#derptastic

Or this gem of an excerpt here...

Surely a heroine as universally known as Mulan needs no introduction. The story of a young lady, representative of her sex, taking her elderly father’s place in the military and becoming a war hero while disguised as a man for ten years only to return home and to her proper place in the home. Naturally, she has inspired much discourse about gender and sexuality in the modern day. There’s plenty of cracks at the Disney adaptations and Captain Shang’s gay awakening. And I love it.  But while it is well and good to see Mulan passing as a man turning heads of the gentlemen around her, I always wondered where her slutty barbarian princess girlfriend went.

Now it’s easy to blame it all on American adaptations and make up some excuse about centering the patriarchy, being overly obsessed with gender politics, or being ignorant of Asian culture or whatever. But not only are these arguments relatively weak but they’re disproven by Japanese media alone. In Japan, there is no shortage of manga and other adaptations that love to play on the themes of gender and sexuality with Mulan. But as usual, the romances are focused on the relationships between Mulan and the men in her life. In some shoujo manga out there, Mulan’s commanding officer, roommate, and some sickly scholar dude are questioning their sexuality and even ready to meet the parents and push their gay agenda to marry their bro. But sadly, no lesbian representation in the land of the rising sun either. (But BL over GL, am I right?)

Perhaps due to CCP censorship and whatnot, China very rarely or very softly alludes to the gay potential of Mulan. But because censorship is staffed by dirty old men, lesbian Mulan is 100% friendly family communist golden stamp of approval! And I’m not talking about vanilla educational content to teach your crotch goblin love is love. I am talking about that slutty barbarian princess who manages to capture Mulan on campaign and string her up in her tent for a little “interrogation” only for them to just walk out the tent as sworn sisters. Who knows what sort of mad skills Mulan used to convince an enemy general to defect against her own lord father and reform from her tribe’s cannibal ways into a proper lady. But this subplot has been considered canon since 1675 when it was found in Romance of the Sui and Tang. Outside the original ballad, many derivative works have been written throughout China’s history by many a big name. Therefore, most historians do suspect Chu Renhuo of basically writing fanfiction down to the barbarian princess subplot with dramatic double suicide climax and the emperor ex machina everyone into being straight at the end. But my point is Warrior Princess Xianniang is not some modern invention for the woke libs, she’s been queer baiting Mulan readers since like the 17th century.

But I have never seen Xianniang or any hint of her character in adaptations outside of Chinese media. To be clear, I am not a Mulan nut or expert so it’s not like I’ve seen or read every single adaptation out there and can truly judge. But it seems the Xianniang subplot inspires Chinese creatives more than outside the great firewall. The 2009 film even expands on the subplot and we get to see what goes down in the tent scene (just some light kinky ropework & someone cupping a boob). And true to classic Chinese romance, no one marries who they actually wanted to marry but everyone did right by their Confucian duty and are happy for each other because they are all sworn brothers/sisters. (guys, just do a polycule and don’t tell your parents…Princess Xianniang, your dad is dead anyways & seeing how liberal your culture’s marriage laws are I doubt he will mind anyways)