learns of TRV – “techno-rejection virus” – a disease that’s tearing

61 through the Earth’s now-augmented population and making their bodies reject tech implants with devastating results while large corporations scramble to discover a vaccine. One of these corporations is Sinotech, a tech implant company founded by a man called Longwei, who gets into a fight with his board of directors over trying to develop a vaccine for TRV. Longwei – along with his relative Shan – is revealed to be one of the demons as well as the origin of the disease that has now run amok and threatens not just the humans, but the demons also. Longwei himself appears to be suffering from the rainbow-colored rash that indicates a case of TRV. Meanwhile, Mulan’s comfortable daily life in the cyberpunk city of Shanghai is about to come to an end. She is wealthy, thanks to a trust fund left behind by her deceased parents, but also frugal and quite practical. Her brother, meanwhile, is irresponsible with his wealth, and Mulan fears she has let her parents down in raising him with so little sense. When she goes to visit the free clinic where she volunteers, however, her daily flow of life is interrupted. A man suffering from an advanced case of TRV attacks the clinic, and Mulan gets stabbed while subduing him. As it turns out, her blood heals his rainbow-colored rash, showing everyone present that she has “the blood of the Immortals.” A doctor steals Mulan’s bloody bandages and sends Longwei a message that “a possible vaccine” has been discovered. Mulan ends up having to run for her life from the corporate enforcement of Sinotech. Upon finding out that her unusual blood has been discovered, Uncle Hong – Mulan’s “godfather” – whispers a word into Mulan’s ear, and activates her Immortal heritage. From this point on, Mulan can wield incredible magic power by enveloping herself in pink light, which enables her to escape from her pursuers. At first, the power seems to be out of her control as it surrounds her and makes her skin glow with hexagonal patterns. At Uncle Hong’s advice to “let instinct guide” her (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #2), Mulan learns to use her magical powers, which consist of telekinesis, super speed, and pink energy explosions. Despite her efforts, however, Uncle Hong is captured by Longwei’s troops. He forbids Mulan from giving herself up to ensure his safety, telling her to run away instead. She runs into an American tourist named Adam, who helps her get away from Sinotech when she becomes exhausted from overusing her Immortal powers. Together they visit a temple where Mulan is given visions of her past and her purpose in a montage over

62 two full spreads, to which she responds: “I understand.” Adam learns of her true identity and tells her that he is actually a member of an organization we later find out is the Templars. He has been sent to capture Mulan as well, believing her to be an angel. However, as he took an oath to protect “a higher calling,” he betrays the Templars to help Mulan in her cause instead. The two escape together, fleeing both Sinotech and the Templars. Since Mulan is proving very difficult to catch, Longwei ends up making some alliances to bring her in: one with the leader of the Templars, in exchange for the life of one of his agents; and one with Mulan’s brother, Lo. The Templars end up finding Mulan while she is trying to confront the Immortals about their inaction in the face of humanity’s precarious situation. They take Adam hostage to force Mulan to surrender. She is taken to Longwei, who calls her “little savior.” Although the fourth issue ends with a promise that the story is “to be continued,” no further issues were ever published, and this is effectively where the story ends. While the narrative does contain the markings of the “glamorous anti-establishment garb” cyberpunk often dons (Kilgore 168), it does not have much in the way of new approaches to bill it as post-cyberpunk. Rather, Mulan: Revelations focuses on rehashing the same cyberpunk tropes and, perhaps unsurprisingly, falls into many of the same pitfalls cyberpunk has suffered from since its inception (thus leading to the many declarations of its death). Instead of attempting to bring something new and unique into the genre of cyberpunk, post or otherwise, the comic seems to primarily treat it as an aesthetic and follows the developments in which cyberpunk as a category has lost its meaning after being commodified into a “marketing category” (Vint 96). In particular, the narrative suffers from what Moylan terms “artificial negativity,” as it “supports the status quo by recontaining sources of potential opposition through reification and commodification” (91). For example, the narrative works to commodify religion and tradition as inconsequential questions of aesthetics through the conversation Mulan has with Adam5, where she calls different religions “same stories” in “different costumes” (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations

5 It should be noted that Adam’s rather conspicuous name likewise points toward a fusion of Chinese legends with Judeo-Christian ones in the case of this comic, and further infuses Western religion into the narrative in ways that are, unfortunately, outside the scope of this project.

