Once Upon a Time : Why is Mulan a lesbian?

Why did they have to make my favorite Disney character, Mulan gay? She wasn't gay in the original story, she married Shang in Mulan 2. Her relationship was IMO one of the most authentic relationships between Disney characters, because it wasn't the usual "Oh you're pretty, you sing, and you're helpless. I love you let's get married" crap they usually do. But this show ruined it by making her a lesbian with no plotline other than basically screen filler.

Representation. Because it seems to be a rule now that every single show on tv now has to have every sexuality represented, even though it in no way contributes to the story. If they really wanted to do it, why not create a new character and make him or her a homosexual? It's kind of like having an American woman play Maid Marian or a Portuguese woman play Queen Guinevere, it doesn't make much sense.

In contrast, having Giancarlo Esposito play the magic mirror was color-blind casting done right. He started out as a face in the mirror, so there was no complete freedom in terms of who they could cast. I feel like making Mulan a lesbian was representation for representation's sake, which will never fail to feel hollow at the end of the day. Having Ruby suddenly become a lesbian was even worse. If y'all want to watch a show that portrays a same-sex relationship well, without gimmicks, watch Stargate Universe for the relationship between Camille (Ming Na Wen's character) and Sharon.

Keeper of Rumpelstiltskin's walking stick
Lady Gold

I think that's pretty depressing how now we can't have ANY LGBTQ people in movies, tv shows, etc. without a whole lot of people declaring it's done just for political correctness and representation sakes. Then again, the same is often said any time a non-white person is shown in a movie or tv show. We'll never get to have a movie or tv show without a non-white and/or LGBTQ character without hordes of people crying "Political correctness!". Never.

Well said.

I guess just because of trying to be PC. Same reason they made Lancelot and Merlin black. The show was being very white & straight & fluffy so now there pouring in some political correctness trying to come across as broadminded. That's my theory.


"Oh, that's all right. He can call me a flower if he wants to"

Pandering to the gay community. It wouldn't be so bad if, as you say, it hadn't been such an authentic relationship in the movie but it's a cross we have to bear these days.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

Or, you know, maybe the writers simply just felt like including a gay character.

In the original Chinese Legend , Mulan had pretended to be a man served in the Army for many yrs .

I guess some may call her cross-dresser , and some TV writer just can't resist turning her into full lesbian

What even is this thread? First, a lot of people are not even convinced that Mulan liked women because they don't pay attention, so i am not sure that the show even gets credit for her character as representation because there was no follow through. Second, there are LGBT people in the world, so why wouldn't they be in the world of Ouat? They would be, so that is why there are.

Because she was NEVER gay before. There are a million fairy tales out there with non-descript characters they could have made gay. For instance, Rumplestiltskin could have been gay because the fairytale concerning him was not specific that he got married. Mulan's story includes a full romantic story. I was waiting for that guy from Lost to play her prince (He would be a handsome Shang). There were so many other fairytale characters they could have done that to it makes no sense to do it to Mulan.

I don't mind the race changes but story/character changes like that are just reprehensible. It a character's story has a little wiggle-room ok but hers didn't.

Considering the number of characters they had to choose from, it does seem a shame to do it to Mulan, but the writers of OUAT have no respect for the characters. Look what they did to the Count of Monte Cristo. They turned a noble-minded man with strong principles of right and wrong into a thug who would commit murder for hire. They took King Arthur, a legend of goodness, and turned him into the most venal of villains. Why should Mulan be spared the OUAT treatment? As to the argument, bound to be advanced sooner or later, that there are gays in the world and there should be gays in Storybrooke, that has absolutely nothing to do with the salient point, which is that Mulan is no more suitable to be a gay character than Snow White, or Belle, or Cinderella. She had her Prince Charming as much as any of the other ladies and she has the right to have her story respected as much as any of the other ladies. Better they should have put Ruby with Dorothy, since neither of those gals had a fella in the stories and it wouldn't have been disrespecting the stories or the characters.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

All the stories in this show are twisted, this is just a twist that certain people don't like for their own reasons. Not valid reasons either because Mulan's story was not disrespected. She was a developed and interesting character who most people like which can not be said for the way a lot of the characters have been twisted on this show.

I think the Beauty and the Beast fans have more reason to complain then anything about how their characters have been disrespected.

