Mulan 1998 is a story conserns about a brave female character named Fa Mulan who decides to bring back the honour of her family by replacing her sickly father to go to war. She disguises herself as a man to join as a member of an imperial army. Based on the story, to serve the Emperor people in China should have to do something, men by bearing their arms and women by bearing sons.
The first part is about how women should behave in Mulan's community. Starting from the scene when the matchmaker calls Mulan to enter the house, she must be checked by the matchmaker whether she is suitable as a bride or not for a man who is being matched. As the gender stereotypes in that era, women are expected to behave polite, quite, feminine, and elegant which is demand Mulan to be beautiful, not too skinny and also not fat as a woman. When the matchmaker says "Too skinny" [00:09:23], her statement implies that women with skinny body not good for bearing sons. Women are required to be physically perfect and women are only devoted to bearing sons. This scene uses a medium long shot to shows their facial expressions and interactions. The scene also highlights the idea that women can only bring honour to their families by becoming a bride, a servant to a man, find a husband, and take care of home.
Another scene shows men expect the perfect woman to be their wife, either from their physical appearances, treatments, and behaviours. As mention by Ling where he wants a really beautiful woman to be his wife, while Yao wants a woman that admires his physical strenght, and Chien Po wants a woman that can cook pretty well, this statement proved by the song lyric "It all depends on what she cooks like" [00:48:24]. This implies that women must follow society standard of beauty that required women to be beautiful, a servant, and calm because of men power over women. This scene uses a long shot to show a full body of Chien Po and his dream woman. The picture of the bowl and rice in the film inducates that women should be able to cook and only serve as a man's servant.
In conclusion, Mulan 1998 is an excellently film that helps us know the stereotypes in Mulan's community. Mulan is succesfull in breaking that stereotypes and being who she really is on the inside and outside. Mulan also considers as the beautiful women since she can prove herself as the one who equal compared with men.