Last week, I took my best friend visiting from Connecticut to Disneyland for what was her first time but probably my fifty-sixth time, give or take a few. (My mom is a Disneyland fanatic... it's a little hard to explain). I like to think of myself as a Disney Expert, so as I played tour guide around the park, she got to ask me loads of Disneyland and Disney-related questions.
For those of you who are new to my rants, I'm half-Chinese, strongly identify as such. So when waiting in line for the Toy Story Midway Mania ride in California Adventure, my friend asked me, "So, what's your favorite classic animated Disney movie?" My instant response was, "Mulan! Duh."
You've already heard my ranting about the lack of representation of Asian American minorities in the media from my previous article, so I'll spare you the repetition and actually praise Disney for actually doing a good job on this one (if you haven't read my article about Emma Stone in Aloha, read it here.)
Thank you Disney, for giving me a role model. Even more props for making her fan-freaking-tastic.
My friend proceeded to ask who was my favorite Disney princess, which elicited the same response. "Mulan! She risked her life to save her father and her family, and then saved all of China from the Huns. What's not to love?"
Who's with me? Comment on this article with your favorite Disney princess and why!
However, this is where I run into trouble. According to Disney lore, since Mulan married Shang, who was a general (read: not prince), she is not a princess. EVEN THOUGH she was bestowed a great medal of honor by the Emperor of China. Um. What? Excuse me while I go snooze my feminist alarm.
I am most familiar with what I like to call the Fantastic Four: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Belle. More princesses have since been added to this list, but because Mulan is technically not a princess, she's not included in the expanded Disneyland clique, which looks something like this:
Rapunzel and Tiana are added in the places of Pocahantas and Mulan who are currently MIA and AWOL...
This is where I start to question my childhood a little a lot.
I've had plenty of sightings of Peter and Wendy, Alice and her companions, Buzz Lightyear and Woody, and countless other Disney characters. Yet in all my fifty- ix-plus visits, in which I should have a very decent probability of seeing her, I can only remember seeing Mulan walking through the park once.
For all her talents and achievements, why is Mulan not included as a Disneyland princess? Maybe it's because she's not a classic princess, because her movie was written much later than the others? Upon further inspection, Mulan was introduced in 1998, only 7 years after Belle, in Beauty and the Beast in 1991. Previous reason: rejected.
Maybe the technicality of the prince/general thing is what is tripping everything up. Yet with more research, I found that Disney World doesn't seem to be having this problem, with a photo taken during the most recent coronation of Princess Merida:
So this is the question I have for you, Disneyland: Where in the world is my Mulan?
