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ISSN 0256-0046/Online 1992-6049pp. 182–210
27 (2) 2013 © Critical Arts Projects & Unisa PressDOI: 10.1080/02560046.2013.783956
Cultural deformations andreformulations: a case study of Disney’sMulan in English and Chinese
Mingwu Xu and Chuanmao Tian
Abstract
The article first introduces the 1998 Disney production of the animated film, Mulan, and
suggests that the film is based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, especially on The Mulan
Ballad . It discusses the cultural adaptations in the production of the film through various
methods, such as additions, omissions, specifications, generalisations, explicitations, and so
on. It focuses on the Chinese translation of the film, examining the cultural restorations and
reformulations in the target text on the linguistic level by means of various domesticating and
foreignising methods. Finally, it discusses and explores the bidirectional transfer between
American and Chinese cultures, holding that there are intracultural and intercultural transfers,
and that the establishment of a cultural repertoire is, in some sense, dependent on culturalborrowings and rewritings which will give rise to cultural deformations and reformulations.
Keywords: Chinese film dubbing, cultural transfer, deformation, Disney, Mulan, reformulation
Introduction
The audiovisual (AV) industry in the United States (US) exercises a worldwide
inuence inasmuch as its products are consumed on such a scale, often through
audiovisual translation (AVT), namely interlingual subtitling and dubbing. American
Mingwu Xu is a professor of translation and interpreting and vice dean of School of Foreign Languagesat Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan City, P.R. China. [email protected]. Chuanmao Tian is professor of the School of Foreign Studies of Yangtze University,Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, P.R. China. Please contact the corresponding author Chuanmao Tian, [email protected]
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lms, including animated lms, have frequently based their themes on iconic
treasures from world civilisations, particularly from Greek, English, Arabian and
Chinese cultures. In other words, they often seek inspiration in plot design from
literary classics, religious canons, and folk tales in these cultures, such as Aladdin
(Musker & Clements 1992), Troy (Peterson 2004), King Arthur (Fuqua 2004), Kung
Fu Panda (Stevenson & Osborne 2008), Robin Hood (Scott 2010), and so on. It
is interesting to explore the contact between American culture and other cultures
in the design and manufacture of American AV products, and their translation and
dissemination in other parts of the world.
Mulan, a 1998 Disney-produced animated lm directed by Barry Cook and Tony
Bancroft, which draws on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan to construct its plot
framework, has achieved tremendous success with children around the world. It was
introduced back to China in a dubbed version in 1999. The production and translation
of the lm involves two encounters between American and Chinese cultures in bothDisney’s adaptation of the Chinese legend of Mulan and the Chinese translation of
Disney’s Mulan. The following paragraphs examine the process of bi-directional
cultural transfer through the case study.
Literature review
As a global media giant – second only to Time-Warner-AOL in the world – the Disney
Corporation is one of the major shapers of American and global popular culture, and
much has been written about its power and inuence (see Artz 2004). Many scholarshave devoted their research to studying Disney’s cultural production (especially of
its animated features) from a variety of perspectives, such as cultural studies (Chan
2002; Di Giovanni 2003; Wasko 2001), gender studies (Hoerner 1996), politics
(Hiassen 1998), education (Pewewardy 1996), aesthetics (Ricker 1996), discourse
analysis (Smoodin 1994), psychoanalysis (Berland 1982), and lm studies, which
can be subdivided into lm production (Croce 1990), lm distribution (Edgerton
& Jackson 1996), lm reception (Tang 2008) and character analysis (Benton 1995;
Giroux 1999; Moellenhoff 1989). Below is a review of the literature relevant to the
current study.
The Disney formula
Animation is central to Disney’s economic strength and cultural inuence, and its
great success owes much to an underlying formula which has long been cherished
by the corporation (Artz 2004; Chan 2002; Wasko 2001). This formula generally
includes individualism, the triumph of good over evil, young romance and the use of
animals as sidekicks.
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Individualism is a key theme of Disney animation, always linked with the story’s
hero or heroine. In Mulan, for example, it is almost the mere effort of the heroine
that overcomes the Huns and saves China. The heroes or heroines are, in addition,
privileged individuals. Examples of this include the sultan changing the laws of
royal matrimony; John Smith ordering the arrest of a governor; and Mulan’s father,
emperor and royal suitor forgiving her indiscretions (Artz 2004). Disney seems to
imply, through its animated stars, that acting against the public interest in one’s search
for individual gratication is natural, legitimate and desirable, and that the future of
the world revolves around the individual, self-interested actions of naturally superior
elites (ibid.). It should be pointed out here that the myth of the individual is not
conned to America. It can also be seen in countless tales in European history, such
as Greek and Roman mythologies and literary works of the Renaissance, and it was
consolidated in the American myth of the frontier, as in novels by James Fenimore
Cooper and Owen Wister.
Individualism also materialises in other cultures, such astraditional Chinese culture which holds that ‘heroes make history’, as manifested in
Sima Qian’s Historical records. Disney’s embrace of the myth of the hero is in line
with its production goal of catering to both local and global audiences (Chan 2002;
Tang 2008).
In Disney’s dream world, visual metaphor persists. Characters are simply either
good or bad. It is easy for the audience to make a distinction between them through
their stereotyped images, dialogues and actions. Good characters such as Simba,
the sultan, Ariel and Pocahontas have big eyes and round cheeks and are drawn in
curves, smooth, round, soft, bright and with European features, while villains such asScar, Jafar, the Hun, Ratcliffe and Ursula are drawn with sharp angles, oversized, and
often darkly (Artz 2004). Bad actions are punished; good ones rewarded. Disney’s
heroes are always stronger, smarter and victorious in the nal conict earning riches,
power or happiness, while the villains cannot win and are doomed to suffer calamity
or death (ibid.). Good ultimately prevails over evil (Chan 2002).
Another trademark technique Disney tends to employ is young romance or
romantic escape (Artz 2004; Chan 2002). For example, Mulan disguises herself as
a man to join the army without informing her family in advance (itself a recurrent
trick played by many Disney characters, such as Aladdin assuming a false identity
and Tarzan conspiring to violate jungle law [Artz 2004]). In her adventure to seekself-fullment and bring honour to her family, though, Mulan nds her ‘Prince
Charming’, Captain Li Shang. In Disney’s fantasy world, the aides to the hero or
heroine are invariably friendly and cute animals, adding appeal for young viewers
and comic relief for older ones (ibid.). The strength of using animals as sidekicks is
underlined by its converse: Sleeping Beauty (Clark, Larson, Geronimi & Reitherman
1959), the only Disney feature without an animal sidekick, failed miserably at the
box ofce. Besides the formulaic routines discussed above, Disney also follows other
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rules, such as emotional, catchy songs; humorous jokes; and assorted supporting cast
and character voices performed by lm stars (Chan 2002).
Transculturation in Disney animation
Disney’s animations are not original stories but are based on widely-accepted cultural
myths and morals (Artz 2004). This may also be viewed as part of the Disney formula.
