Daily Blog: Friday 3/26/2021 Jeremy & Ryan
On Friday morning we read passages about Mulan, discussing such after writing questions on the Padlet. The original writing of Mulan also known as the Ballad of Mulan was in Chinese, adding deeper meaning and context to the story. We also read some articles on the controversies surrounding Mulan (1998). We proceeded to write down some questions about both the Ballad of Mulan and the articles about the controversies before having lunch. After lunch, we all sat down and watched Disney's live-action version of Mulan. During the viewing, our Chinese Language teacher, Mr Zhou, entered the classroom and watched the film with us. After watching Mulan (2020), we proceeded to write down some questions on our group Padlet for our seminar. A short break occurred before we started our seminar on Mulan (2020). The first thing we discussed after the movie was the usage of Chi in the film. Most of us were dissatisfied with the usage of Chi in this film because it completely went against the original film’s message; women could be on the same level as men. However, instead of empowering women in this film, it made them look weaker since the men in the film don’t use Chi and were still able to keep up with Mulan who used Chi.
Another problem with the usage of Chi in the film was that it wasn’t culturally accurate to what Chi is. According to Chinese culture, Chi is the life force that flows through all living beings. In this film, however, Chi is described as only flowing through warriors and not women when that is incorrect. On top of that, Chi does not magically make people stronger and grant incredible abilities. Another point of topic was about how there was a secondary antagonist that was portrayed as similar to Mulan. We wondered about the significance of the character as it was not in the original 1998 version of Mulan. After our discussion, Mr. Zhou gave a passionate speech about how the film did not represent Chinese culture properly. He pointed out some of the questions on our group Padlet. For example, there was a question about why the Chinese actors didn’t speak their own language despite the film being set in China and having a predominantly Chinese cast and audience. He also pointed out how the moral of the film did not align with how the Chinese view family values through the fact that Mulan still returned to her family to be a generic housewife despite saving China and had the opportunity to become one of the emperor’s elite squad of soldiers. Mr. Zhou also had a similar problem with how Chi was portrayed in this film and talked about how American Hollywood movies tend to not show the full picture of different cultures’ traditions for the purpose of making profit from their western audience. Thus, giving western audiences a false impression of that culture’s traditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment