My Creative Project: Trans Mulan Movie Poster

 

               For my creative project, a made a movie poster revisioning Mulan as a transgender man. Mulan is a film that, though does not canonically contain representation of the trans community, has resonated with a lot of trans people. From Mulan’s awkwardness and fear transitioning to male social presentation to the song “Reflection”, several parts of the film depict feelings that a transgender person can relate to. Since the film holds a special place in a lot of trans people’s hearts, on several occasions I have seen a people online say that they think Mulan is trans or wish Mulan was trans. Mulan was one of my favorite movies when I was little, and it is still one of my favorite Disney movies, so I wanted to bring a trans version of Mulan to life.

            Another reason I chose to draw a trans version of Mulan is the lack of good trans representation in film, especially in kids’ movies and TV shows. I’m unsure whether there are any kids’ shows or movies currently out there with trans characters, but there definitely weren’t any when I was little. Though I had no idea I was trans when I first saw the movie Mulan, it would have still been nice to have seen some sort of trans representation as a little kid, and Mulan would have been a great film to star a trans character.

            I chose to make a movie poster depicting trans Mulan because I thought I could switch around qualities from the original posters to make a clear depiction of the protagonist as male. As can be seen in the poster, I renamed the movie Ping since this is the “male” name Mulan choses to go by in the original movie. Additionally, the most commonly used Mulan poster depicts Mulan in her regular female presentation, with her sword held up diagonally across her face, showing her masculine presentation in the reflection of the sword. That poster indicates to someone who hasn’t seen the movie Mulan, that Mulan is female but uses a masculine presentation for part of the movie. I chose to use the same imagery of the sword across Ping’s face, but only show him in a masculine presentation to indicate that in this imaginary Ping movie, he is not a female who dresses up as a man, but he instead is truly a man on the inside. And I also included Mushu in the poster because how could I not?


Comments

  1. RowanOctober 21, 2020 at 10:25 AM

    This is so cool! I love the way that you reimagined the original Mulan poster rather than creating a completely new image because it still feels so connected with the original film. The poster looks really, really great and Mulan seems like a really appropriate choice for this project.

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  2. Madeleine K.October 21, 2020 at 11:09 AM

    I love your project! Your art is superb and I could totally imagine seeing it in a movie theater! I really like the reasoning behind your choice of Mulan because it works really well and I think that Disney should totally make this new movie.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BiancaOctober 21, 2020 at 3:55 PM

    This is so good! Not only is it super close to the movie's art style, the inherent messages it portrays are very important. Mulan's gender presentation doesn't have to be a temporary choice played for laughs (like when the male soldiers dress up as women later on), but rather an expression of his identity. Also I like the little drawing of Mushu :)

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