Disney tends to innovate, enhance and modify the fairy tales, legends and ctions
it has borrowed from other cultures in its production of animated lms (Artz 2004;
Wasko 2001). Consequently, cultural transformation arises in the animations. Joseph
Chan (2002) calls this ‘transculturation’: a process whereby a culture is transformed
by another for self-aggrandisement. It is analogous to the conceptions of cultural
adaptation, acculturation and assimilation in cross-cultural communication.
As demonstrated by Disney animations, transculturation involves both
organisational routines and experimentation through which the foreign culture is
decontextualised, essentialised, recontextualised, domesticated and sometimes
universalised. The adaptation of foreign stories adds variety to Disney’s productions,
giving it a more global image; and it reduces the risk of production because these
stories have stood the test of time in their home cultures (ibid.). Chan (2002)
points out that to be persuasive, all stories have to be contextualised. The more
contextualised they are, the more believable they will be; in Americanising a story,
it has to be essentialised and stripped of its context, with its core elements identied.
Then the story is recongured and recontextualised. In Mulan, the Chinese avour
is preserved, achieved by situating the new story amidst unique cultural icons suchas the Great Wall, willow trees and pavilions, Tiananmen Square, and so on. It
becomes localised (i.e., Americanised) and globalised through additions of hyper-
individualism, romance, feminism and other Western and modern elements, as
evidenced when Mushu reads a modern paper, when Mulan cooks sausage and fried
egg for breakfast, when the ancestral spirits rock to Western music, as well as Eddie
Murphy voice-acting for Mushu in a street-smart lingo (ibid.).
Transculturation gives rise to cultural hybridisation and may cause intercultural
conict. The latter is evidenced by the fact that Disney animation has angered several
ethnic groups in the recent past: Arab-Americans, with the lyrics of an Alladin song;native Americans, who felt Pocahontas (Gabriel & Goldberg 1995) was unnecessarily
sexualised; and blacks, who took issue with the interracial makeup of voice talent in
The Lion King (Allers & Minkoff 1994).
Previous studies on Disney’s Mulan
So far, a number of papers and works have been devoted to research on Disney’s
Mulan. The online CNKI database indicates that in China over 20 articles have
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focused on the lm from different perspectives, including cultural communication
and semiotics, transculturation, narratology, postcolonialism, feminism, and so on.1
Some of the most relevant of this work is discussed here.
Zhongshun He (1999) and Renjie Zhang (1999) examine the cultural
transformation in Disney’s Mulan by comparing the lm to the Chinese legend ofMulan. The former claims that the lm conforms closely to ancient Chinese customs
and culture, while the latter argues that the lm-makers are ignorant of Chinese
history and character, and insists the characters do not have normal appearances
or exhibit appropriate Chinese behaviour. Joseph Chan (2002) explores the lm
by following the approach of transculturation. He believes that while the core
narrative of Mulan has been retained, several elements have been altered through
the recontextualisation of the narrative. Some Chinese elements deemed irrelevant
to the original story, for instance, have been added so as to strengthen the Chinese
cultural avour – the signication of China – and some non-Chinese (but Americanand global) elements are added in the lm in the localisation and globalisation of
the story. Georgette Wang and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh (2005) use Disney’s Mulan to
illustrate the trend of globalisation and hybridisation in cultural products. They hold
that hybridisation is not merely the mixing, blending and synthesising of different
elements that ultimately form a culturally faceless whole, but that in the course of
hybridisation, cultures often generate new forms and make new connections with
one another.
Jun Tang (2008) explores several issues on Mulan, namely globalisation, cultural
authenticity, the reception of the lm in mainland China and the translation of the
lm. Based on the analysis of the Chinese version of Mulan, he argues that a subtitle
translator is likely to adopt target-oriented (i.e., domesticating) rather than source-
oriented (i.e., foreignising) strategies if s/he chooses to conform to the audience’s
expectations and preferences. Yin Jing (2011) adopts the theory of articulation to
investigate the process by which Disney appropriates the Chinese legend of Mulan
into a universal classic, and offers an interpretation of The Mulan Ballad upon which
the lm is based, claiming that Disney’s appropriation simultaneously reinforces
existing racial and gender ideologies by deprecating Chinese culture as an Oriental
despotism, and by dissolving feminism into the cultural/racial hierarchy.
Summary
The abovementioned formula has helped to establish the commercial and cultural
might of the Disney brand as the world leader in animation production (while the
brand has, in turn, strengthened the formula). However, the success of Disney
animation is closely related to its quality. Disney does not cling to the formula
blindly, but is instead aware of trends in American and global popular culture, and is
receptive to introducing new themes and technologies (Chan 2002).
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Transculturation presupposes cultural transfer. In other words, there would be no
cultural transformation without cultural transfer. This article employs Itamar Even-
Zohar’s theory (1990/1997) on cultural transfer to deal with cultural problems in
the production and translation of Mulan. Even-Zohar’s model (2008) of cultural
contacts is generally applied to historical studies of cross-cultural exchange, but ithas implications for cultural transfer in AV industries.
Many studies have been done on cultural transformations in Disney’s Mulan, but
the available literature has not taken a closer look at the differences between the
lm and The Mulan Ballad . The current study uses ‘cultural deformation’ rather
than ‘cultural transformation’, because in cross-cultural communication, cultural
transformation is, in many cases, an indication of unfaithfulness to and disrespect
for the original culture. In previous studies of Mulan, the Chinese version of the
lm was studied from the angle of translating strategies (Tang 2008), but not from
a cultural perspective. Given that Disney’s Mulan is thematically a borrowing ofChinese culture and that it returns home through the Chinese translation, it seems
more signicant to study the cultural relationship between the lm and the ballad
with regard to adapting and translating methods.2
Chinese culture in the film
Mulan, the 36th animated feature in the Walt Disney animated classics, and part of
the Disney renaissance, was produced primarily at the Disney animation studio at
Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. It was directed by Tony Bancroft andBarry Cook, with the story by Robert D. San Souci and the screenplay by Rita Hsiao,
Philip LaZebnik, Chris Sanders, Eugenia Bostwick-Singer and Raymond Singer. Its
production lasted ve years. It originally began as a short, straight-to-video lm
entitled ‘China Doll’ about an oppressed and miserable Chinese girl who is whisked
away by a British Prince Charming to happiness in the West. Then Disney consultant
and children’s book author, San Souci, suggested making a movie of the Chinese
poem, The Mulan Ballad , and Disney combined the two projects. The Mulan
project began in 1994. After the production team had sent a select group of artistic
supervisors to China for three weeks, to take photographs and make drawings of local
landmarks for inspiration and to soak up local culture, the lm-makers decided tochange Mulan’s character to make her more appealing and seless. Released by Walt
Disney Pictures on 19 June 1998, the lm was well received by critics and the public,
grossing $304 million, earning Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, and
winning several Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature.3
It is the rst time that Disney has ever drawn on an Asian story when making
an animated feature. Chinese people’s memory of the heroine is mainly related to
The Mulan Ballad , or The Song of Mulan. It has been ofcially included in Chinese
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They ask Daughter who’s in her heart,
They ask Daughter who’s on her mind.
