'Mulan' was everything to me as an Asian American girl. Then I watched again as an adult

It doesn't matter how old I get, the song “Be a Man” still absolutely gets me amped.

It had been years since I watched Disney's animated film “Mulan” but in honor of Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander History Month, I decided to revisit the film that had such a profound influence on me as a young kid.

“Mulan” came out in 1998, just one month before I turned 7. At the time, it was truly the first experience I'd ever had as a young child seeing Asian faces on the big screen.

I loved the film and forced my parents to take me several times to see it. I can still picture the sticky floors of the now-defunct movie theater in my hometown and the cold air conditioning in the summer heat.

I didn't exactly start taking martial arts or learn Chinese but I did memorize the entire soundtrack. I even sang “Reflection” as a child in a voice lesson recital. I now realize “Mulan” probably helped me feel more confident in marching to the beat of my own drum as a kid.

As an editor for TODAY.com, I coordinate much of our AANHPI Month coverage and in brainstorming what stories we should work on this year, it occurred to me to write about “Mulan.” I was curious to see if rewatching the film nearly three decades later would pack the same punch. After all, so many of our nostalgic favorites from the 1990s can feel dated or cringeworthy nowadays. Would I still be inspired? Would I still feel hopeful at the end?

My fiancé and I decided to make a date night of it and watched the movie together one evening with snacks and adult beverages. I'll add here that one of my partner’s biggest green flags is that he always loved the film as a kid; honestly, I think it probably influenced him to be OK with a strong, independent woman as his partner — but that's a different essay.

As we tuned in, I could see my fiancé watching me watch the film. Moments into the first montage of Mulan trying to fit into societal expectations of getting married and instead consistently dropping things/burning the matchmaker, he turned to me.

“Did you model your personality after this?” he joked. “This is you if you had to live in feudal China.”

He’s not entirely wrong. I have always done things my way and do lean on the clumsy side. I cannot, however, claim to have any military prowess.

Later, when Mulan saves her troops from the invading Hun army by shooting a cannon at the face of a mountain and causing an avalanche, I note aloud that her actions are both “impulsive and decisive.”

The duality of Mulan’s character and the fine line she walks between impulsive and decisive is one I know well. It’s also a reflection of how society often views decision-making — when Mulan is a woman, she is impulsive. When she’s dressed as a man, she’s decisive.

That dichotomy is something I think all women can relate to. In the nearly three decades since this film came out, it’s a theme that's been featured heavily in many pop culture moments. From Taylor Swift's 2019 song “The Man” to this past summer's blockbuster hit “Barbie,” women everywhere have wisely critiqued the unfair societal standards placed upon them.

In our personal lives, we've seen this play out time and time again. Consider even the visceral reaction many women had to Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker's graduation speech — which, among other things, critiqued working women and told recent female graduates that they should be excited to take on the “vocation” of homemaker.

Watching the film again, I realized that as an adult, I can identify with Mulan — she wants to do right by her family and bring “honor to us all,” but she also wants to choose her own path and do things on her terms. It's a choice almost every modern woman has to make and the answer is different for all of us.

Even when viewed through a modern lens, I was pleased that so much of “Mulan” still holds up today — the themes of female empowerment and living your truth still feel prevalent and meaningful. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the soundtrack has several absolute bops.

That said, several things in the film haven't aged well. The dragon character of Mushu, voiced by Eddie Murphy, has been critiqued for trivializing Chinese culture; there are historical inaccuracies within the film as they pertain to ancestral worship; a flag on Mulan's tent, while she recovered from her injury, is in Japanese instead of Chinese; and Li Shang, Mulan's love interest, was problematic because of the relationship's power dynamic. It's worth pointing out that Mushu and Li Shang are both absent from the 2020 live-action remake of “Mulan.”

As an adult, I can recognize that the movie made cultural mistakes. But that conflation of American and Asian cultures, even if it was misguided at times, is what I identified with as a part white, part Japanese child. My intense fixation on the film likely stemmed from the way it straddled two worlds, the same way I do as a mixed-race American. I deeply identified with Mulan's individualistic search for her own identity as I grappled with mine — both as a child and to this day as an adult. I understood exactly how she could feel like she looked Asian but wanted to be seen for who she was inside.

Re-watching “Mulan” through a modern-day lens and acknowledging this is a specifically American interpretation of a Chinese story actually left me feeling even more inspired as an adult than I was as a kid.

It was a great reminder that not only can times change, but we can change with them.

As for me personally, I've spent time in therapy doing the work to understand what it means to me that I am multiracial. I've researched my family's history and found ways to incorporate and appreciate my culture for life's biggest and smallest moments.

And while Asian Americans are still fighting for more representation in Hollywood, it's more and more common to see faces like mine on the screen.

So though “Mulan” may not be perfect, I still love the movie and thank her for being the inspiration I needed as a little girl.

Besides, it turns out that no matter how old you are, you can still rock out as you celebrate having the “strength of a raging fire” and being as “mysterious as the dark side of the moon.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com