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#3). This kind of narrative move works both to conflate the Eastern and Western religions the characters are discussing and thus enforce the ‘colorblind’ ideologies within the narrative, as well as removing religion and tradition as aspects of human life that could function as resistors to technological hegemony. Since the Chinese-coded high-tech gadgets are also denied a liberatory role – as they are only ever used for oppression – the text is suffused with a sense of Western secularism and Western ideas working against Eastern technology and its invasion of human bodies.

TECHNO-ORIENTALISM: CHINA, TECHNOLOGY, AND OTHER EVILS What follows is that the future presented in Mulan: Revelations reveals itself as only ostensibly an Asian future, as it is distinctly Western in its conception. Rather than drawing from Asian traditions or concepts of society, the world is instead built from Western building blocks, all the way from the late capitalist corporate dystopia to the individualistic society in which personal freedom is everything. As such, it is an example of techno-Orientalism, “the phenomenon of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hypertechnological terms in cultural productions and political discourse” (Roh et al. 2). While closely related to Orientalism, techno-Orientalism, instead of presenting a traditionalist Asia, “presents a broader, dynamic, and often contradictory spectrum of images, constructed by the East and West alike, of an ‘Orient’ undergoing rapid economic and cultural transformations” as a “strategy of representational containment” (Roh et al. 3). As such, rather than the “often premodern imagery” (Roh et al. 3) that is more commonly associated with Orientalism, techno- Orientalism instead positions visions of shining neon cities, glittering holograms, and a technologically superior people as the key Orientalist threat to the hegemonic influence of the West. Through this project, Asia (and Asians) become not only “a screen on which the West has projected its technological fantasies,” but also a modality through which it gives expression to “its fears of being colonized, mechanized, and instrumentalized in its own pursuit of technological dominance” (Roh et al. 4). This reflection of both desire and fear then works as a dual-pronged tool of objectifying. The techno-Orientalized Asian world is at once an object of desire or an object of fear in an almost Gothic fashion. All the while, the imagined Asians occupying it are never allowed in the subject position.

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Techno-Orientalism is not an unusual feature in American science fiction due to “the genre’s futurist esprit of contemporary existential, racial, and technological anxieties” (Roh et al. 5). Science fiction is, after all, a genre built around interpolating current issues into possible futures. In this sense Mulan: Revelations is no different, as it spends much of its narrative space discussing issues of humanity, the threat of technology, and the existential considerations of unlimited capitalist growth. Toshiya Ueno also envisions techno- Orientalism as “a kind of mirror stage or an image machine” that affects people both in the West and in the East, but instead of being a regular mirror “is, in fact, a semi-transparent or two-way mirror” showing shadowed images of both sides (228). As in, while this ‘image machine’ does, indeed, reflect its creator, it does so in a way that overlays shadows of the imagined Asian future with the present of the West. This is an especially apt way to describe the way Shanghai is depicted in Mulan: Revelations: an ostensibly Chinese visage with the shadows of its Western origins showing through, or perhaps a Western visage with the shadows of China lurking in the background. Examined through the lens of techno-Orientalism, a number of “anxieties” come into view. It is no accident, for example, that the antagonistic megacorporation that controls the society of future Shanghai is called “Sinotech,” combining the main two anxieties explored in the comic: “Sino-,” as in relating to China, and “tech.” Sinotech is portrayed as controlling several aspects of life in Shanghai besides simply technology. It is the primary developer of a vaccine against the TRV and have enough influence on the social life of the city to make a doctor from the free clinic sell out Mulan to improve his own social standing (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #1). Sinotech also controls law enforcement: one of the people living in the lower reaches of the city states that “no police ever come down here. They let the corporate goons run this forsaken place!” (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #2). These “corporate goons” clearly have significant authority, as they apparently do not care about being surrounded by witnesses – none of whom, admittedly, attempt to interfere in the corporate show of violence – while they almost kill Uncle Hong to force Mulan to surrender. They are also shown to have extreme firepower, including guns, weaponized drones, and cybernetically enhanced animals (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #2). All in all, it seems that the dark, dystopian reality of the lower classes – as