After all the abuse Rumple & Belle have taken, we're used to it. We don't like it, but we're used to it. Sadly, Adam hardly ever responds to we Rumbellers tweets.

Keeper of Rumpelstiltskin's walking stick
Lady Gold

The ratings dropped from a 1.1 to a 1.0 after Strange Case. They didn't drop after Ruby slippers. People who are against domestic violence on the show were just more passive aggressive than taking to the Facebook page and crabbing about it. They just quit watchingand the show deserved the drop after that.

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Mulan's story was not disrespected.

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It most certainly was, because Mulan was a fully developed romance as well as a fully developed character. You're only saying different because you have your own agenda and that's why you're pushing this so hard, but as usual, you're wrong. Just like you're wrong about the Beauty and the Beast fans, who have nothing to complain about because they're the ones who chose to disregard the fact that Rumple isn't just the Beast, he's also Rumpelstiltskin and Rumpelstiltskin was one of the worst villains in folklore.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

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It most certainly was, because Mulan was a fully developed romance as well as a fully developed character.

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Well yes in the Disney version of the story in the original Chinese story Hua Mulan comes from she didn't have a love interest. The original story was more about gender roles, courage and family.

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in the Disney version of the story in the original Chinese story Hua Mulan comes from she didn't have a love interest. The original story was more about gender roles, courage and family.

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People know about Mulan from Disney. There are hundreds of choices for a gay character that didn't have to trash a beloved story. They made Ruby and Dorothy gay, that should have been enough.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

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People know about Mulan from Disney

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But that doesn't mean it's the original source material for her character and the end all representation for her. Mulan is from an old Chinese poem and that's what the creators said they wanted to base the tv character on anyways. Look it up.

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There are hundreds of choices for a gay character that didn't have to trash a beloved story. They made Ruby and Dorothy gay, that should have been enough.

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First off, it's not trashed, ya homophobe. This is an adaptation of a character, NOT a continuation of the Disney movie. Same with Belle, Aurora and Rapunzel! Second, Dorothy and Ruby came AFTER Mulan was shown to be interested in a girl. And Oz is more classic than 90's Mulan. Did you have a bf when they had Dorothy be a lesbian?



Whatever the weather my ass! It's hot as hell out here!

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They made Ruby and Dorothy gay, that should have been enough.

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By whose metric? Yours?

Uh oh. Triggered homofascists incoming.

There lies his crown in water deep, till Durin wakes again from sleep.

This. There are so many versions of every fairytale. I have seen multiple versions and read multiple versions of a lot of these stories. The Ouat version is just another twist on an old story and it in no way needs to be identical to either the original or the Disney version.

I can't believe anyone that watches this show, a show that's very premise is twisting and adding to the old fairytales and Disney versions, could possibly think that.

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the salient point, which is that Mulan is no more suitable to be a gay character than Snow White, or Belle, or Cinderella

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And by the same argument she was no less suited. As you said, writers don't respect the original stories a whole lot.

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she has the right to

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It's a *beep* fictional character. Writers can do what the F they want with them. They have no "right". They also don't have feelings so they cannot be offended or hurt in any way if their original story isn't followed.

You homophobes need to stop trying to hide your homophobia under ridiculous "rational" arguments against her being a lesbian. There is none. This is a fictional TV show. You're not fooling anyone either.

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the salient point, which is that Mulan is no more suitable to be a gay character than Snow White, or Belle, or Cinderella

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And by the same argument she was no less suited. As you said, writers don't respect the original stories a whole lot.

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No, they don't. They trashed Mulan, and I don't understand the point of making a couple of characters gay and then sending them away. But it's not even possible to really discuss this topic, because of the knee jerk response to not liking Mulan as a lesbian. It's always accusations of homophobia, without even considering the argument the person is making. It would have been so much better to keep Ruby in town and pair her with Lily. Ruby is Little Red Riding Hood, her sexuality was never established like Mulan's. And Lily totally belongs to OUAT, they could do anything with her. A wolf and a dragon, they would have been so cute. And that would have been genuine representation because not only would there have been a gay couple, they would have been in town and part of the show and a continuing presence. Not that we see Ruby much, but we know she's around. She and Lily could have paired up, gone to find Lily's father, come back, and we could have seen them from time to time, hanging out at Granny's diner. And they would have been very helpful allies to Emma and company because, you know, a wolf and a dragon. So much squandered opportunity.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

The premise of this show is that they twist the stories, not that they are exactly the same as the original or the Disney version.