“No one is on Daughter’s heart,
No one is on Daughter’s mind.
Last night I saw the draft posters,The Khan is calling many troops,
The army list is in twelve scrolls,
On every scroll there’s Father’s name.
Father has no grown-up son,
Mu-lan has no elder brother.
I want to buy a saddle and horse,
And serve in the army in Father’s place.”
In the East Market she buys a spirited horse,
In the West Market she buys a saddle,In the South Market she buys a bridle,
In the North Market she buys a long whip.
At dawn she takes leave of Father and Mother,
In the evening camps on the Yellow River’s bank.
She doesn’t hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,
She only hears the Yellow River’s owing water cry tsien tsien.
At dawn she takes leave of the Yellow River,
In the evening she arrives at Black Mountain.
She doesn’t hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,
She only hears Mount Yen’s nomad horses cry tsiu tsiu.
She goes ten thousand miles on the business of war,
She crosses passes and mountains like ying.
Northern gusts carry the rattle of army pots,
Chilly light shines on iron armor.
Generals die in a hundred battles,
Stout soldiers return after ten years.
On her return she sees the Son of Heaven,
The Son of Heaven sits in the Splendid Hall.
He gives out promotions in twelve ranksAnd prizes of a hundred thousand and more.
The Khan asks her what she desires.
“Mu-lan has no use for a minister’s post.
I wish to ride a swift mount
To take me back to my home.”
When Father and Mother hear Daughter is coming
They go outside the wall to meet her, leaning on each other.
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When Elder Sister hears Younger Sister is coming
She xes her rouge, facing the door.
When Little Brother hears Elder Sister is coming
He whets the knife, quick quick, for pig and sheep.
“I open the door to my east chamber,I sit on my couch in the west room,
I take off my wartime gown
And put on my old-time clothes.”
Facing the window she xes her cloudlike hair,
Hanging up a mirror she dabs on yellow ower powder
She goes out the door and sees her comrades.
Her comrades are all amazed and perplexed.
Traveling together for twelve years
They didn’t know Mu-lan was a girl.
“The he-hare’s feet go hop and skip,The she-hare’s eyes are muddled and fuddled.
Two hares running side by side close to the ground,
How can they tell if I am he or she?”
The Chinese legend of Hua Mulan centres on a young woman who disguises herself
as a man to take the place of her elderly father in the army, thus circumventing her
ineligibility, as a woman, to join the army in feudal China.4 The earliest accounts of
the legend state that she lived during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534). However,
another version reports that Mulan was sought as a concubine by Emperor Yang of
the Sui dynasty (604–617). The lm may be set even later, as it prominently features
landmarks such as the Forbidden City, which was not constructed until the 15th
century, during the Ming dynasty. On the other hand, at the time of the Northern Wei,
the Xiongnu (Huns) had already been assimilated into Chinese culture. However,
according to the style of dress (traditional Han clothing, also known as Hanfu), the
lm is set in the 15th century or sometime before. The reworks featured in the
movie indicate that the events unfolded during the Sui dynasty. Though Mulan is
set in north China, where the dominant language is Mandarin, the Disney lm uses
‘Fa’, the Cantonese pronunciation of ‘Hua’, as her family name. The matchmaking
episode featured in the lm, which includes the bride being made up, bathing anddoing her hair, is intimately associated with China’s marital culture. In a word, the
lm is a mixture of Chinese cultures, with the ballad as its plot basis.
Cultural deformations in the film
Disney’s Mulan is not faithful to the ballad or Chinese culture (Jing 2011; Tang
2008; Zhang 1999). In a sense, the production team merely used the poem to create
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its own story according to the Disney formula. The ballad is a very short story, and its
lack of detail left much room for Disney’s writers to exercise their imagination. On
the one hand, a few distinctive Chinese cultural artefacts such as the Great Wall, the
Chinese dragon and Tiananmen Square (which are well known to global audiences)
have been added to the lm so as to strengthen its Chinese avour. On the other
hand, some Disneyed elements, such as young romance and individualism, have
also been added so as to prevent the lm from becoming so exotic that it keeps global
audiences away. As a result, the original Chinese culture loses its authenticity, and
cultural deformation arises in the lm.
Definition of cultural deformation
Cultural borrowing is common in human literary and artistic production, and is often
not a mechanical copying but a rewriting or an adaptation of the original culture‘carried out under the inuence of particular categories and norms constituent to
systems in a society’ (Lefevere 1992: 13). In the process of cultural adaptation (Chan
2002; Lotman 1990) the original culture is cleansed, essentialised and transformed.
Due to the fact that Disney’s borrowings are precious treasures of world culture which
have been distorted to varying degrees due to the employment of various adapting
strategies, this kind of cultural transformation can be called ‘cultural deformation’.
In Mulan, many adapting methods are employed, including additions, omissions,
alterations, explicitations, reinterpretations, and so on. Cultural deformations in the
lm can be examined on two levels, namely the content and the linguistic level.
Content deformations in the film
To start, a comparison between the lm and the Chinese ballad, in terms of their
characters and plot, would be useful.
Table 1: A comparison between the characters in Mulan and The Mulan Ballad
Characters
The Mulan
Ballad
Mulan, Father, Mother, elder sister, younger brother, Kehan/Tianzi (Emperor), Hun
horsemen, China’s generals and soldiers, Mulan’s comrades
Mulan Fa Mulan, Mushu (dragon), Li Shang, Shan Yu, Yao, Ling, Chien Po, Chi Fu, Fa
Zhou, Grandmother Fa, the Emperor of China, First Ancestor, Fa Li, General Li,
Cri-Kee (cricket), Khan (horse), Little Brother (dog), and so on
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Table 2: A comparison between the main plots in Mulan and The Mulan Ballad
The main plot
The Mulan
Ballad
Mulan weaves; the Khan calls troops; disguised as a man, she joins the army in
her father’s place; she fights for 12 years and gains high merit; refusing to be an
imperial minister, she retires to her hometown and is found to be a woman
Mulan The Huns invade China; the emperor calls his troops; disguised as a man, she
joins the army in her father’s place; her father prays to the ancestors and a
dragon protects her; she is trained to become a skilled warrior; she reveals her
deception in battle; she wipes out most of the Huns in an avalanche; she saves
the emperor’s life by killing the remaining Huns who captured him; declining the
offer to become the emperor’s advisor, she retires to her hometown
A comparison between the lm and the ballad clearly indicates that additions,
omissions, specications, explicitations and alterations are employed in the design
of characters and plot structure in Mulan. Additions describe the introduction of episodes not found in the ballad. Many
characters are invented and added in the lm, such as Li Shang, Shan Yu, Yao, Ling,
Chien Po, Chi Fu, Grandmother Fa, First Ancestor, General Li, together with three
animals including Mushu, Cri-Kee and Little Brother. Some details are also added
to the plot of the lm, such as the matchmaking for Mulan, her father’s prayer to the
ancestors, the emperor being captured by the Huns, the combat between Mulan and
Shan Yu, and so on.
