The New Woman a la Disney

I am watching Mulan. I can never get enough of this movie. My favorite song is “I'll Make a Man Out of You” because the montage is so inspiring! The montage moves from a hopeless bunch of unfit men (and woman) to a trained corps of incredible acumen. In true Disney fashion, they each entirely master the skills needed to complete the rigors of training. They all make rapid, unbelievable progress, though Mulan leads the group as they run. The only thing the fellows in the army are lacking is brains. They cannot figure out how to use the weights to climb the pole to reach the arrow.
The scope of masculinity is very broad—from the effeminate adviser, to the noble blockhead Yao, to the handsome and capable Li Shang. Mulan proves she cannot fit into her prescribed position in society in the meeting with the matchmaker. She is too full of personality... so we see another ideal of femininity as Mulan develops as a soldier. She fits well. She has more than physical stamina, for she is a problem-solver. She has emotional equanimity when the army passes through the razed village. She commemorates the dead, tries to comfort Li Shang, despite her own despair.
All told, she is no typical Disney leading lady. For example, Cinderella's claims to fame include a lovely singing voice, a fondness for animals, and extraordinary forbearance when treated poorly by relatives (not to mention a knack at scrubbing, sweeping, and sewing). Snow White is primarily maternal, exhibiting a keen household sensibility, a fabulous cook, a fondness for woodland creatures, her “fatal” flaw though, is being a tad too trusting when it comes to strange, old women. Sleeping Beauty, er...uh, Briarrose, is it?... a nice singing voice, dancing skills, a fondness for woodland creatures... Jasmine and Belle have a few more traits to recommend themselves: an independent spirit and a deep love of learning, respectively. But Mulan is the new woman: strong, smart, sensitive, beautiful—though her physical beauty is downplayed when she is dressed as a man. But she is not entirely new-fashioned: she follows in the rags-to-riches economic expectation, and she still talks to animals, though their responses are limited to typical animal-talk, excluding Mushu the dragon.
[Spoiler Warning] By the end of the movie, Mulan's fullest self is realized. She saves the emperor himself from the leader of the Huns, even dressed as a woman! She leads the other men with her strategy (now all dressed as women, to the “I'll Make a Man Out of You” reprise). She the personally beats (Attila?) the Hun with her wits.
Though set in China, perhaps the story is Western, with Western ideals, and Western heroes. As a product of Western society, I love it!

Muppet Christmas

Beginning in last October, when I would think about winter coming, I would have brief flashes from A Muppet Christmas Carol. It has been over ten years since I have seen that movie, but it must have made quite an impression on me! Being opposed to cold in my life, it is perhaps my only happy association with the cold. Plus, the city is so innocent and filled with joy. Very soon, I expect to walk out of my front door in Lancaster, and join in with a line in a song spanning the entire neighborhood.

Wayne will step out of the deli's door, saying something about there being "one more sleep til Christmas."

Jonathan and Lis will have a duet in the street, playing with the other children, keeping time by bouncing their kickball off the side of the theater building.

Justine and Jake will sit out on their porch with their huge dog and sing, "we're always much warmer, this time of the year!"

Linda will stroll toward Harrisburg Avenue, holding a cigarette, whistling in cadence while

Charlotte will hold out two Turkey Hill iced teas, spinning on the corner of Mary and Pine, "we cannot wait til Chriiiiistmaaaas!"

I am almost afraid to see the movie now, for being disappointed.

The Happiest People in the World

Here is a selection from Dorothy Osborne's Letters that I found in Woolf's A Room of One's Own.


"The heat of the day is spent in reading or working and about sixe or seven a Clock, I walkeout into a Common that lyes hard by the house where a great many young wenches keep Sheep and Cow’s and sitt in the shades singing of Ballads; I goe to them and compare their voyces and Beauty’s to some Ancient Shepherdesses that I have read of and finde a vaste difference there, but trust mee I think these are as innocent as those could bee. I talke to them, and finde they want nothing to make them the happiest People in the world, but the knoledge that they are soe. most commonly when we are in the middest of our discourse one looks aboute her and spyes her Cow’s goeing into the Corne and then away they all run, as if they had wing’s at theire heels."

The happiest people in the world, "but the knoledge that they are soe." It makes me wonder, am I in that category as well? I think so. And the more so, because I know it. But I cannot allow fear of diminishing happiness to darken my happiness:

"What though my joys and comforts die? The Lord my Savior liveth! / What though the darkness gather 'round? Songs in the night He giveth! / No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging! / While love is Lord of heav'n and earth, how can I keep from singing?!"

Maybe Christians are the happiest and solemnest people on earth.