Mulan/YMMV

• Acceptable Targets: And how! The Huns have sickly gray skin, and black eyes with yellow irises.
  • Especially interesting considering that, according to several historical sites, the Huns actually seemed pretty accepting of women going to battle. Which kind of was a big point of this movie.
    • It can be argued that this is a darkly and twisted Fridge Brilliance, Shan-Yu is one of the few characters who ironically doesn’t seemingly say anything sexist and meets Mulan in battle like she were a man. Chi-Fu could actually learn a lesson from him.
• Adaptation Displacement: A lot of people have no idea that the legend of Mulan has been around in various forms since the 6th century AD. They think she's an original Disney character.
• Angst? What Angst?: There are no psychological repercussions to Mulan killing thousands of men with the avalanche. Then again, it's a Disney film. Being made to think about that isn't very kid-friendly...
  • In one of the next few scenes, they popped up from under the snow. Mushu even likens them to daisies.
• Anvilicious: The whole feminism thing, arguably. There are four songs in the movie, one about Arranged Marriage and the subservient role of women, the second is Mulan's "I Want" Song about being herself (which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award), the third is "I'll Make a Man Out of You" (sung by Donny Osmond), the fourth is about the soldiers' desires. Also, about every other line in the film is about male superiority and female inferiority, though there are several sympathetic male characters. The message though seems to be that Mulan's society is sexist, but that doesn't mean all the people are. Even when her gender is discovered, Mulan's comrades aren't upset because she's a woman, they're upset that she lied. And only Chi-Fu wants her executed, if only because he wishes to follow the law.
  • It's also important that Mulan herself doesn't see her dilemma as a feminist one: she doesn't like being a traditional woman not because she's morally outraged, but because it's simply not in her nature. Note that Mulan sees her dilemma as a skill she keeps trying (and failing) to perform, like a musician being unable to play a particular piece. At the start of the movie, she wants to comply -- and even resorts to cheating to do so -- and is frustrated by her continued inability.
  • Also note that when she joins the army in her father's place, she's not trying to prove that a woman can do something better than a man; it's simply to save his life.
  • She does second-guess herself after her identity is revealed, thinking that maybe she didn't go to save her father, but to bring honor to her family and feel worthwhile. But again, she just wanted to be accepted for who she was and bring honor her way, not explicitly by proving her society wrong about women in general.
  • It seems like a matter of semantic distinction. It's impossible to view Mulan through the lens of the modern, heavily Westernized feminist movement; she simply can't be framed within the context of the current era or be expected to reflect its principles. So feminist certainly isn't applicable to her in that regard. Certainly, though, the film can be viewed as contributing somewhat toward the goal of feminism (which is about gender equality, with individual strength and performance overcoming gender assumptions) by highlighting some of the problems and limitations of perceived social norms (woman as the weaker, less capable sex/man as arbiter of social power/female protection of men as shameful/etc. al.) that require her necessary deception.
  • It's worth noting that, in the original version, Mulan is a hero for her filial piety, not feminism.
• Awesome Music: "I'll Make a Man Out of You" for a start.
• China Loves Mulan: While it's well-loved in most parts of the world, the Chinese loved this film.
• Complete Monster: Shan-Yu, who is a bloodthirsty warlord played straight in a Disney film and the worst out of all the Huns, which is saying a lot. He decides to declare war on China simply because he likes a challenge. He also murdered Shang's father along with his entire army, and he had also slaughtered an entire village during that particular massacre, rather than go around the village like one of his soldiers had suggested. And when the Emperor refuses to kneel before him, he decides he'll simply kneel in pieces.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Shan-Yu has a sizeable fanbase, mostly due to his rugged, husky voice provided by Miguel Ferrer.
• Ear Worm: "I'll Make a Man Out of You" and "A Girl Worth Fighting For" are merciless in this regard.
• Evil Is Cool: While he's a lot lower key than most of Disney's hammy and theatric villains, Shan Yu still pulls in plenty of admirers thanks to his brutal and cunning nature, sinister design, and his overall badassery. This status also extends to the Huns as a whole.
• Girls Need Role Models: This is probably why Mulan is shoehorned into the Disney Princess merchandise: she's the first "real" Action Girl the animated canon has to offer, though this is somewhat muted by the fact that the merchandise generally features the girly-girl look she complains about in the first act.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Mulan's male persona is "Ping", and given that she still claims to be from the Fa family, "his" full name takes on a rather different meaning among modern Internet culture, doubling as an accidental Stealth Pun.
• Ho Yay: Mushu encourages it as a normal part of male-to-male interaction.

