[ SECRET POST #4724 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4724 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #676.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

uh. did we watch the same movie? because nowhere in it did Mulan ever express unhappiness over being a woman, she was unhappy with what it meant was expected of her as a result, which was getting married to a man who was chosen for her by other people and being a good, obedient wife and mother.

[ninefox]

I'm not saying Mulan is obviously trans or that it was the creator's intention or anything like that. But "reflection" is LITERALLY about her made-up matchmaker-ready appearance not being "who I am inside".

Even though her journey in the PLOT is about constrained expectations of getting married &c, that song expresses some feelings that resonate very strongly with both trans and NB folks for obvious reasons.

Textually, she is not trans. Thematically, it is very easy to see why she might be read as trans, for reasons a lot more weighty than "she get a sword, sword is Man Thing, I am so binarist!"

But even on top of that, people are allowed to relate to whatever touches them, even if they can't pull a thematic analysis out of their pocket to back them up, and you're still a dick if you're rolling up and cross-examining them about something that makes them feel comforted and less isolated because HDU CARE ABOUT SUPERFICIAL GENDER SIGNIFIERS.

[(Anonymous)]

... and reading her as trans would be completely missing the point of her story but okay.

[ninefox]

declaring that stories only have one point each is missing the point of all media, but okay

[(Anonymous)]

It's not a trans narrative and I'm fucking trans, FFS. Is it EMPOWERING to me? Hell yeah, but that doesn't make Mulan TRANS.

[(Anonymous)]

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

And when an unimaginably huge media company gives us heteronormativity, make fanfic.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, but don't also insist it's fucking canon and that, oh, well, gee, that's just ONE interpretation.

It's an AU that you're talking about. An AU. It's not an alternate goddamn interpretation, it's straight up AU fic.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, but don't also insist it's fucking canon...

Strawman much?

It's an AU that you're talking about. An AU. It's not an alternate goddamn interpretation, it's straight up AU fic.

Setting aside the problem that this distinction exists entirely between your two ears, and was invented about an hour ago, so fucking what? Civil War is not in any way a gay romance and that hasn't stopped anyone. Neither are Supernatural, Sherlock, Harry Potter, or Star Trek. Why is queering Mulan (or Yao, or Chien-Po, or Li Shang) the reinterpretation of a Disney product that Shall Not Be Done but not Bisexual Steve Rogers?

[ninefox]

Please read my actual comments.

"I'm not saying Mulan is obviously trans or that it was the creator's intention or anything like that."

If your problem is that we should have more textually trans characters, then right on, yeah we should. That's literally the point of my "we should have only scraps to fight over" argument.

But if your point is that no one can read queerness into texts with complicated gender themes and feelings unless it is CONFIRMED AND OFFICIALLY AN [X] NARRATIVE then like, A, you're ignoring entire decades of literary studies, and B, you don't have to lick Daddy Disney's boot so hard. SEIZE THE MEDIA OF PRODUCTION. That's what fandom is FOR.

And if you don't want to do fandom like that, it's okay. But going around telling other fans "you're doing it WRONG" is both cruel and pointless, whether it's you doing this or what's-his-face from Dangan Ronpa's fans being rabid and policing anyone who DIDN'T agree with trans headcanons.

FANDOM POLICING IS BAD. MORE REPRESENTATION IS GOOD. why are y'all so insistent that stories can only belong to one point of view.

[(Anonymous)]

Give em hell!

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT: Agreed. I just reread Nino Cipri's "The Shape of My Name" which discusses experiencing dysphoria when the main character is forced to perform femininity as a child. So there are some common themes between Mulan and fiction written by trans people about trans characters.

Mulan has three musical numbers discussing gender roles and one discussing heterosexuality. Mulan is both cross-dressing folklore and cross-dressing screwball comedy, and both have been richly reinterpreted to discuss issues of sexuality and gender identity. In terms of queer possibilities within a Disney Animated Feature, Mulan is pretty damn juicy. (And it's not just Mulan who can be queered in that movie.)

Elsewhere in fandom, we're queering any two blokes who share a screen. Which is fine, but concern trolling about trans headcanons at the same time strikes me as a blatant double standard.