65 well as the utopian existence of the upper classes – is entirely the handiwork of Sinotech, an embodiment of the anxieties toward technology and capitalism within the text. Perhaps more importantly, the villainous megacorporation Sinotech is also a company run by literal demons. Normally indistinguishable from the other Chinese people in the comic, the characters in question only reveal their monstrous demon forms in private. In their usual human guise, these demons who control the tech market with an apparently iron grip present a case of “Asiatic bodies functioning as gatekeepers, facilitators, and purveyors of technology,” which Roh et al. call a “familiar techno-Orientalist trope” (13). At the same time, their megacorporation is characterized by explosive growth and unfeeling leadership. With policies that trample the lower classes in its effort to make a profit, Sinotech’s role in the story runs parallel to what Roh et al. call “the discourse on China’s ‘rise’ in the U.S. context” (4). Through both the name of the company and the racialized names and appearances of those associated with it, it is clear that Sinotech also stands in for American cultural anxieties about China and its prodigious economic growth. Longwei and Shan are essentially dehumanized and made threatening by their status as Chinese tech gurus, but the dehumanization goes even further in the revelation of their true demon forms. Not only are they threatening through their actions, but their very existence is monstrous, even uncanny. They are non-human creatures wearing racialized, techno-Orientalist human masks – a familiar instance, in fact, of the racialized Asian Other depicted as evil (cf. Moy).

THE SPECTER OF CONTAGION The depiction of social class and standing within the imagined Chinese future of the comic is another aspect of worldbuilding made sinister through techno-Orientalist tropes. The comic spends considerable space and effort in discussing the more dystopian aspects of its Chinese cyberpunk future and giving a social commentary centered around class. For example, when Mulan is stabbed by a TRV patient in the first issue, the free clinic refuses to treat her wound because they are “not licensed to perform medical procedures on [her] level,” referring to her status as a rich person from the upper reaches of the city. One of the Sinotech board members, frustrated with how long it is taking to produce a vaccine for the TRV, tells Longwei to do better because “it’s not just the lower classes getting sick now” (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #1), showing the lack of empathy the upper class

66 has for the masses. The rich, including Mulan, are consistently depicted as inhabiting the upper reaches of the city, with lots of sky and picturesque cityscape in the background. These upper reaches of Shanghai are depicted as light and airy, with lots of space and light, cool colors, as well as visible plant life. Meanwhile, the lower classes and their services, such as the free clinic at which Mulan volunteers, are spatially segregated to the lower reaches of the city. Visually, this is a very different world: the streets are narrow, crowded, and covered in billboards and ads. The colors are significantly darker, consisting of blacks and dark blues, aside from the neon glow of the signs and advertisements that dot the streets. Instead of parties and plant life in the background, we see sick and injured people, implied criminal activity, and people collecting trash while getting harassed by Sinotech’s private corporate police force (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #1). Much in the way of conventional cyberpunk, social commentary is a thread that is woven tightly into the narrative. It is clear, then, that the comic is explicitly using its version of a future China to depict a divided world in which the lower and upper classes never mix. While this is consistent with the late capitalist corporate dystopian landscape laid out by the general plot of the comic, it also shows a commitment to Othering and Orientalist motivations. In itself, this type of thematic treatment is nothing out of the ordinary in cyberpunk, where capitalism-driven dystopias are the norm. What makes Mulan: Revelations stand out is the same problem I have already discussed in the previous chapters: the anxieties and social problems of a distinctly American cultural production are here externalized onto a “foreign” culture. Instead of discussing the issues late capitalism presents in the American setting, or the problems technology might pose in the future cultural landscape of America, all these problems are instead discussed in the context of a Chinese future – a choice made especially ironic by China’s current mixed economy, much less market-driven than that of the United States. This narrative move enables the reader to maintain a sense of distance from the problems depicted, as they are externalized and ‘safely’ contained within China. Of course, in the era of globalization, no threat can be quite so neatly contained in its ‘original,’ distant location, and so the threat of these social problems is enhanced by the fear of contagion. The corrupt, even outright diseased world of Mulan: Revelations is never quite so far away that it carries no risk of spreading what ails it to the US society. Indeed, some scholars argue that the “the age of globalization is synonymous with the age of contagion …

67 in which increased contact with the Other has rekindled anxieties concerning the spreading of disease and corruption” (Sampson 2). In the age of information networks, fear of contagion no longer applies to just diseases themselves, but “financial crisis, social influence, innovations, fashions and fads, and even human emotion” (Sampson 2) that spread via global memes and trends. The problems shown in Mulan: Revelations may plague Shanghai, but, especially through their similarity to existing issues in present-day US society, they engender the very real fears of this dystopian future spreading across the ocean to America. As an example, the underlying – yet not so subtle – racial anxieties of the text become especially important when the narrative reveals that it is Longwei who caused the TRV. Specifically, when discussing the virus with Longwei, Shan calls it “this little profit-engine disease we created” (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #4), indicating that the demons not only created the virus, but did so intentionally and for selfish ends, ready to decimate thousands upon thousands of cyborg bodies in their pursuit of profit. This plays off of two separate fears related to contagion, the first of which is the more straightforward fear of disease and epidemics. However, in this case, as in many others, it expands to an expression of xenophobic fear. If the TRV stands a symbol of the technological anxieties related to cybernetics and other future technology, Longwei’s central role as the origin of the TRV places China as the origin of these concerns and anxieties explored within the text. China, then, is not simply the stage selected for the story due to its efforts to reimagine Mulan as a technological tale – rather, the cultural anxieties about China feed the genesis of Mulan’s new cyberpunk existence. This is consistent with the changes in which Orientalism presents itself through techno-Orientalism, which Ueno says “was invented by the world of information capitalism” (228), a concept explored and often condemned in Mulan: Revelations. The two main ways in which Sinotech poses a threat to the world is through the TRV – a menace engineered by literally manipulating the genetic information within a pathogen – and through their rampant use of cybernetics and other technology to exert their control. The comic thus uses the virus schema in the manner of past cyberpunk narratives: as a tool to “foment xenophobic fears of foreign takeover” in what could be called “‘foreign intruder’ model” (Kilgore 166). The contagious threat of Sinotech puts at risk not only Shanghai, but all of the world – including United States.

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The second anxiety brought into light by the virus is the more abstract “notion of computer contagion” expanded to “technocapitalism” that is common in cyberpunk (Kilgore 168). The technologically enabled capitalist machine Longwei has built is no longer merely consuming human bodies for their labor, but literally transforming bodily death into monetary gain. Even if the bodies shown on the pages of the comic are all Chinese, the (white) Western readers cannot escape the uneasiness of knowing how capitalist ideas spread through the financial networks of the global economy. Since the comic also outright states that the TRV is a worldwide problem, the threat for white bodies – the threat of contagion – is all too real. Of course, the fact that the bodies shown as the potential victims are all Chinese is not inconsequential in itself. In this way, the narrative underwrites the U.S. techno-Orientalist “view of the Asian body as a form of expendable technology” (Roh et al. 11). Longwei and Shan both stand as carriers of the techno-Orientalist project of imagining Asian bodies as disposable means to procure profit. This is a dangerous move, as it places two Asian characters in the role of perpetrating and reiterating racist tropes upon other Asian bodies within the text. As these techno-Orientalist tropes are projected onto the Asiatic villains, so is the general project of Orientalism distanced from the white American culture from which it originates. It then becomes more easily masked from the reader, as well: surely, if the Asian figure is in charge and perpetrating harmful attitudes, it is not evil motivated by racism but rather by simple greed. Thus, the implied (white) reader does not have to confront their own attitudes or examine the techno-Orientalist thematic treatment of the characters as critically as they may have upon seeing a white-coded character perpetrate the same acts. In considering the fear of contagion expressed within the text, cyborgs, as they exist within the story, become a particularly apt symbol for this fear. Since the main threat Mulan must fight against is the destruction of humanity due to their hybridization with machinery, it is clear the existence of cyborgs in the narrative is communicating an anxiety about the future of mankind. Indeed, as Vint suggests, cyberpunk “might be defined as a literature of anxiety regarding the consequences of technology invading the body” (101) In this sense, as in many other, Mulan: Revelations more easily fits with cyberpunk narratives than those of post- cyberpunk, as the portrayal of cyborgs in the comic is wrought with anxiety with little to no potential for reparative or revolutionary qualities. As an example, when the TRV is

69 introduced, the comic states that “over 80% of the world’s population [has] implants of some kind” (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #1). However, the only visual cybernetic enhancements shown on the pages belong to people and creatures that are relegated into the realm of the monstrous: for example, the raving and visually diseased man who attacks Mulan, and the heavily modified dogs Sinotech uses in trying to capture her (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #2). Meanwhile, none of the named characters – least of all Mulan – display any use of cybernetic enhancements.6 The inclusion of cyborgs as markedly abject figures gives the narrative a chance to challenge some of the social structures or stereotypes it presents, but it ends up simply reinforcing these instead. Especially as the primary group of people Mulan needs to protect, the cyborgs within the narrative are well-positioned to challenge some of the more stereotypical constructions of the imagined Chinese future and subjectivity within it. After all, cyborgs as a concept are “oppositional” and, when used well, “make very problematic the statuses of man or woman, human, artefact, member of a race, individual entity, or body” (Haraway 151, 178). However – and this is a big however – instead of taking this chance to subvert techno-Orientalist stereotypes, Mulan: Revelations uses its cyborgs to reinforce the established paradigm. Rather than appearing as a legitimate possibility for the future of human bodies, the cyborgs in the story instead become racialized bodies in the background, an endless horde of disposable Chinese/robot bodies. And, indeed, much like women (and raced bodies), cyborgs are defined by the difference they embody (Flanagan 101). This kind of identity production involving embodiment is in opposition to the more universalist view on identity that the comic, perhaps unintentionally, tries to promote through its deracination of Mulan. As such, the depiction of cyborgs here accomplishes the exact opposite of complicating borders: they are consistently depicted as darker-skinned than Mulan and shown to live primarily in the dark lower reaches of the city. As Mallan states, “despite the liberating cyborg figure that Haraway imagines,

