Okay I know this is a little bit unrelated to our class discussions at the moment, but the whole theme of women being undervalued as less important than they actually are has gotten me thinking about just how great the movie Mulan is. Oh yes, Disney. When I was younger I watched so many Disney movies. I had a VHS player in my room so I would watch the same movie every single night for like three months and then change it, because I loved falling asleep to the music and story lines. For a while it was Beauty in the Beast. And then it became Mulan after one of my sisters rented it from the library and had to pay a fine to buy the movie after we lost it for a month. Then we found it, and I watched it. Over and over and over again. Let me just say, I have no regrets. Mulan is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. I think one of the reasons I loved it so much was that Mulan had so much heart as a character -- she was brave, and stuck to her own beliefs of what was right rather than obeying the moral standard. Pretending to be a boy marching off to war may have seemed an impossible task to her in the beginning, but she pulled through after putting in hard work and effort, and in the end proved that women could be just as brave and capable as men.
One of the many reasons I haven't really enjoyed reading Things Fall Apart so far is that it takes place in a culture that simply brushes aside the views of women. For instance -- take this quote from the book:
“Ikemefuna came into Okonkwo’s household. When Okonkwo brought him home that day he called his most senior wife and handed him over to her.
‘He belongs to the clan,’ he told her. ‘So look after him.’
‘Is he staying long with us?’ she asked.
‘Do what you are told, woman,’ Okonkwo thundered” (Achebe 14).
As displayed, Okonkwo takes advantage of his title of "father of the house" and burdens others with his own pending issues and forces them to simply accept them for what they are, no questions asked. The women encourage this behavior by obeying his whims and accepting his words without fighting about it. Although this is simply a part of such a culture, I don't support it. I much prefer everyone being able to deal with problems together, compromising rather than having one person declaring what should be done without consulting the other. I also disapprove of the idea that no one can speak out against an action the community wishes to take, even if it goes against moral reasoning, like the execution of Ikemefuna, an innocent boy who just happened to be forced into a deathly predicament. Why couldn't Okonkwo have spoken out for this boy? Ikemefuna was killed just like that, and no one dared to speak out for fear of going against the Oracle and the community itself.
And this brings me back to Mulan. Mulan was scared to go against her community and their laws as well, but she still did it, because she felt in her heart that it was the right thing to do. Had she pulled an Okonkwo on the situation and simply sat back and watched, her father would have most likely died fighting in the war, and the great war itself could have been lost without the smart actions she was destined to make. What would have happened if Okonkwo had spoken out for Ikemefuna? Would the boy still be alive? Would the community have shunned Okonkwo? There's no telling what would have happened, as Okonkwo didn't take that risk. He decided to remain in his peaceful little community bubble, trying to ignore the splintering guilt building up inside him for going along with the common plan, and aiding in the execution of a boy he once thought of as his own son. In terms of characters and their choices, I much prefer Mulan's story.
No comments:
Post a Comment