Omissions entail the omission of some of the ballad episodes from the lm. Mulan
is described as the only daughter of the Fa family, so her elder sister and younger brother, who appear in the ballad, are not found in the lm. As for the plot, the viewer
does not see Mulan weaving at the start of the lm, her camping by the Yellow River,
or her sister and brother welcoming her when she returns home.
Specications entail ballad details being made more specic in the lm. The ballad
does not provide the specic names of Mulan’s parents, who are labelled as ‘ ye’ (爷)
and ‘niang ’ (娘), which were (and still are) terms used to address one’s parents in
China. But in the lm, Fa Zhou and Fa Li are designated by name. A similar case is
the horse in the ballad, which is given the name ‘Khan’. The description of Mulan’s
war experience is very sketchy in the ballad, which devotes only three sentences
to it. In the lm, though, several stories are invented to detail and complicate theexperience: Mulan’s training; her use of a cannon to wipe out most of the enemy
forces in an avalanche; her being slashed by Shan Yu; Captain Li Shang sparing
her life and leaving her on the mountain after the medical attention she receives
reveals her deception (with the consequence that she must be executed, according to
law); the Huns’ capture of the emperor; her combat with Shan Yu, and so on. Here,
the close relationship between the specications and the additions is evident – the
former are largely dependent on the latter.
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Explicitations describe the way in which ballad details are made clearer in the lm.
It is impossible to identify the enemies in the ballad – all that is known is that they
come from the north according to ‘hu qi’ (胡骑, northern ethnic horsemen), of which‘hu’ is an umbrella term used by the Han nationality in ancient times to refer to all
ethnic groups to the north of China, such as Huns, Xianbeis, Tibetans, Mongolians,Turks, and so on.5 The Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589) represented an
important period of national amalgamation in Chinese history, when many northern
ethnic groups fought one another before being sinicised. During the time when The
Mulan Ballad was composed, the Xianbeis controlled China and another ethnic
group, the Rourans, established a powerful regime on the Mongolian grasslands and
battled the Northern Wei for domination of the Western Regions. Both mountains
‘hei shan’ (黑山, Black Mountain) and ‘ yan shan’ (燕山, Mount Yen) mentioned inthe ballad were famous battleelds when the Xianbeis and Rourans clashed (in what
is now Mongolia). In the historical records of the Northern Wei, the Rourans weregenerally referred to as Huns, who called their chief Shanyu (Shan Yu) instead of
Tianzi or Kehan.6 In the lm, these historical facts come to the surface through the
invention of certain characters and stories.
Alterations entail the changing of the storyline of the ballad in the lm. The above
rewriting methods can be seen as alterations which also manifest themselves in the
design of plot and character. For example, the lm and the ballad have different
beginnings: the former begins with the Huns invading China and the latter with
Mulan weaving on her loom. The reason why Mulan joins the army in her father’s
place is different: her father is in poor health in the lm, while he is merely old in the
ballad. Another difference relates to the discovery of her true identity: in the lm,
Mulan reveals her deception after medical attention in the war, while in the ballad,
she is found to be a girl only after she returns home and discards her warrior’s outt.
As far as the image of Mulan is concerned, both the lm and the ballad present an
image of a lial and brave girl, but the former changes a gentle girl into a rebellious
one.
Linguistic deformations in the film
The linguistic deformations in Mulan can be looked at from two perspectives: one is
the adaptation of the language in the ballad; the other is the invention of the language
in the lm. The ballad tells us the given name of the heroine, namely, Mulan. Her
family name, Hua, is known through the folklore about her. The whole name Hua
Mulan roughly means ‘magnolia ower’. In the lm, her family name changes from
Hua to Fa, which is a Cantonese pronunciation of the orthodox Mandarin Chinese
Hua.
The lm is full of dialogues in which English-specic expressions are evident. For
example, some terms of address, such as ‘Your Majesty’, ‘Your Highness’, ‘citizens’,
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‘Sir’, and so on, are literally quite different from the corresponding Chinese terms
used in the same situation. ‘Your Majesty’ and ‘Your Highness’ may correspond to
‘皇上’ (huang shang ) or ‘陛下’ (bi xia) in Chinese culture, ‘citizens’ to ‘乡亲们’( xiang qin men), ‘Sir’ to various terms, such as ‘大人’ (da ren), ‘老爷’ (lao ye), ‘先
生’ ( xian sheng ), ‘师傅’ ( shi fu), and so on, on different occasions. Certain culturalexpressions have also lost their original Chinese forms in the lm. For example,
the Buddhist formula ‘南无阿弥陀佛’ ( Nan Wu Ah Mi Tuo Fo, Namo Amitabha) ismodied as ‘Ya Mi Ah To Fu Da’ and the Chinese dish ‘蘑菇鸡盆’ (mo gu ji pen,mushroom chicken bowl) is phonetically deformed as ‘moo goo gai pan’ which is
clearly a transliteration of the Cantonese version of the dish.
Cultural restorations and reformulations in the Chinese version
of Mulan
China has practised the quota system of AV product importation since its entry into
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001. It imports 20 foreign lms annually,
which are generally dubbed but not subtitled. As Yves Gambier (2003) and Eithne
O’Connell (2007) point out, during the second half of the 20th century, China became
a ‘dubbing country’ (Tang 2008: 154). This is quite different from the situation of
China’s planned-economy era, including the 1980s and 90s, when all imported lms
used to be subtitled and dubbed at the same time, often with monolingual subtitles
and sometimes with interlingual subtitles (Gottlieb 1998: 248). As for Mulan, both
dubbed and subtitled versions in the form of versatile compact disk (VCD) or digitalvideo disk (DVD) are available. The version dubbed in Taiwan Mandarin, targeted
at Taiwan and non-mainland Chinese audiences, features a Chinese-American pop
singer (CoCo Lee) and a Chinese kung-fu star (Jackie Chan), while the standard
Mandarin version for the mainland market and the Cantonese version for the Hong
Kong market have Jackie Chan alongside a Chinese mainland actress (Qing Xu) and
a Hong Kong pop singer (Kelly Chen) (Tang 2008: 154).
The Chinese version of the lm was produced by Disney Character Voices
International, Inc. in Beijing Film Studio, and distributed by Beijing-based
CAV
Thakral Home Entertainment Co., Ltd.7 The translator is Weizhong Tu (涂卫中).This article does not discuss the strategies and techniques of dubbing in the Chinese
version, but will instead focus on the script translation of the lm, to look at the
employment of domesticating and foreignising translation methods which are aimed
at restoring the original Chinese cultural context or introducing Americanised
Chinese culture. Domesticating methods are the ones that try to bring the source text
as close as possible to the target language and culture, while foreignising methods
are biased towards the source language and culture, and try to maintain the foreign
avour. Generally speaking, both domesticating and foreignising methods are
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employed in any translation including AVT (see Tian 2010). The case of Mulan is
complex in that Chinese culture is the source culture in terms of Disney’s Mulan
and American culture is the source culture in terms of the Chinese translation of the
lm. It is possible that the deformed Chinese culture in the lm may be restored as
its original form or it is just presented as a hybridised form in the translation. Theformer is known as cultural restoration, and the latter as cultural reformulation.
