Kelvin Cho

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Anthro2D

Assignment #2

Prior to Lippi-Green’s article, “Teaching Children How to Discriminate,”

Disney films often stereotyped people into certain categories. The stereotyping

done in animated films gave children viewers a wrong impression of other people

based on the strategic placement on certain accents by specific actors on

characters. Since the article’s appearance, more Disney films have been made;

however, the way these films portray people have not changed much if at all.

Mulan, released in 1998, is an excellent example of this.

Mulan is an animated movie loosely based on a famous Chinese poem called

the Ballad of Mulan. The movie follows a teenage girl, Mulan, who does not share

the common traits of a Chinese girl at the time. Mulan brings much dishonor to her

family early in the film. When the emperor of China orders a mobilization of China’s

army to fight off the Huns, Mulan secretly fills in her father’s enrollment into the

army. Mulan successfully helps China fight off the Huns, but not without exposing

her secret. Despite this fact, she brings honor to her family in the end.

Although the film was based in China and everyone in the film was Chinese,

or at least Asian, subtleties within the accents of the characters provided evidence

of stereotyping. First of all, the movie portrayed the elderly, Fa Zhou or Mulan’s

father and the Emperor of China, properly. They spoke with a slight Asian accent.

In the movie, the elderly is seen to be the wise, authoritative and often talk in an

inscrutable way to convey an underlying message. For example, in the beginning of

the film, the Emperor is ordering a mandatory draft of one son from each family.

When questioned, the Emperor responds by saying, “a single grain of rice can tip
the scale, one man can be the difference between victory and defeat.” The

Emperor uses this metaphor to describe his decision. The Emperor speaks in a way

westerners are accustomed to. Although it is not impossible for an elderly Chinese

person to be naïve and unwise, wisdom through age is a valuable attribute often

associated within Asian cultures. Therefore, it is an accurate depiction of elderly

Chinese people similar to the English speaking Germans with the German accent in

Lippi-Green’s article. Despite the accuracy of these characters, the film portrayed

other central characters insufficiently. For instance, Mulan, the protagonist, speaks

with Standard English with no accent despite the fact that the voice actor being a

first generation immigrant. In addition to speaking Standard English, Mulan is the

only character in the movie to change her accent in a noticeable way. She does so

to sound like a man when she had to be incognito. In one part of the movie when

Mulan is in the Chinese military camp, she replies to her commanding officer by

saying, “You know how it is when you get those manly urges […]” Her voice in this

part has been deepened. Although this is done in a deliberate way to make a

point, the voice change stereotypes her character into being a man. It implies that

men are supposed to have deeper voices. While this may be true, not all men must

sound masculine. In fact some men, may sound feminine. Furthermore, the

stereotyping exceeds onto other characters like the three stooges in the film; Yao,

Ling and Chien-Po. Yao has a harsh and rasp voice to match his short exterior and

tough personality. Ling is higher pitched and that goes along with his joking

attitude. Chien-Po has a soft voice that meets his big, but calm stature. What all

these characters have in common is that their cartoony English accents match their

characters. Their voices are almost predictable to the audience because the

audience expects these characters to speak a certain way based on their

appearance. It goes to show children that they should expect certain people to

speak with a certain accent even though this is not true in reality. While these

characters have appropriate voices, there are other characters, such as Shan Yu

and Mushu, that have poor accents that give off a bad stereotype. To illustrate this,

Shan Yu, is the leader of the Hun army and the main antagonist of the film. He has

a deep voice and he is depicted as a bad person through his actions and dark

appearance. The irony in his Standard English voice is that he is one of the few

characters in the film to not be played by an Asian voice actor as opposed to most

of the other characters in the film. This gives the impression that bad people are

associated with dark rasp voices. Another example of poor voice acting choice

would be Mushu. Mushu is the guardian dragon spirit of Mulan and he is the only

animal in the entire film that can actually speak. To add to this, Mushu is voiced by

Eddie Murphy, a black actor. In one part of the film, when the falcon was going to

alert the Huns, Mushu burns him and jokes, “Now, that’s what I call Mongolian

barbeque.” The main purpose of this character is comic relief and it sends a

message to viewers that black people are seen as comedic and animal-like, but they

are incapable of a serious role. Although there were a couple of good voice actors

for certain characters, the general choice of voice actors gave the audience a

stereotypical view that is to be expected in most cases and was offensive in other

cases.

Some of the film’s voice actor and accent choices were on target. The elderly

spoke wisely and Mulan deepened her voice to fill a role. However, others such as a

talking animal with a black Standard English and stereotypical voices with other

characters were not properly chosen for the film. Consequently, little has been

done to Disney films regarding stereotypes based on accents of characters.