Jada Fulcher

Your emphasis on Wakanda’s isolationist ways of being is an interesting thing to focus on. While part of me viewed it mostly as a plot device to explain why Wakanda hadn’t largely affected how the world developed within its history as a technologically advanced country, it is a thing we have to examine independent of the “it’s just a movie” ideology. That said, I understand and recognize the reasoning of the Wakandans. Their allegiance wasn’t based in race, it was based in tribes and nationality. This makes me think of the Native Americans who weren’t necessarily friends with other Native American groups simply because they were from a similar spot on the map. We have to remember that race is and always has been a social construct. There’s no biological evidence that race exists, that’s just basic anthropology. So viewing Wakanda simply as a government that chose to protect its national interests rather than help others and endanger their own inhabitants, I get it. Their allegiance was to their people rather than to the world, and while it can be viewed as selfish or even lacking in morality one must recognize that what is moral is subjective. Nothing is so simple as good and bad, but rather we live in the distinct gray area called human life.

I get what you mean. I originally thought the same thing about them continuing the show for another season. At the time I first thought that it was just American television desperate to continue their programming for the sake of fame and money, which is the case with a lot of American shows that continue on for wayyy too long. But since seeing the second season I’ve come to realize that perhaps we’re a bit too far gone for the open ending. It makes me think of how Jordan Peele changed the ending of “Get Out” because Trump won the presidential election. He realized that we already understand that the world is dark and scary but we need to know that we can work to better it and things can end okay if we try to make it so.

It’s interesting that you begin this piece with the question of if Mulan is lauded as such a great film simply because it was more diverse than most animation of the period. I say this because I feel like it’s answering a question that people were never really asking. While I wasn’t really cognizant of conversations at the time of the film’s premiere, I feel like the general consensus nowadays is that the film has always been great for the reasons listed. That said, I love your analysis of Mulan’s selfishness and how that plays into her decision making in the film. Despite a gazillion rewatches of the film, I never thought about it like that. Awesome article!