Cultural restorations
Cultural restoration means that cultural deformations produced by cultural adaptations
come back to their original forms. Cultural restoration relates not only to linguistic
forms but also to semantic content and contextual atmosphere. It is often achieved by
domesticating translation methods. The Chinese culture in Mulan goes beyond the
ballad to cover more cultural elements of ancient China, due to its many additions.
Therefore, the cultural restoration being spoken of here in the Chinese translation
of the lm is not necessarily the restoration of the culture in the ballad, but that
of Chinese culture in general. The translator of the lm uses such domesticating
methods as diction (choice of words), generalisation (which makes a specic thing
general or abstract), substitution (which substitutes one thing for another), semantic
addition (words are added to reproduce the original meaning), semantic deviation
(in which the target text deviates from the original meaning), free translation (which
reproduces not the literal but the deep meaning of the source text), and so on, to
reconstruct the authentic cultural milieu. Let’s look at some examples.
(1) General Li: Your Majesty, the Huns have crossed our Northern border.
李将军:启禀皇上,匈奴已越过北方边界。
(2) Chi Fu: Yes, Your Highness.
赐福:臣在。
(3) Chi Fu: Citizens, I bring you a proclamation from the Imperial City. The
Huns have invaded China!
赐福:乡亲们!我从京城带来皇上的谕令,匈奴侵犯中原!
(4) Chi Fu: The Fa Family.Mulan: No.
Fa Zhou: I am ready to serve the Emperor.
赐福:花家接旨。
木兰:不。
父亲:草民已准备为国效劳。
(5) Matchmaker: Fa Mulan
媒婆:花木兰
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(6) Yao: Ya Mi Ah To Fu Da.
阿尧:南无阿弥陀佛
(7) Emperor: My children, heaven smiles down upon the Middle Kingdom.
皇上:我的子民们,感谢老天爷照顾京城。(8) General Li: Forgive me your Majesty, but I believe my troops can stop him.
Emperor: I won’t take any chances, General. A single grain of rice can tip the
scale. One man may be the difference between victory and defeat.
李将军:恕臣直言,我的重兵能够阻挡单于。
皇上:我们不能够冒这个险,将军。小兵也会立大功。有时候不起眼
的人也是胜败关键。
(9) Fa Li: You must go after her. She could be killed!
Fa Zhou: If I reveal her, she will be.
Grandma Fa: Ancestors, hear our prayer: Watch over Mulan.母亲:你必须把她追回来,这可是欺君之罪啊!
父亲:万一暴露了,是要杀头的呀!
婆婆:列祖列宗,求求你们,保佑木兰吧!
The term ‘Your Majesty’ was and is used to address a king or queen in England. Its
use in example (1) colours the dialogue with Anglophonic culture. But in the Chinese
version, ‘启禀皇上’ (qi bing huang shang ) is used, immediately signifying ancient
China to witness a dialogue between the emperor and his subject. The translation
of ‘Yes, Your Highness’ into ‘臣在’ (chen zai) in example (2) reconstructs a similarsituation of conversation, as if it were taking place in feudal China’s imperial palace.
Here, the restoration of the authentic Chinese cultural context is based on diction.
The translation not only uses the language of ancient Chinese people, but also
chooses the language which is most appropriate to the very context of the situation.
‘陛下’ and ‘是的,陛下’ can be used to translate ‘Your Majesty’ and ‘Yes, Your
Highness’ respectively. Although they may be used by ancient people, they are
contextually improper. Another case in point is the choice of ‘乡亲们’ (folks) and
‘谕令’ (emperor’s order) to translate ‘citizens’ and ‘proclamation’ in example (3).
Today, ‘citizen’ is often translated into ‘公民’ and ‘proclamation’ into ‘布告’ or ‘声
明’. But these ‘modern’ translations will make audiences of the lm lose the senseof the time in which the story is set. However, the use of ‘乡亲们’ and ‘谕令’ not
only agrees with the ancient Chinese language, but also makes the utterance very
Chinese-specic.
The name of the character ‘Chi Fu’ in example (3) is meaningless to English
speakers, but its Chinese version ‘赐福’ has a meaning which is traditionally
favourable to Chinese people. ‘赐’ means ‘give’, ‘福’ means ‘blessing’ and the
whole expression ‘赐福’ means something like ‘May God bless you’ in Western
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culture. The phonetic mutation ‘Fa’ in example (4) is restored as the orthodox ‘Hua’
(花) in the translation and ‘I’ in the same example is not literally translated into
‘我’ but into ‘草民’ (cao min, humble person), which is quite in agreement with
the cultural context of the day. The minor character ‘Matchmaker’ in the lm is not
clear in terms of gender in English, because it means ‘someone who tries to arrange
relationships or marriages between people’,8 but is specied as ‘媒婆’ (mei po, a
female matchmaker) in example (5). In the lm, the matchmaker is a manly woman
who reminds us of a circus clown and the Disney formula of pursuing comic relief.
Yao’s seemingly meaningless formula for help ‘Ya Mi Ah To Fu Da’ in example
(6) is a phonetic mutation of the Buddhist formula ‘Nan Wu Ah Mi Tuo Fo’, perhaps
a Cantonese version of the formula. It is restored as the original formula ‘南无阿
弥陀佛’ in the Chinese version. The word ‘children’ in example (7) is not literally
translated into ‘孩子们’ but into ‘子民’ ( zi min, children and people), because
emperors tend to use the latter rather than the former to address their people in feudalChina. This kind of translation expands the scope of reference of ‘children’ and the
method may be labelled generalisation. The expression ‘A single grain of rice can tip
the scale’ in example (8) is translated into ‘小兵也会立大功’ (a common soldier can
also achieve great military merit), instead of the literal rendering ‘一粒稻米也能使
天平倾斜’. This is a kind of free translation which focuses on the deep meaning of
the source language and can make the verbal context more coherent. The ‘man’ in the
same example is translated into ‘不起眼的人’ in which ‘不起眼的’ (unimportant)
is a kind of semantic addition and seems to allude to Mulan. Free translation is also
used in translating ‘She could be killed’ and ‘hear our prayer: Watch over Mulan’ inexample (9), which are translated into ‘这可是欺君之罪啊’ and ‘求求你们,保佑
木兰吧’ respectively. A literal rendering of ‘She could be killed’ is ‘她可能被杀头’,
but ‘这可是欺君之罪啊’, which means ‘this is the crime of deceiving the emperor’,
is the more probable utterance in the very context that the lm has constructed.
Likewise, the literal rendering of ‘hear our prayer: Watch over Mulan’ into ‘听听我
们的祈祷:看护好木兰’ is not what Chinese people would utter on that occasion.
