Q. Your review of “Mulan” is predictably incomplete. “The message here is standard feminist empowerment,” you say. No. The message here also is empowerment for transgendered persons such as myself. This is far from a standard message for any movie, much less for an animated film with a hopefully large children’s audience. Society has put so many restrictions on transgendered people’s chances to simply be themselves. But just as I didn’t want to play sports as a boy but would rather play house or dolls, just as I found myself enjoying wearing the clothes of women, Mulan finds herself not wanting to follow the so-called “rules” of her assigned gender. The message from “Pinocchio” of “let your conscience be your guide” is the true message of “Mulan.” When they need to, even her fellow soldiers abandon convention and dress up like women (and seem a little freer and happier for it). It’s a beautiful moral to the story, one that transgendered children especially need to hear so they don’t go through years of self-hatred: It’s okay to be one’s self. (Jennifer Wendy Michael Gilbert, also known as Dave, Chicago)
A. Sorry I had to edit your longer letter for space; I hope I got the essence. I am not convinced that Mulan does in fact believe she is a boy who has been mistakenly born inside a girl’s body; I believe she is a girl who pretends to be a boy simply in order to take her father’s place in the Army. She is not, however, happy with the roles assigned to women in her society, which is why she flees the matchmaker and an arranged marriage. That’s why I think the message is essentially feminist.