Andrew J. Hewitt, PMHNP-BC
Caliper Wellness — Pasco County, Florida
Abstract
Mulan, first immortalized in the “Ballad of Mulan” and later reinterpreted by studios, schools, and global media, remains a remarkably flexible cultural figure. Over the last three decades, she has shifted from dutiful daughter and patriot to an international emblem of empowerment, self-definition, and courage under pressure. This blog reviews recent literature (2024–2025) on Mulan’s evolution in classical texts and modern storytelling, examines how those retellings encode gender, culture, and identity, and offers a mental-health–oriented reading relevant to clients and clinicians. Drawing on new analyses of the legend’s Confucian layers, multimodal renderings in children’s media, and contemporary gender-discourse critiques, I outline how Mulan’s journey mirrors clinical themes we regularly address at Caliper Wellness: navigating family expectations, differentiating self from role, transforming anxiety into purposeful action, and cultivating resilience. I also discuss the risks of flattening a complex heroine into a single “empowerment” trope and suggest ways to engage myth responsibly in therapy.
Keywords: Mulan, identity, gender, Confucian virtues, empowerment narratives, resilience, mental health, cultural adaptation
Introduction: Why Mulan, and Why Now?
As a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner working in integrative care, I often meet clients who anchor their healing journeys in stories. The right story doesn’t give answers; it gives a mirror. Among global narratives, Mulan is one of the most tenacious mirrors we have. Across centuries and continents, she reappears: a young person standing at the crossroads of filial duty and authentic self, fear and courage, tradition and change.
In the last two years, scholarship has sharpened our understanding of Mulan’s “many lives.” One strand argues the Mulan we inherit is palimpsestic, layered by successive Confucian readings of filiality, loyalty, and chastity within classical literature (not a single “original”), which helps explain why she adapts so easily to modern agendas. Taylor & Francis Online+1 A second strand looks closely at how contemporary publishers and studios construct Mulan across modalities (text, image, paratext), shaping gender messages for young readers. Hill Publishing Group A third interrogates gendered language in Disney’s versions, showing where the films challenge or reproduce stereotypes. Academy Publishing Center Meanwhile, global media continue to reframe her—from dutiful daughter to empowerment icon, revealing how living cultures re-negotiate courage and care. CGTN News+1
For a wellness practice like ours, these updates aren’t just literary trivia. They’re clinical material. Mulan’s arc, anxiety under pressure, role conflict, strategic concealment, values-based action, maps onto common therapy themes: identity formation, cultural expectation, and resilience. Below, I synthesize the latest insights and translate them into mental-health applications you can use today.
The Classical Mulan: A Layered (Not Singular) Tradition
Recent work in Chinese literary studies emphasizes that there is no single “authentic” Mulan. Rather, the legend is a mosaic accrued across dynasties, with Confucian moral discourses interwoven into narrative structure. In this view, Mulan functions as a pedagogical vehicle: filial piety (xiao), loyalty (zhong), and, in some textual traditions, chastity and social harmony. The “real” Mulan is not a fixed person but a stack of moralized roles, each reflecting the needs of its era. Taylor & Francis Online+1
Clinical resonance: Many clients experience identity as layered rather than unitary. Conflicts between “who I am” and “who I’m supposed to be.” Child, partner, caregiver, breadwinner are common drivers of anxiety. Framing identity as a palimpsest allows self-compassion: you are not betraying one layer by developing another; you are integrating. This mirrors integrative care’s goal of coherence, not perfection.
From Ballad to Brand: The Global Mulan
Contemporary media continue to refresh Mulan’s symbolism. Outlets in 2025 described her evolution from dutiful daughter to emblem of personal empowerment, proof that audiences keep renegotiating what counts as courage and womanhood. CGTN News+1 The character’s pop-cultural relevance remains visible in parks, parades, and interviews with legacy performers; for instance, Disney’s 2024 Lunar New Year parade foregrounded Mushu alongside Mulan, and Ming-Na Wen (the 1998 voice of Mulan) reflected in 2025 on the character’s durable impact across generations. Disney by Mark+1
Clinical resonance: Cultural icons can scaffold hope. When a client names Mulan as a touchstone, they’re sometimes reaching for permission: to act bravely without disowning family, to “pass” for safety, to claim a voice. Symbols don’t replace therapy; they amplify it. We use them as values-based anchors during change.
How Children Learn Mulan: Multimodal Messages
A 2025 multimodal analysis of a Disney children’s book adaptation shows how text, image, and design choices shape the heroine’s meaning for young readers. The study argues that these paratextual features can either complicate or simplify cultural nuance and gender portrayal. Hill Publishing Group In parallel, a 2025 linguistic study applying feminist stylistics examined dialogue from the animated film, finding both challenges to and reproductions of gender stereotypes in character interactions. Academy Publishing Center
Clinical resonance: Early media exposures script expectations: who “gets” to be brave, smart, or nurturing. For parents, this research invites guided co-viewing: ask kids what Mulan is feeling, what choices cost her, and how others respond. You’re not lecturing; you’re building media literacy and emotional vocabulary.
