Hot Take: Li Shang Was Left Out Because of #MeToo???
It's been a couple of years since Disney's live-action remake of Mulan came out, and even though I haven't personally seen it, there are a lot of things that were bothering me that came out ahead of the movie's release. I won't go into all of them, but there was one that bothered me above everything else.
The reason that Li Shang was left out of the movie.
The reason the filmmakers gave for leaving out Li Shang was because of the #MeToo movement. For those of you that don't know, the #MeToo movement in its simplest form is a movement wherein women were telling their stories of sexual assault and harassment by men, and it seeks to bring justice where our law enforcement system and our culture has failed women for hundreds of years. It's the reason Harvey Weinstein was taken down.
My first thought was, what in the world does that have to do with Li Shang??? The explanation was that the relationship was inappropriate because Shang was Mulan's superior officer.
In my opinion, this is another example of companies being completely oblivious to the purpose of what people are trying to say. In the same way that people, such as writer Roxane Gay, were dumbfounded when Hulu took down the Golden Girls episode "Mixed Blessings" because it supposedly featured "blackface" (it didn't), I was dumbfounded how Li Shang could even remotely be considered problematic.
First of all, because of all the Disney male characters, even by today's standards, Li Shang is one of the least problematic. Gaston fits into the category of problematic men. Shang does not. He's a product of his time, but even with the archaic rules he follows he's respectful, and he willingly changes his tune.
Second of all, because Shang and Mulan did not have a relationship, nor was Shang even interested in her, while he was her commanding officer. I realize some may argue this point, but I don't see anything to suggest that he had any sort of attraction to her while she was being Ping. He respected and liked Ping, but he didn't fall in love with Mulan until she saved China- and by then she wasn't one of his troops anymore. Once again, I must point out that when he was legally obligated to kill her upon finding out that she was a woman, he did not because he respected her and owed his life to her.
Things like this only dampen and dull the point and purpose of the #MeToo movement. I don't use this term lightly because it gets thrown around a lot online, but this actually does feel like pandering. This term is thrown around online to describe moments in movies that are obviously feminist or too "woke" and based on my observation is mostly used by people who are annoyed with the fact that women's representation is shifting from the male gaze to our actual experience (*coughs* Captain Marvel!). In this way, I do not like this term. They said Captain Marvel was pandering. They said the"A-force" scene in Avengers: Endgame was pandering. To me, these claims are ridiculous, because as a woman, these are the cinematic moments and experiences I had been waiting for my entire life (and I was 21 when both movies came out).
That said, I use the term in regards to the Mulan remake because "pandering" more accurately refers to someone attempting to be "woke" or "politically correct" without actually understanding the problem and what it is that the marginalized group actually wants. Hulu removing that episode of The Golden Girls is a prime example. Hulu was completely oblivious A, to what was actually going on in the episode, and B, trying to do the bare minimum to make themselves look non-racist without actually standing up for the issue at hand- which was police brutality. In the case of Mulan, their solution to appear more feminist than the 1998 cartoon was to eliminate a beloved character that I've seen literally no one have a problem with. Literally no one. On top of that, his replacement was a "love" interest who spends the whole movie insulting her until he finds out she's a woman. Exactly how is that more feminist than Shang? Shang was tough on her as Ping, but he always respected her- because he held respect for all of his soldiers because it's who he is. He never insulted any of them. Even though the law dictates she be put to death for being a woman in the army, Shang declines and treats her instead as an equal (almost). By the time she saves China, they are fully equals, and that's when he falls in love with her.
It was really disappointing to me that Mulan was not given a live-action remake that did any justice to the original, while The Lion King got a virtually shot-for-shot remake, and Aladdin got a remake that was really well done despite its differences- and let's be honest, some differences are necessary. But not this one. Of all the things that could've been changed about Mulan, leaving out Li Shang was a low blow. A YouTuber, who is actually Chinese, pointed out that she would've been fine with the changes made supposedly to make it more culturally accurate, except that the changes were actually less culturally accurate than the 1998 movie. In any event, Shang still remains one of my favorite Disney characters, as the 1998 movie remains one of my favorite Disney movies of all time!
As always, none of the images belong to me.
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