Analysis of Strong Female Characters in Mulan and Alice in Wonderland

The Disney studios brought us our childhood, films from Mary Poppins to The Lion King, Dumbo to the old school Treasure Planet, but more iconically; the Disney Princess line. From the OG Cinderella to the more recent Vanellope, princesses or female characters of similar status have had a strong presence in modern film culture. The portrayal of these characters is unique in of themselves but all share similar feminine characteristics; beautiful, delicate and who are hopelessly in love with a male character. In many, if not most, action and fantasy films, women are portrayed as the damsel. Their whole purpose of the story is to be an aid to the male character, or to be their obsession. This isn't a presentation on any of those, quite literally the opposite. With the boom of feminism and the demand for equal gender rights, strong female characters were brought into the modern culture of film, and has become a recurring archetype in cinema.

When one says ‘Strong Female Character’ what comes to mind? Usually the answer is a female character who has a direct or aggressive personality. A woman who is in control of her emotions and refuses to let them rule her. She is independent, conventionally beautiful and intelligent while often being sarcastic. This is the stereotypical Hollywood dipication of a ‘strong female character’. What about strong male characters? What similar characteristics do they share with their gender counterparts? Well they are typically direct, slightly aggressive. They are confident, intelligent, conventionally handsome, in control of their emotions, sarcastic and can kick ass.

To Hollywood, a strong female character is just woman who exhibits masculine traits, as if to say that a woman rejecting her femininity and adopting masculinity in its place will make her ‘strong’. But is this true for all films, in particular those of Disney? This brings me to my thesis; Bancroft and Cook are more effective in using symbolism to drive plot and develop the female protagonist, than those in Burton’s Alice in Wonderland to defy expectations set by stereotypical gender roles. This will be shown by comparing and contrasting the ways in which strong female protagonists in both Mulan and Alice in Wonderland are portrayed in relation to their gender roles, particularly within the aspects of masculinity and femininity.

We all know Alice in Wonderland’s story. An unpretentious and individual 19 year old faces an imminent arranged marriage to a soon-to-be English Lord, Hammish. Alice spots an unusually familiar rabbit scampering around the residential estate garden and falls down the rabbit hole…. After arriving at the bottom, Alice finds herself in the wondrous and surreal world or Underland, filled with talking animals, queens, knights and a looming prophecy. She realises she is indeed the ‘right’ Alice and conquers the horrific jabberwocky and restores the throne to the rightful queen.

Mulan is the story of a soldier's daughter. As a new war nears and her father is called to fight, Mulan decides to take his place- though as we know, women were considered ineligible for war in the Chinese patriarchal regime at that time. As such, Mulan impersonates a man and goes off to train for the war with the fellow recruits. Accompanied by her companion Mushu, she learns to fight, wards of the Hun invasion and defeats Shun Yu, saving China.

Alice is the typical ‘strong female character, empowering her not through her femininity, but through masculinity. At the beginning of the film we see Alice struggling with social conventions and gendered roles pushed on her by society, such as being forced into an arranged marriage and being asked to do what is ‘proper’ or ‘apprioate’ for a lady, which function as a test of her feminist ideology. Alice is repeatedly criticized for her creative, imaginative and curious mind, as it falls outside the norms of a society ruled by regulations. An example of this is while dancing with Hamish, Alice finds herself amused by her imagination or ‘visions’. Hamish urges her to ‘keep her visions to herself’, the first instance of the oppression of Alice’s imagination. Hamish continuous with ‘when in doubt remain silent’. This pivotal scene signifies the start of Alice’s departure from what is deemed as ‘normal’. Hamish is the represenation, or symbol of society’s unwillingness to reform the well-established gender expectations of a male dominated culture.