Instead, they would more probably say ‘求求你们,保佑木兰吧’ (Beg you, please
bless and protect Mulan).
Cultural reformulations
Cultural reformulation means modications of the source culture in the receiving
culture and re-modications of the modied culture when it is introduced back to the
source culture in a certain form, such as translation. It is generally achieved by means
of foreignising methods, such as adaptation (change of the original), amplication
(addition of episodes), innovation (creative rendering), modernisation (in which
modern language is used to replace traditional language), and so on. These methods
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are effectively employed in translating Mulan in terms of the portrayal of character
image, the arrangement of content, and the use of language.
In the lm, Mulan’s image is slightly changed from a gentle girl to a rebellious one.
Additions of a few stories make the lm quite different from the ballad in terms of
plot structure. What is special is the design of the victory celebrations. Mulan nally becomes a hero and even the emperor bows to her in tribute. This was absolutely
impossible in feudal China, where the emperor enjoyed the greatest power. No
matter how great one’s military merit, the emperor would not display such servitude
as to bow to anyone. Instead, the emperor would give someone invaluable gifts or a
high position. Also impossible is Mulan’s embrace of the emperor. There was a very
important rule in feudal China: ‘it is improper for men and women to touch each
other’s hand in passing objects’ (男女授受不亲) and it was a great disgrace for a manand a woman to embrace, let alone a woman and an emperor. So far as language use
is concerned, the lm is kind of hybridised in that both Chinese-specic expressionssuch as pinyin names and typical English expressions such as ‘sandwich’, ‘council’
and ‘Humpty Dumpty’ are combined to make the lm a hotchpotch of Chinese and
American cultures. When these things are translated into Chinese, modications take
place. Here is one example:
(10) Emperor: See to it that this woman is made a member of my council.
皇上:我封这个女子为当朝宰相。
In the ballad, the gift is the title of an imperial minister; in the lm, it changes into
a member of the council; and in the translation, it changes again into prime minister(宰相, zai xiang ). In translating names, additions are often employed. For example,Mushu, Cri-Kee and Khan are translated into ‘木须龙’ (mu xu dragon), ‘幸运蟋蟀’ (lucky cricket) and ‘汗血马’ (sweat blood horse) respectively. Mushu is a littledragon in the lm, so the translator uses ‘龙’ (dragon) to clarify its image; Cri-Keeoften brings luck to Mulan and ‘幸运’ (lucky) is added to the name to give audiencesthis message; Khan is a horse and, as the heroine’s horse, it must be special and
strong, and ‘汗血马’ is the most powerful horse in Chinese legends, which may bethe reason why the translator species the horse by that name. In the Chinese version
of the lm there is some kind of contemporary language. For example:
(11) Mushu: Urgent news from the general! What’s the matter, you’ve never seen
a ‘black and white’ before?
木须龙:将军府有令!怎么啦?你没见过“特殊快递”吗?
The euphemistic expression ‘black and white’ refers to some kind of handwritten
or printed material, and it is generally and literally translated into Chinese as ‘白纸黑字’ (white paper and black character). But here it is rendered into ‘特殊快递’ (te
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shu kuai di, special express), which is a contemporary term used in the express mail
service. Perhaps the translator chose this term to indicate that it is an urgent message.
Discussion and implicationsAs the ancient Chinese saying goes, ‘when tangerine grows to the south of the Huai
River, it is tangerine; when it grows to the north of the Huai River, it becomes trifoliate
orange’ (橘生淮南则为橘,生于淮北则为枳). It reveals a truth concerning genetic
mutations due to the change of geographical environments in transplanting plants.
It also applies to human cultural production, in which a cultural product undergoes
change due to a change in cultural environment.
The case of Mulan indicates that when The Mulan Ballad was transplanted
to America it was no longer what it was in the original culture, due to Disney’s
formulaic adaptation. The cultural transformation of the legend is to be found in two points: on the one hand, the addition of distinctive Chinese cultural traits leads to the
lm working against the authenticity and unity of historical facts concerning China.
On the other hand, the addition of Western elements into the ballad has resulted
in transculturation or cultural hybridity. But it is vital to consider the effects of
Disneyfying the Mulan legend: Disney’s Mulan was a worldwide box ofce success
which made the local and an unknown culture global, but the lm encountered
resistance in China with only a limited reception (Tang 2008), which highlights the
two faces of transculturation.
Intracultural and intercultural transfer
The ballad and intracultural transfer
Transfer is at the centre of current academic and intellectual discussions about
cultures which are no longer understood as isolated units, but as hybrid formations
involved in permanent exchange, themselves always strongly inuenced by other
cultures and, in turn, inuencing others (Feuchter et al. 2011). In cultural transfer
cultural repertoire is established. According to Itamar Even-Zohar (1997: 374),
cultural repertoire refers to ‘the aggregate of options utilized by a group of people,and by the individual members of the group, for the organization of life’. Every
society or social group has its own culture which has been gradually built through
the contributions of its members. However, not all cultural elements of a society
or a group, material or symbolic, will be selected to organise its social life at a
certain point or period in time. It will choose what is useful inside or beyond its own
culture, to ensure its proper functioning. What is important in the concept of cultural
repertoire is ‘option’. In a certain sense, cultural inheritance is selective. What is
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selected becomes part of the cultural repertoire of a society/group, and what is not
selected becomes dormant or even extinct.
Options from inside or outside a culture involve cultural contacts. Options inside
a culture sometimes manifest between the subcultures of a larger culture, which
may be viewed as a polysystem (Even-Zohar 1990) containing its own systems (i.e.
subcultures). Options outside a culture manifest between different cultures. Even-
Zohar introduced his model (see Table 3) on cultural contacts when he taught his
PhD students the course ‘Cultural Transfer’ in a 2008 spring seminar organised by
the Intercultural Studies Group of Universitat Rovira i Virgili, in Tarragona, Spain.
Table 3: Even-Zohar’s model on cultural contacts
Aspects of cultural contacts
Factors States Processes Dimensions
Agencies [agents]Trendsetters
Canonisers
Stationariness
←→
Mobility
CULTURE CONTACTS(Intercultural contacts)
(vs. Isolation/non-
contacts)
Groups
←→
Individuals[Contactism vs.
Evolution]
Repertoires/models
Products
INTERCULTURAL
INTERFERENCE
Transfer /
Translation
Transplantation
Cross-cultural relations
Co-existence of
repertoires
Transculturalism
Retention Changes
[Spontaneous←→
Planned]
Globalisation
Diffusion
Survival←→
Success
Innovation
Inventiveness/
creativity
Competition
Center Periphery
Non-official/weak
codification (?)
Official/High
codification
Centralisation Fragmentation
Heterogeneity←→
Homogeneity
Source: Itamar Even-Zohar’s 2008 ‘Culture Transfer’ course organised by the Intercultural Studies
Group of URV, Tarragona, Spain.
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way is evidence of cultural contact where the weak culture was assimilated into the
strong culture.