6 Longwei, as mentioned previously, shows symptoms of the TRV, so it can be assumed that he has some type of cybernetic enhancement installed in his body. However, no non-biological components to his body are ever shown, nor does he visibly use or mention using any implant throughout the story.

70 more often than not cyborg fictions fail to evade cultural stereotyping, and texts often fall back onto clichéd iconography that reproduces conventional gender representations” (151). Mulan: Revelations fits into this framework neatly, as the cyborgs are not only depicted in stereotypical terms, but function as a counterweight to enforce Mulan’s implied whiteness. Since they are more obviously racialized – and, sometimes, gendered – than she is, she becomes increasingly less so in comparison.

MULAN AS A NEUTRAL AVATAR FOR WESTERN VALUES Considering the overtly raced nature of the threats presented in Mulan: Revelations, the comic’s treatment of Mulan as a sort of ‘neutral’ main character – with no allegiance to anything but humanity as a whole – seems even more deliberate. While Mulan technically remains unambiguously Chinese in this reimagining, much as in previous American adaptations, her actual race or ethnicity play little to no part in the narrative itself. Throughout the comic’s depiction of her actions, opinions, and values, which align with and are sometimes indistinguishable from those of the Western world, her ethnicity becomes increasingly obfuscated. When discussing religion, she shows a high degree of knowledge about the contents of the Bible, while referring to what should perhaps be the more familiar spiritual content for her, passed on to her by Uncle Hong, as mere “stories” (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #3). She lives alone, wears Western clothing, and becomes not the hero of China but of all humanity. And, even as she vows to do “anything to help the human race” in front of the Immortals, she allows herself to be captured in order to save the life of Adam, her American, blonde and blue-eyed, male friend (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #4). There is nothing in the narrative itself that even suggests her racial or ethnic identity as “Chinese” or even “Asian,” apart from her readily recognizable name. Ultimately, she reads as a non-racialized character, which typically defaults to “white.” It is clear, then, that Mulan’s cyberpunk adventure in Mulan: Revelations is one that revolves around and brings into focus not China, but the West and its anxieties and fictions about what China might be. Mulan is further removed from any racial identity by positioning her as the foil to Longwei and his corporate empire. As advanced technology is used and abused primarily by Sinotech and its “goons” throughout the narrative, the central threat of technology becomes

71 increasingly racialized. This is especially noteworthy in Mulan’s almost complete lack of technological toys, which are more closely associated with Longwei and his allies throughout the text. Mulan only uses technological tools at the very beginning of the narrative and leaves them behind entirely once her magic powers awaken. Meanwhile, from the holographic board of trustees to the high-tech screens and surfaces at the Sinotech headquarters, Longwei is always surrounded by technology throughout the narrative. The main opposition, then, is between Mulan’s humanity and Longwei’s technology, which leads to an interesting development: as the anxieties contained within the comic become more racialized, Mulan as a character becomes increasingly deracinated. While Longwei stands firmly for Western anxieties about Asia and technology, Mulan is positioned more and more strongly against him as the narrative continues, and becomes consequently more aligned with Western ideologies and values such as individualism and commitment to rationalism. By the end of the fourth and final issue, she has sworn loyalty to the "human race" and given up her freedom for the sake of her American companion despite his earlier admission of betrayal. The narrative, as it is displayed through the writing, glosses over questions of race and gender in Mulan’s identity production, or at least does not consider those features to be particularly important. Mulan’s transformation into a hero of mankind in general works with the ‘colorblind’ attitudes of the comic and creates a message of unity: that we are, ultimately, all human, despite our differences. This message comes up multiple times, and is mostly expressed by Mulan. During a discussion about religion and the supposed similarities between Taoism and Christianity, Adam tells Mulan to not point these differences out to “a priest or imam.” She replies: “That’s the point, isn’t it? Keep us divided by our differences, not our similarities” (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #3). The Immortals themselves also drive this type of thinking by generally referring to humanity as a single entity with no meaningful subdivisions as far as they are concerned. While it perhaps makes sense for the superhuman Immortals not to care about the differences between different groups of people, this view is generally replicated by Mulan. This view goes unchallenged during the existing narrative, giving the comic a problematic tone as perpetuating and reinforcing a sort of “colorblind” attitude.

