Beauty and the Beast - Mulan

Disney films seem to assign rigid roles to women and people of colour, though it becomes more complicated in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Mulan (1998). Both show defiance to follow the path that is predestined by their gender. However, their self-confidence and strength is discontinued when they end up marrying a prominent male character.

Giroux, H. A. and Pollock, G. (2010) The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence. United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Disney promoters labeled Belle a feminist because she rejects and vilifies Gaston, the ultimate macho man. It is possible to interpret Beauty and the Beast as a rejection of hypermasculinity, but Belle's reformation of the Beast "implies that women are responsible for controlling male anger and violence. If a woman is only pretty and sweet enough, she can transform and abusive man into a prince - forever." In this reading, Belle is less the focus of the film than a prop or "mechanism for solving the Beast's dimemma." Whatever subversive qualities Belle initial personifies in the film, in the end she simply becomes another woman whose life is valued for how she can patiently solve a man's problems - and withstand emotional and physical abuse along the way. (p.106)

Mulan may be an independent, strong willed young woman, but the ultimate payoff for her bravery comes in the form of attracting the handsome son of a general. And if the point is missed, when the heroine's grandmother first sees the young man as he enters Mulan's house, she affirms what she (the audience?) sees as Mulan's real victory - catching a man - and yells out, "Sign me up for the next war!" (p.107)

... Disney reminds us at the conclusion of the film that Mulan is still a girl in search of a man (p.107)