Institutional Repository | Satya Wacana Christian University: A Concept of Female Beauty in Disney’s Cartoon Movie “Mulan”

A CONCEPT OF FEMALE BEAUTY IN DISNEY’S CARTOON MOVIE “MULAN”
Chrisna Maharati

Abstract
Media such as movie is not only use to entertain, but also to share several ideas
and concepts. One of the popular concept being share is about a beauty standard.
This issue becomes interesting to discuss because the concept makes women these
days pay too much attention to their appearances rather than to improve their
ability in order to be equal with men. Women are busy to maintain their
appearance without support by behavioral improvement. In this paper, the writer
attempts to find out the concept of female beauty by using the beauty myth
through the main character of Disney’s cartoon movie “Mulan”. This paper has a
purpose to examine whether the beauty myth is suitable or not with the character
of Mulan. In analyzing the character and determining Mulan’s concept of beauty,
the writer uses Naomi Wolf’s book, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are
Used Against Women which discuss about female beauty standard that formerly
set by the society in order to measure the women’s roles as well as female beauty
which only assess from their appearances rather than the behaviors. The finding
shows that based on the Chinese society standard of beauty, Mulan considers as a
not beautiful woman among her society.

Keywords: the beauty myth, female beauty, appearances, behaviors, roles, Mulan