Mulan Re-Disneyfied: A Pretty Much Pop Culture Podcast (#62) Discussion with Actor Michael Tow

Is the new Mulan the equiv­a­lent for Asian-Amer­i­cans what Black Pan­ther was for African-Amer­i­cans? The largest enter­tain­ment machine we have fea­tured an all-Asian cast telling a tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese sto­ry aimed at the widest pos­si­ble audi­ence. Did it work?

Actor Michael Tow joins your hosts Eri­ca Spyres, Mark Lin­sen­may­er, and Bri­an Hirt to dis­cuss the devel­op­ment, aes­thet­ics, and polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing the film. The vision of fem­i­nism changed between the orig­i­nal poem from ca. 550 C.E. (“When the two rab­bits run side by side, how can you tell the female from the male?”) to the present, and the “just be you” eth­ic (with your mag­i­cal chi!) is not the norm for Chi­na in any peri­od. Was the project in its very con­cep­tion doomed to fall short of some of its goals? Was the live-action an improve­ment over the 1998 ani­mat­ed ver­sion?

Read the poem, and watch a read­ing of the illus­trat­ed 1998 Robert San Souci book Fa Mulan that the films were based on. There have been many adap­ta­tions of the sto­ry in Chi­na.

Oth­er sources we read to pre­pare includ­ed:

• “Inside Dis­ney’s Bold $200M Gam­ble on ‘Mulan’: ‘The Stakes Could­n’t Be High­er’ ” by Rebec­ca Ford
• “How Disney’s ‘Mulan’ Became One of 2020’s Most Con­tro­ver­sial Movies” by Alice Su
• “Dis­ney Want­ed to Make a Splash in Chi­na With ‘Mulan.’ It Stum­bled Instead” by Brooks Barnes and Amy Qin
• “Why Chi­nese view­ers hate Disney’s ‘Mulan’” by Den­nis E. Yi
• “A Chinse-Amer­i­can Actor’s Reac­tion to Dis­ney’s Biggest Flop” by Vic­tor Zheng
• “Review: ‘Mulan’ is Uncrit­i­cal of China—and Unmem­o­rable” by Kevin Christo­pher Rob­les
• “Mulan: A Flaw­less Fem­i­nist Fable That Stands the Test of Time (Review)” by Zach Gilbert (about the ani­mat­ed film)

Fol­low Michael on Twit­ter @michaelctow and check out his imdb cred­its. Michael host­ed a Q&A with the Mulan cast short­ly after the film’s release.

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

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