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This colorblind – or perhaps post-race – thinking is visible in not just the obvious attempts to Westernize Mulan or hide her race and gender, but also in how the text treats important vector of cultural difference such as religion. The narrative essentially collapses Western and Eastern religions into a single worldview, with no meaningful difference between separate traditions. The first indication of this conflation appears in the second issue, where Adam, an explicitly Christian character, notes the similarity of Uncle Hong's tales about the Immortals and Christian views of angels. Mulan responds: "Same stories, different costumes, huh?" (Alter and Andreyko, Mulan: Revelations #3). She then proceeds to ponder about how the separation of different religions enforces the segregation of different people, without acknowledging any merit in individual religions or traditions. Not only are the problems of this view never addressed, but in fact they are perpetuated by the actual worldbuilding itself: in flashbacks and visions given to Mulan about her own past, the Immortals look exactly like angels do in Christian depictions. As such, the conflation of religions into one becomes not simply an opinion Mulan has, but an objective truth in the world of the comic. In Mulan: Revelations, race, religion, and ethnicity are all questions of no consequence. Likewise, Mulan’s gender – or, indeed, questions of gender in general – is never explicitly discussed in the narrative. Perhaps following in the footsteps of many of the Chinese adaptations of the Mùlán legend, Mulan: Revelations attempts to treat gender overall as a sort of non-issue: it is not mentioned, it is not discussed, and it is not worked into a significant part of the worldbuilding. For example, while the state of the lower classes is a frequent point of discussion, there is no mention ever made as to how life might differ for different genders in both upper and lower classes. Mulan also never makes any particular reference to her gender, nor does any other character in the comic ever make note of it. However, because the comic is adapting a story so inherently gendered in the West – and because it is producing a story with a female protagonist within a patriarchal cultural formation – it is impossible for the narrative to exist completely outside of considerations of gender. The fact that the comic disregards this issue reveals a commitment to a postfeminist view in which gender is insignificant -- or, at least not important enough to properly acknowledge – to Mulan’s personal narrative. This, of course, points to some of the deeper issues of representation within popular culture.

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The results of this approach within the narrative are twofold. Unlike her American predecessors, this Mulan is not forced to represent women as a whole or prove the worthiness of women by proving herself. Instead, this revision of Mulan sees her already "proven" from the beginning: she comes from a position of privilege and is already well-respected in her social circles. Other characters’ reactions to Mulan are not presented as being dependent on her gender, or especially her gender expression, which has historically garnered negative reactions from other characters in previous American adaptations. Likewise, the choice of using Mulan, a raced female character, as the main character of a specifically cyberpunk narrative is not inconsequential, as the genre has long been defined by “the centrality of the cyberspace (or console) cowboy, usually a young man who plugs into the feminized cyberspace matrix to become the idealized hacker-hero” (Allan 152). Mulan's adversaries are all men who control technology, and it seems that this is a deliberate attempt to fight against some of the most ingrained gender conventions in cyberpunk. In this sense, Mulan: Revelations succeeds in being a critical take at cyberpunk. Despite the narrative’s obfuscation of Mulan’s gendered and racialized difference, she does remain at the center of the story, and she is still visibly both a woman and Chinese. Her presence as the protagonist of the comic makes her something of a subversive or even radical character. These deliberate narrative choices point toward a feminist, perhaps even post- cyberpunk approach by “rejecting [cyberpunk’s] white (heterosexual) masculine claims on both the subject and / technology” (Allan 152), a key feature of feminist post-cyberpunk. As a character that carries multiple vectors of marginalization, the focus on Mulan as a character is a potentially subversive move. The white, masculine character, Adam, is very explicitly placed in the role of a sidekick, which further enforces the deliberate move to centralize Mulan's narrative over that of the white male. Indeed, at the end of the comic's run, it is Adam who becomes the damsel in distress, and Mulan is the hero who must save him. However, this reversal of the usual trope is also where the second effect of the comic’s attempted postfeminist approach becomes visible. While Mulan is the central character of the narrative, she, as a woman, must sacrifice her own freedom and wellbeing for the sake of a man. It is not the first time she makes sacrifices for the men in her life, either. In the first issue, we see her give money to her younger brother to save him from his own irresponsibility, which she explicitly feels responsible for since the two have no parents.

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In the second issue, she nearly allows herself to be caught to help Uncle Hong. Despite her role as the protagonist, Mulan's actions and thoughts revolve around the men in her life, and men are almost exclusively the only contacts she has. At the end of the existing storyline, it is precisely her self-sacrifice for the sake of Adam – the white, stereotypically masculine man – by giving herself in to prevent his death at the hands of her adversaries. Insofar as the goal of a feminist, post-cyberpunk approach is to offer “a broader consideration of what it means to be gendered and raced in an age when technology transcends geopolitical borders and exists both outside and inside of the body” (Allan 153), Mulan: Revelations fails in de-centralizing whiteness and masculinity in any meaningful way. As far as the narrative is concerned, Mulan is neither raced nor gendered, and ultimately her downfall happens for the benefit of that which her story could have supplanted: white masculinity. Similarly, since gender is supposed to be a non-issue in the text, it is conspicuous that other female characters are essentially absent from the series. For example, Mulan has no meaningful homosocial relationships throughout the existing storyline. The only recurring female character she interacts with is the (only female) Immortal, Mantis, who only contacts her when it is convenient for the plot. Instead of fostering meaningful relationships with other women, Mulan relies entirely on the men in her life for companionship or intimacy. In terms of the worldbuilding, this means that other women either aren’t willing or aren’t able to occupy the role Mulan does. Since this is never discussed in any kind of detail within the narrative itself, the question of the absence of other notable female characters is left hanging and never resolved. As such, the comic’s effort to not give any attention to issues of gender ends up underscoring Mulan’s gendered representation instead. The end result is a narrative that once again portrays Mulan as not "a woman," but "an exceptional woman," an outlier who can function in a world of men as their equal. Considering the choice the creators made to illustrate her as masculinized, with a studded leather jacket and a mohawk hairdo, Mulan’s status as “exceptional” or different from other women becomes even more notable. The deliberate masculinization of Mulan as the “exceptional woman” brings the text’s focus back onto masculinity, and in many ways ends up reinforcing and recreating the patriarchal paradigm that celebrates and privileges masculine qualities over feminine ones. This focus on masculinity is further enhanced by Mulan nevertheless presenting "feminine" traits such as performing emotional labor for the men in her life as well as having

75 a nurturing personality and a tendency for self-sacrifice. Essentially, she works as a foil to the greedy, high-tech power-hungriness of Longwei and his 'primal masculinity' – a common cyberpunk trope. As gender is another aspect of embodiment, this, too, ultimately ties back to the racialized features embodied by the characters and becomes one of the many ways in which the narrative displays its techno-Orientalism. As Allan puts it, “A good deal of this ‘primal masculinity’ relies on techno-Orientalist tropes to provide the settings and peoples that support this hallucinatory world of male mastery” (152). Indeed, Longwei's carefully devised technological superiority builds its threat through the racialized bodies of the Chinese cyborgs he has created and then deemed disposable for the purposes of profit. The Shanghai he oppresses through his 'male mastery' is Chinese only by its location, to provide Longwei an exotic yet Westernized setting to exploit. This is contrasted with Mulan's more mystical, “natural” power, passed onto her by her Uncle Hong. As a whole, the narrative revolves solidly around issues of masculinity and male superiority, and thus fails to represent embodied gender difference in a meaningful way. Perhaps this is something the creators would have eventually addressed, had the series run its full course. As it stands, the comic does more to enforce the gender status quo than challenge it, further complicating this Mulan’s status as a would-be hero of championing diversity and narratives of difference. She is more apt to hurt the cause of diversity in literature, and, as such, dressing her as a hero of difference would amount to a sort of false flag operation perpetrated on behalf of Orientalism. However, as Mulan: Revelations is a graphic narrative, there is more to consider than simply the textual components. Indeed, the illustrations of the comic work to reclaim both Mulan's race and her gender by depicting them in unambiguous terms. Despite her arguable status as a nonhuman entity due to her Immortal powers, Mulan is always depicted as occupying an Asiatic body, even when she is glowing pink due to said powers. Even when depicted in monochromatic situations where there is no difference in skin color between her and Adam, the illustrations clearly convey her raced appearance. Similarly, her appearance is always coded feminine, especially in the beginning when she wears a long white dress to further accentuate her femininity. The illustrations are able to bring her race and gender into view in a way that is missing from the narrative, and in a way that reclaims her raced and gendered identity. In this sense, the comic could be considered a feminist post-cyberpunk