Mushu: Good, now slap 'im on the behind. They like that!

• Memetic Mutation: Go into any room (or bar, or internet chatroom...) full of people who grew up with this movie (teenagers and twentysomethings at this point) and sing "Let's get down to business". They will not only finish the line for you, but also sing the entire song.
  • "They popped out of the snow! LIKE DAISIES!!!"
  • Mushu's dishonor rant.
• Misaimed Marketing: Mulan's placement in the Disney Princess franchise might already count as this, but it reached a new low when the DVD joined the "Royal Wedding Collection".
• Moral Event Horizon: Shan Yu and the Huns slaughtering of an entire village, including an innocent child, is horrific enough on its own, but it becomes more than just business for them when you remember than Shan Yu had mentioned "returning the little girl's doll" with a gleeful smile of anticipation of what was to come. The little girl wasn't a causality - she was killed by a planned attack on her life. Shan Yu murdered her in cold blood and then laid her doll down by her body as a mocking gesture. Just for fun.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Huns can be downright creepy. Not only did they climb over the Great Wall without much effort (despite what Chi Fu thought), but it was quickly established that they were planning to head towards the Imperial City and invade his palace.
  • Shan-Yu has enough Nightmare Fuel on his own, even without his soldiers backing him up.
  • "Besides, the little girl will be missing her doll. We should return it to her."

"How many men does it take to deliver a message?"
"...One."

• • Mulan is clearly horrified after hearing the family name being called meaning that her elderly father will have to go to war and will probably die.
  • Mulan and her comrades coming across the charred remains of a village with dead bodies sprawled all over the ground. Especially jarring since they discover it right when they're finishing a rather cheerful musical number. It's pretty impressive how Shan Yu can alter the scene so dramatically.
  • When Mulan is revealed as a girl, Chi Fu reveals that he had always been suspicious of her. And he actually wants to go through with the execution.
• Shan Yu not only decides to kill the Emperor, but he decides to do so in front of his own people. Thankfully, Shang prevents the execution.
• Tear Jerker: When Mulan returns home after being humiliated in her meeting with the matchmaker and can't even look her father in the eye, then singing "Reflection". The life of an Extreme Doormat just isn't something that she can handle.
  • Shang's army finding the burned down village with everyone in it dead, including the little girl with the doll.
  • When Mulan is abandoned by the army after her gender has been revealed. Especially her expressing of disappointment in herself afterwards. "I see nothing." It doesn't last long (and Shang decides to spare her life, likely due to the fact that she saved his and he had previously let her out of her conscripton notice), but it certainly makes Mushu and the lucky cricket feel depressed along with her.
• Sequelitis: The second movie wasn't well-received by critics, though it has a better reception by audience members.
• Unfortunate Implications: The entire bad-guy army, whom the script always refers to by their ethnicity, is drawn as hulking, gray-skinned, yellow-eyed goons. Probably explains why 'Huns', who no longer exist as a self-identified ethnic group, were used instead of Mongols, who actually still exist as a country. If no one is still around to protest, a Historical Villain Upgrade becomes much smoother.
  • Nevertheless, some nationalist groups in Turkey objected, due to the historically-somewhat-shaky belief that Huns are the ancestors of Turks.
  • If we go along with the idea that the movie's Huns are actually based on the Xiongnu, the character designs may have something of a historical context, since the Chinese depiction of the Xiongnu wasn't exactly...well, we'll say it wasn't flattering, at the least. The story is essentially told from the Chinese perspective, and the Huns were monsters in the eyes of the Chinese. You don't build a Great Wall to keep out fluffy bunnies.
  • European descriptions of the Huns weren't very flattering either. The Huns themselves didn't help matters by deliberately binding the heads of their infants to deform the skull, and scaring their cheeks.

"They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearful, and they had, if I may call it so, a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes. Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds. Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and arrow, and have firm-set necks which are ever erect in pride. Though they live in the form of men, they have the cruelty of wild beasts."