The hybridity of the ballad is also evident in other instances. The make-up which
Mulan and her sister use, involves two expressions ‘花黄’ (hua huang , yellow
ower powder) and ‘红妆’ (hong zhuang , rouge). Ordinary women – except for theemperor’s concubines – were not allowed to apply rouge, but could use yellow ower
powder during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. It became popular for ordinary
women to apply rouge during the Tang dynasty. This indicates that the ballad must
have been modied and polished by later writers. Literary historians hold that the
ballad was composed by the Xianbei of the Northern Wei, because ‘昨夜见军帖’
(last night I saw the draft posters) reects the habit of nomadic people, which is
to hunt during daytime and discuss important matters at night. But the Han people
were agrarians who discussed important matters during the day. Therefore, the ballad
was not written by them. It is generally believed that the transfer process of the ballad occurred as follows: it was rst composed in the Northern Wei, then spread
and transferred from the north to the south of China during the Liang and Chen
dynasties of the Southern Dynasties, when a monk named Zhijiang (智匠) rened
it and recorded it in the Musical records of old and new; a northern governor named
Yuanfu Wei (韦元甫) picked it up from ordinary folk during the Tang dynasty, but
it had already undergone many modications and the governor had it amended and
polished again; nally its present form was recorded in the Collection of music-
bureau poems compiled by Maoqian Guo.9
This lengthy process of disseminating the ballad explains the combination ofdifferent and sometimes contradictory linguistic and cultural elements from different
eras. It also indicates that a folk ballad may be years in the making. If the ballad is
viewed as a meme (Dawkins 1989), namely a cultural gene, then its dissemination
is a type of cultural transfer through time and space. In this sense, cultural transfer
also exists within a single culture. As Joseph Chan (2002) points out, the diversity
of the Chinese versions of the Mulan story suggests that transculturation can take
place across time, within a single culture. An interesting question is why the ballad
remained dormant and unnoticed for such a long time in China, only becoming widely
known after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Cultural options
involve many factors, including ideology, norms, poetics, etc. In feudal China, lial piety, patriotism, obedience and bravery were appreciated and eulogised. Almost all
of these good qualities can be seen in Mulan, but one aspect of the ballad would have
prevented it from achieving any of its present status in the past. That is feminism,
or equality between men and women, which goes against mainstream feudal ethical
norms – ‘the three cardinal guides and the ve constant virtues’ (三纲五常). One of
these norms is that ‘the husband guides the wife’. The norm implies that a woman
should not surpass a man in any respects, including bravery and ability. These norms
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preference for Cantonese transliterations is the key participant of the cultural contact
(i.e. Mulan production), namely, the screenwriter Rita Hsiao, whose family name
‘Hsiao’ (萧) is a Cantonese transliteration based on the Wade-Giles romanisation
system which has made it common practice for Cantonese speakers to romanise their
names in Hong Kong and other parts of the world.
Disney’s Mulan came back to China through another outlet, following negotiations
between the company and the Chinese government. Disney’s release of Kundun, a
lm about the biography of the Dalai Lama, soured relations with China. Moreover,
with the import quota of Western lms set at only 20 per year (Tang 2008), Mulan’s
chances of being accepted were low. Finally, after a year’s delay, the Chinese
government allowed the lm limited Chinese release, but only after the Chinese
New Year, to ensure that local lms dominated the more lucrative holiday market.10
In terms of the cultural deformations and reformulations in both transfers, the rst
process of transfer is the production of Mulan, which relates to the deformations ofChinese culture as the source culture on both the linguistic and the cultural level.
The ‘Hua’ of Hua Mulan is modied as ‘Fa’, a Cantonese pronunciation, which
may be explained from two perspectives: on the one hand, some who participated
in the production of Mulan speak Cantonese, rather than Mandarin. On the other
hand, Disney has to consider Hong Kong residents and overseas Chinese who know
English but mostly speak Cantonese. This may explain why many names in Mulan
have been transliterated from Cantonese, rather than Mandarin, into English.
Another linguistic distortion is Mulan’s pseudonym. In the lm she is given
the name ‘Ping’ when she joins the army, and the whole name ‘Fa Ping’ (花瓶
)constitutes a pun in Chinese: ‘owerpot’ and ‘something supercial that serves little
purpose other than as eye candy or decoration’. It is self-evident that she uses her
father’s name when she joins the army, but the ballad does not tell us her father’s
name. According to Wei Xu (徐渭) of the Ming dynasty, her father’s name is ‘Hu’
(弧) not ‘Ping’.11 The use of Western vocabulary such as ‘sandwich’ and ‘Humpty
Dumpty’ makes the lm a hybrid one.
As far as Mulan’s character is concerned, it is slightly changed in the lm. She
is hardworking, lial, gentle, unselsh and brave in the ballad, but she becomes a
somewhat rebellious girl in the lm. This is evident from the matchmaking episode
at the start of the lm: she refuses to listen to the matchmaker’s advice to be a good bride to bring honour to her family. She is trained as a skilled soldier by Captain Li
Shang in the lm, and according to the Chinese legend she had been trained by her
father to practise martial arts, horse-riding and archery since she was a little child.
She is found to be a woman after she returns home in the ballad, but she reveals
her deception during the war in the lm. The episode where she and her comrades
disguise themselves as concubines to save the emperor is not found in the ballad.
However, this kind of plot design produces some humorous effect, which agrees with
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the aesthetic bias of Western audiences, including children and adults. After Mulan
becomes a great hero, all Chinese people, including the emperor, bow to her as an
unprecedented honour. Obviously, this is a reection of American individualism and
heroism.
The second process is the translation of the lm which involves both the restoration
and reformulation of Chinese culture merely on the linguistic level. This is achieved
by domesticating and foreignising translation methods respectively. Linguistically,
‘Fa’ is restored as ‘花’, ‘Ya Mi Ah To Fu Da’ as ‘南无阿弥陀佛’ and ‘moo goo gai
pan’ as ‘蘑菇鸡盆’. The invented name ‘Chien Po’ is reformulated as the orthodox
Chinese name ‘陈波’. Another invented name is ‘Chi Fu’ which roughly sounds
like ‘赐福’ (ci fu, May God bless you) or ‘欺负’ (qi fu, to bully). He is a bad egg
in the lm, so ‘欺负’ reects his character, yet the translator chose ‘赐福’ which is
more like a person’s name in Chinese culture. The translation of ‘matchmaker’ into
‘媒婆’ instead of ‘媒人’ is determined by the fact that matchmakers were alwaysfemale in feudal China, and the matchmaker in the lm is a manly woman. Such
semantic reformulation in translation may be regarded as a kind of deformation if
Mulan is seen as the source culture, which is a combined product of Chinese and
American cultures and ultimately part of Hollywood culture. It may be argued that
inventions and innovations originating from American and other cultures are the
very reason for the American AV industry dominating the world’s lm market. The
reformulation in translating Mulan is also concerned with the use of contemporary
Chinese expressions such as ‘特殊快递’, which achieves some humorous effect and
at the same time makes the lm linguistically inconsistent in style.