While Underland provides Alice with an avenue to express her burgeoning feminist beliefs, she is further challenged to conform to the expectations of others and therefore must exercise an air of confidence and independence in order to assert herself. “Ever since I fell down that rabbit hole everyone I’ve met has told me what to do and who I am. … [T]his is my dream, I’ll decide where it goes from here.” The contradictory nature of Alice’s feminism proposes that femininity cannot be celebrated as a source of strength and should instead focus on that which justifies male superiority: masculinity. Burton’s modern adaptation pushes Alice into traditional male roles, such as becoming a knight in shining armor and embarking on a career in the capitalist trade industry, to prove her worth. Burton’s attempt to shatter the mold of past female Disney characters ultimately suggests that female characters can only gain equality and power by shirking femininity and instead embodying masculine qualities.

But this isn't just speculation. When Alice meets Madhatter for the first time, or should I say re-meet for the first time, he states ‘It’s Absolutely Alice. You’re absolutely Alice! I’d know you anywhere. I’d know him anywhere’. This suggests that Alice is to transform into a strong, male-ish figure, foreshadowing the battle at the end of the film, in which Alice embodies a knight and defeats the jabberwocky.

Unlike Alice, Mulan doesn’t reject her femininity, nor does she dismiss masculinity. At the start of the film, Mulan is depicted as a typical young woman. In the first few scenes, including the first song ‘Honour to Us All’, we are introduced to the gendered social hierarchy that is present in the film. Mulan is told that her manners and appearance are what will attract her a husband, and in doing so will bring honour to her family. The consequences of not conforming to the social ideas placed on her, the struggle that Mulan endures leads to the song ‘Reflections’, where Mulan considers the duality of her identity. Mulan shows signs of internal conflict as she lacks all the values in women; grace, delicaley, poise, refinement, quietness and punctuality. She has been asked by her family and society to fulfill a role of abject conservative feminism, something she knows within herself isn't who she is. This foreshadows Mulan’s growth as the protagonist and symbolises the change that the character will undeniably take.

After joining the army in her father’s stead, Mulan, or Ping as I should say, has to embrace the gendered male roles, taking up physical brute strength over feminine customs. As she learns what it means to be masculine through the song ‘I’ll make a man out of you’, Mulan’s character transforms from a helpless failure, to a skilled soldier. This scene introduces us to the General Li Shang, the epitome of masculinity; hes strong, strategic, in control of his emotions. He is a strong male character. While Mulan, or Ping, has physically transformed herself into a man, this song is the transition in which she begins playing a man. Although, the song prompts that nothing in society has changed yet, that women are still viewed as weak and less important, compared to the male’s dominance. Shang does this through the line, ‘did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?’.

Although Mulan had clear consensual views on what was considered feminine and masculine. The difference between Alice in Wonderland and Mulan is that while Alice replaced her femininity with masculinity, Mulan challenged the very concept of masculinity and does so while never once rejecting or demeaning femininity. Instead, she learned to become strong with displaying traits of both. There is proof throughout the film where this is the case, where the ideals of femininity never lost its value nor was it abandoned by the protagonist and it's in the scene where the men cross dress. Mulan and her friends, embrace their femininity in which to gain access into the temple after attempting to use their brute force. 

For men who sepnt all of their screen time up until that point try to fall and incorpoate tje ideal masculine traits, seeing them immediatley and enthusiatically jump to doing something a man would ridicule and find weak and stupid, proves that they to embrace the femininity within them. The best though is when the very symbol of personifies masculinity himself (Shang), also embraces his feminie side. It’s almost obvious that shang represent the ideal figure of a man; the man all these soilders want to be. 

So what makes Mulan a strong female character? She embodies both feminine and masculine traits, while never loosing herself in the process. She was never always feminine nor always masculine. Mulan isnt strong because she is a warrior, shes strong because she is human, because right in the environment of the highest toxic masculinity is where she becomes strong by refusing to bend to those ideals. In the sense that she doesnt become more agressive than less emotional. She doesnt change inside, or change her essence. She doesnt become a man, she becomes mulan.