None of these characters were anything like the way they're portrayed in OUAT before, so that point is irrelevant.

But really, even the Mulan movie is ripe with clues, if you want to interpret them that way, and people like Harvey Fierstein do. There's the "Reflection" song that sounds a lot like a girl struggling with her identity. The story itself is highly androgynous with sexual/gender identity cues. Heck, it was even suggested that no man was right for her. The friends she kept were clearly LGBT nods. If ever there was going to be a lesbian princess, she'd be the most likely.

And the sequel was really trash.

Are you just focusing on the Disney version of Mulan? Because I don't believe she had a man in her original legend and that's more what they were basing this entity on anyway. So making her a lesbian is seriously not as big of a deal as you freaks are making it.




Whatever the weather my ass! It's hot as hell out here!

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Because she was NEVER gay before.

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Rumplestiltskin could have been gay

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Yeah at the cost of changing the whole show in a very significant way.

Mulan didn't even get a proper story. So why the hell does it even matter to you that they made her a lesbian? You wouldn't have gotten your super hetero love story anyway. And guess what, Rumpelstiltskin wasn't the beast in Beauty and the Beast either. Snow White and Prince charming didn't have a kid named Emma either. And that non-existent kid didn't have a kid of her own named Henry either. And that non-existent kid from a non-existent kid didn't have Rumpelstiltskin as a grandfather. As you may have gathered so far, the writers didn't exactly follow the original stories to the letter for any of the characters.

You really just sound like a homophobe.

My only issue with it is that it seemed to come out of the blue. One minute, she seems very clearly in love with Phillip then the next time we see her, it's all about Aurora. It just seems like the writers changed their mind and decided to make her gay.

Reading all these 'it's such a shame' posts make my stomach turn.

I agree. It is not a shame. It isn't trash. It isn't disrespected. It could have been better developed early on, for sure. I am not convinced that at the beginning of Season 2 their intention was to have Mulan fall in love with Aurora. Then once they decided to do it they didn't follow through with it. Nothing came of it.

It is really hard for me to give them credit for this because so many people are unaware it happened. Mulan did not actually talk to Aurora about her feelings and she kept saying they and all of these coded words instead of saying she and the girl she was in love with and Aurora and i find that grating. They should have either had them be a couple or not play with it because pretending to be accepting and then not following through was just annoying.

I agree. I don't think it's a shame that they made Mulan gay. I'm fine with it. I think it's just a shame that they didn't develop the storyline better.

Would it make your stomach turn if people said it was a shame if a movie about a same sex couple got turned into a heterosexual couple on OUAT? Be honest now.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

I suspect because they inadvertently created the subtext between her and Aurora in one episode and just decided to run with it.

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Why didn't they just make Lily and Ruby a couple? They even have being able to turn into an animal in common, imagine a wolf snuggling up to a dragon, it would have been adorable.

http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/

Maybe because Lily's cranky and Ruby's a good girl.

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Lily's cranky and Ruby's a good girl.

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You know what they say about opposites attract. Those make the best stories, remember Lady and the Tramp?

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maybe they want to make a man out of her

I don't know how much this effected the writers coming up with the Mulan plot, but I can't help but think about this interesting connection. On Robert Carlyle's last show (Stargate Universe) he acted along with the actress who played Mulan in the cartoon. The actress's character on Stargate Universe was lesbian.

Jamie Chung said in an interview that she and Sarah Bolger picked up on a lot of questionable things in the scripts they got. And they deliberately read their lines as if they were lovers. So either the writers were writing them that way as deliberate foreshadowing, or they just went with how the actresses said the lines.

The storyline could have been developed a lot more, but Jamie Chung got cast in another series and had to be written out. Perhaps the writers will pick it back up eventually.

to satisfy the homosexual propaganda

You're right. Homosexuals don't actually exist. It's all lies and propaganda. Depicting gay characters on TV is in no way justified. /sarcasm

Idiot.

Well come ONclearly the only people that should be on TV shows are white straight folks. Otherwise you're just PANDERING to some sort of PROPAGANDA. Instead of, you know, trying to reflect that there is a really really diverse population in the world.

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Murder is a bad first impression.