Disneyfication and the two faces of transculturation
• Disneycation, localisation and globalisation
Disney’s classical animations are not original stories, but simplistically revised
appropriations of fairy tales, legends and others’ ctions (Artz 2004). In manufacturing
these animations, heterogeneous foreign cultures are homogenised according to
the Disney formula, so as to expand the studio’s cultural repertoire. Mulan is no
exception. Given that before Disney’s exploits, the story of Mulan was unknown to
the West and other non-Chinese Asian countries (Chan 2002), the whole process ofDisney’s production is worth exploring.
Disneycation is a kind of localisation in which the products of other cultures are
Americanised according to American values, ideologies and expectations, in line
with Disney’s organisational imperatives and formulaic approaches. In the eld of
animation, America, as the most powerful country, is essentialised as Disney whose
inuence and power are sufcient for its lms to go global. In a sense, what is local is
American and what is American is global (Chan 2002). For Disney, the localisation
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of other cultures rests on freedom of choice, while for other cultures, globalisation
is a type of coercion (see Rogers 2006). Disney can freely appropriate the themes
of world classics to make lms, but other nation-states have to receive its products
because its reputation, resources, marketing know-how and access to distribution
infrastructure ensure maximum globalisation for its lms (see Chan 2002).
• The two faces of transculturation
Disneycation brings about localisation and globalisation of other cultures. In other
words, Disney’s lms help American and global audiences to get to know the treasures
of cultures which are not their own. This facilitates cross-cultural communication
and enhancement, and is a positive feature of the Disneycation process. However,
cultural deformations inevitably take place in the process, and these deformations
often affect the moral values and ideologies of the source culture. For example, the
reason why Mulan joins the army in the ballad is rst and foremost her lial piety,which is the supreme virtue of children in traditional Chinese culture. But the lm
implies that the reason is the love between father and daughter, as well as Mulan’s
quest for her true self (Chan 2002; Jing 2011). Another example is the function of
the matchmaker. In Chinese culture, parents arrange and determine the marriage of
their children and the matchmaker is nothing but an intermediary. But the lm seems
to imply that the matchmaker decides the marriage.
The image of Mushu, the dragon, is also problematic in the eyes of Chinese
audiences who think it is too small, just like a lizard (Tang 2008), instead of a huge,
scaly, serpent-like ying creature. The addition of animals to the lm was Roy
Disney’s suggestion (Chan 2002). In the ballad the only animal is a horse without a
name, as implied by ‘In the East Market she buys a spirited horse’ (Frankel 1976),
but it is given the name ‘Khan’ in Mulan. Yin Jing (2011) contends that the name
‘Khan’ came from non-Han northern ethnicities, so it is ridiculous for Mulan to name
her horse thus, because it is reserved only for the emperor. That is not necessarily the
case. ‘Khan’ may be understood in two ways: the name may allude to Shan Yu, the
‘emperor’ of the Huns. In Chinese culture, a person riding a horse implies that he/
she conquers the horse. Therefore, Mulan’s Khan implies that the heroine will defeat
Shan Yu sooner or later. More probable is the association of ‘Khan’ (汗) with the
Chinese term ‘汗血宝马’ (han xue bao ma), as discussed above, which refers to themost powerful horse in Chinese legend. The inspiration for bringing a cricket into
the lm may come from the onomatopoetic word ‘唧唧’ at the very beginning of
The Mulan Ballad – ‘Tsiek tsiek and again tsiek tsiek’ (Frankel 1976) – which may
refer to the sound produced by a person’s sighs, or by birds or insects in the Chinese
language.12 Obviously, the latter reminded the lmmakers of a cricket. The fact that
many households had dogs in feudal China must have made the lmmakers believe
the Fa family should also have a dog, which is given the name ‘Little Brother’.
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Disney’s cultural deformation of the ballad met with resistance in China. Mulan
had a ‘mild’ reception in mainland China in the rst year of distribution, with box
ofce revenues of less than US$2 million (Tang 2008). Further cultural resistance
came in respect of the domesticating translation methods employed by the translator.Some Chinese culture-specic words are used to full nostalgic expectations;
a large number of colloquial and slang expressions are used to bring the Chinese
version more in line with contemporary popular taste; some dialectic words and
several expressions from Taiwan Mandarin are used to conform to the linguistic
preference of the majority of young viewers; English rhetorical devices are often
replaced by Chinese ones to please the local audience (ibid.). Despite its negative
effects, Disneycation helps create new cultural repertoires. A recent version of
Mulan in Taiwan was strongly inuenced by Disney’s Mulan (Chan 2002), and thus
a new repertoire has been established around the legend (see Wang & Yeh 2005).Transculturation makes the local foreign and the foreign local, and it has become a
constant in cross-cultural communication in the era of globalisation. What is good
for one, when it comes to transculturation, may be bad for another, and vice versa.
Conclusion
The Mulan Ballad and Mulan indicate that intracultural and intercultural transfers
exist, and that cultural adaptations took place during both transfer processes. The
establishment of a cultural repertoire is dependent on intracultural and intercultural
adaptations, which include various kinds of domesticating and foreignising methods
such as additions, omissions, generalisations, specications, explicitations, and give
rise to cultural deformations and reformulations. Cultural survival or innovation, in
some sense, is sustained by intracultural and intercultural rewritings.
American AV culture, as an important part of American culture, has been
drawing on what is excellent in other cultures to advance American AV production
and dominate the world lm market. In the process of producing and translating
American AV products, cultural contacts take place, causing cultural deformationsand reformulations in the bidirectional cultural transfer. It is of great signicance to
study how American lmmakers make use of other cultures in producing lms, and
how American lms are received through subtitling/dubbing in the source culture
from which these lms obtained their inspiration in terms of plot. Moreover, it is
also vital to study how American lms are received in cultures other than the source
culture and to determine whether cultural deformations and reformulations take
place in their AVT products.
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Mingwu Xu and Chuanmao Tian
Acknowledgement
Research for this article was funded by the National Planning Ofce of Philosophy and Social
Science, P.R. China (grant no. 12BYY023).
Notes
1 See http://www.cnki.net (accessed 23 June 2012).
2 The English version of the lm is available at http://www.sciscripts.com/cartoon/
mulan.txt and the Chinese version is by Tu Weizhong with both dubbed and subtitled versions
on the VCDs of the lm published by China Audiovisual Press and distributed by Thakral
Co., Ltd.
3 A detailed introduction of Mulan is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan
4 The domain of women of the period was conned to housework including cooking
and weaving, as evidenced by ‘Mu-lan weaves, facing the door’ (Frankel 1976).5 See http://baike.baidu.com/view/134316.htm.
6 See http://baike.baidu.com/view/28450.htm
7 See http://www.dhjbw.com
8 See http://dict.bing.com.cn/#matchmaker
9 See http://baike.baidu.com/view/4025.htm
10 For more details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan
11 See http://baike.baidu.com/view/4025.htm
12 See http://baike.baidu.com/view/873591.htm
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