76 revision of the Mùlán legend: Mulan and Longwei, while both racialized and techno- Orientalized through their appearance, are, like other techno-Orientalized characters in feminist post-cyberpunk, more than simply a “part of the exotic backdrop in some Westernized cyber-fantasy; they are at the center of the novel, leading the narrative” (Allan 157). As such, the illustrations of the comic are able to reclaim some of the lost racial and gendered identities of the characters that the narrative of the comic almost makes invisible. In making Mulan’s race explicit, the art does subvert some of the colorblindness of the narrative and asserts that she, as a Chinese woman, is deserving of the spotlight as a main character. Considering the hegemonic whiteness within mainstream comic, Mulan’s status as a nonwhite, female superhero is not inconsequential. This makes the comic’s treatment of the Mùlán legend similar to that seen in Disney’s Mulan in that ultimately, as far as the narrative is concerned, difference is only skin deep – or paper thin. When all of the meaningful difference embodied by Mulan as a character is limited to her appearance, the underlying cultural project of domestication or assimilation comes to view. Certainly, she might look different, but what is really important is that her values, her behaviors, and her manners are all familiar to the white American reader. This way, the Othered character is accessible and nonthreatening, suitable for an American mainstream market, while still retaining the value derived from the commodification of her Asian, racialized body through the process Nancy Leong has termed racial capitalism. Because we live in a “society preoccupied with diversity,” where “nonwhiteness is a valued commodity,” this type of depiction of racialized bodies can easily translate into financial gain (Leong 2154). Instead of working to depict Mulan’s vectors of difference in a critically meaningful way and working them into her expressed identity, the forces behind Mulan: Revelation take the easy way out and let her appearance be the only thing that sets her apart from the mass of white superheroes and mainstream comic book protagonists. While the visual presentation of Mulan’s character is indeed vivid and works to bring her race and gender back into view, it ultimately ends up ringing hollow. This Mulan is little else than a papier-mâché mouthpiece for Western values and ideas, painted to look Chinese.

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CONCLUSION In a narrative as intrinsically embroiled in the depiction of difference as Mulan: Revelations is, any kind of colorblind – and genderblind and cultureblind – thinking is troubling. Not only are Mulan’s embodied vectors of difference erased for most of the comic, but the underlying message appears to be that these types of difference are of no consequence in the production of identity. The most important part of Mulan’s character, as far as the narrative is concerned, is her Western ideology and understanding of the world. Although these ideas are delivered through her visibly gendered and raced body, they ultimately only serve to reinforce her status as an inescapably Western character. This becomes all the more problematic when this faux-Chinese character is given the role of resisting the supposedly Chinese future with its social problems. Much like the iteration of Mulan seen in Wild Orchid, the Mulan of Mulan: Revelations is essentially positioned as a weapon to use against the (imagined) ideologies of her own culture. It is up to her and her Western values to defeat the corporate monster that threatens the existence of not only China, but all of humanity. Furthermore, her original context as a historical Chinese hero is recontextualized as she finds out that her past self also fought the demons, not some more localized or culturally specific enemy. In effect, she is made into a warrior who never fought for China, or indeed any country, but whose battle was always concerned with all of "human race." In addition, the externalizing of these social problems and anxieties to a different culture allows the American reader distance from the issues at hand. Rather than confronting the ways in which they are themselves complicit, they are instead allowed to passively observe the class issues and corporate anxieties presented within the comic. As a result, Mulan: Revelations attempts to challenge current social paradigms and explore their possible negative outcomes, while, at the same time, it reinforces existing paradigms in the form of allowing the American reader a voyeuristic glimpse at the now-externalized, “Chinese” problems. Not only does this significantly lessen the critical potential the comic might have otherwise had, it also problematizes the ways in which social problems are treated in the narrative at all. Considering the central role of techno-Orientalism in the project of the comic, this is not altogether surprising, as “techno-Orientalism symmetrically and yet contradictorily completes this project [of Orientalism] by creating a collusive, futurized Asia to further

78 affirm the West’s centrality” (Roh et al. 7). This is precisely what Mulan: Revelations does. It positions Mulan, a racialized and gender character, in the center of the story to use her as an “outside” commentator on the Western ideas the comic wishes to explore. Despite Mulan’s role as the protagonist and appearance as a character that embodies at least racial and gender difference, the comic ultimately functions to bring more focus onto the West and its perceived superiority. Instead of offering a meaningful depiction of any type of difference, Mulan: Revelations imagines a Western future, a Western character, and a Western storyline, where Mulan is Chinese in name alone.

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