Heteronormativity in children's discourse: gender binaries and sexism in Mulan

Movies can be powerful socialization agents, particularly when it comes to the processes of forming gender-perceptions in children. Fundamentally, the portrayals of protagonists, commonly male and female, in certain stereotypical roles and ways can convey ideological “norms” to young viewers. Accordingly, this study explores the portrayals of gender, sexism, and power in two versions of the movie, Mulan (1998 and 2020). Using a convergent parallel mix-method approach, the movies’ transcripts were analyzed for gender-based conversational strategies and conversation analysis. I then compared male and female portrayals through a discourse-historical approach. Findings demonstrate that in the more recent version of Mulan, males are portrayed in ways that are more feminine, and females—particularly Mulan and Xinniang—are portrayed in ways that are more masculine. Thus, in the more recent movie, the power distance between males and females has seemingly decreased. Furthermore, although both versions contain sexist content, Mulan 2020 seems to use sexist discourse to enhance female characters’ power. Based on these results and others, I argue that the differences between the portrayals of males and females in the two movies are possibly influenced by the women’s movement in the United States (where these two movies were produced), and the influence of the Chinese government/market on Hollywood. Overall, the study concludes that although there is a positive development of gender portrayals over time, sexist content still exists in children’s movies. Hence, it is the responsibility of parents to carefully choose appropriate movies for children.