The Confucian Core—and Its Tensions
The 2024 “palimpsest” perspective emphasizes that Mulan’s filial courage arises within Confucian moral grammar: duty to family and ruler, social harmony, and the management of personal desire within collective needs. Taylor & Francis Online+1 Western empowerment readings sometimes isolate individual self-assertion and miss this collective scaffold. Therapeutically, it matters: clients from Confucian-influenced or collectivist backgrounds may experience anxiety not because they lack agency but because they hold multiple, co-equal obligations.
Clinical translation: Swap the binary “be true to yourself vs. obey your family” for a triage of values. We help clients articulate hierarchies under stress: which values get priority when duties collide, and how will they communicate that choice? This reframing normalizes distress as a signal of value conflict, not pathology.
Passing, Secrecy, and Strategic Self-Presentation
Mulan disguises herself to navigate a hostile environment. Clinically, “passing” can mirror how queer, trans, neurodivergent, or serostatus-positive (e.g., HIV+) clients manage safety. The choice to conceal is neither weakness nor deceit; it’s a survival-skill that exacts costs (hypervigilance, loneliness) and confers benefits (protection, access). Guided by the latest gender-discourse analyses, we can validate that complexity without romanticizing it. Academy Publishing Center
Practice tip: Ask, “Where do you armor up like Mulan? What does that armor let you do? What does it keep you from feeling? What would ‘safe unmasking’ look like and with whom?”
Anxiety to Action: A PMHNP’s Reading of Courage
Onscreen or on the page, Mulan does not banish fear; she metabolizes it into valued action. That is a cognitive-behavioral move: identify threat, name values, take the next workable step. It’s also acceptance-based: do it with fear, not after fear disappears. Recent media portrayals like parades, interviews, cultural retrospectives keep highlighting this action-orientation as central to her legacy. Disney by Mark+2People.com+2
Clinical micro-protocol:
- Name the dragon. What exactly is feared (rejection, failure, loss of face)?
- Name the value. Why act anyway (protect family, honor truth, pursue vocation)?
- Size the step. What is the smallest effective action?
- Practice recovery. Pre-plan how to soothe if it goes badly.
- Debrief the story. After action, what narrative are you telling about yourself now?
Filial Piety vs. Self-Authorship: Rewriting the Script
Because the classical Mulan is steeped in filial duty, modern audiences sometimes feel torn: Is she a proto-feminist or a dutiful daughter? Recent commentary suggests the answer is “yes.” Contemporary outlets frame her as a figure whose empowerment grows through responsibility, not in rejection of it. CGTN News+1 That nuance can help clients who feel alienated by more individualistic empowerment narratives.
Clinical exercise: Values genogram. Map three generations of “duty stories”: who sacrificed for whom, who broke with tradition, and what costs/benefits followed. Clients often discover they’re not betraying lineage by evolving; they’re extending it.
Representation, Stereotypes, and Cultural Care
The 2025 linguistic study notes that even trailblazing heroines can be framed with stereotyped language or interpersonal dynamics. Academy Publishing Center For clinicians, that’s a reminder: representation is necessary, not sufficient. We ask where a story uplifts and where it compresses identities into convenient shapes.
Clinical question: “Where does your ‘Mulan story’ uplift you and where does it pressure you to be invulnerable, obedient, or exceptional all the time?”
Community, Ritual, and Public Memory
Story becomes culture when it’s ritualized. Disney’s 2024 Lunar New Year procession, centering Mulan and Mushu, is one example of how narratives are celebrated in communal space: less about canon accuracy, more about belonging and joy. Disney by Mark In mental health, ritual matters: festivals, parades, and shared re-tellings counter isolation and nourish identity.
Application: Encourage clients to seek or create small rituals like ancestral recipes, songs, costume-making, watch-parties that honor their values in community, not just in solitary resolve.
The Risk of a Single Heroine: Cautions
Every icon casts a shadow. If we narrow Mulan to a tidy slogan (“be true to yourself”), we may erase the burdens of disguise, the grief of leaving home, or the moral injuries of war. Current scholarship’s insistence on multiplicity is a safeguard: it keeps Mulan complex. Taylor & Francis Online+1
Therapeutic caution: Don’t prescribe archetypes. Invite them. The moment a clinician says, “Just be like Mulan,” we’ve slipped from therapy to myth-management. Better: “What part of Mulan’s story resonates, and what part doesn’t?”
Working With Mulan in Therapy: A Brief Guide
- Elicit the personal Mulan. Which version is yours: ballad, animation, live action, book, parade memory, family story? Each version cues different values (duty, defiance, belonging).
- Map values and roles. Use the palimpsest idea to normalize layered identities. Ingenta Connect
- Name the stakes. What does courage risk and protect in your context (family standing, employment, health, safety)?
- Choose a courage practice. One behavior that honors a core value this week.
- Debrief with compassion. Courage often triggers backlash from others or within. Integrate self-soothing, boundary work, and narrative reframing.
- Widen the cast. Balance Mulan with other narratives (local heroines, elders, personal mentors) to avoid a single-story trap.
Implications for Families and Educators
Because children frequently encounter Mulan first through books and films, co-viewing and co-reading matter. The 2025 multimodal analysis reminds us that layout, illustration, and captioning carry cultural weight; surface “diversity” can be undercut by narrow framing. Hill Publishing Group
Try this:
- Ask open questions: “What do you think Mulan is worried about here?” “What does she care about most?”
- Compare versions: ballad summaries, 1998 animation, 2020 live action, newer picture books. How does each depict family, duty, humor, and fear?
- Name teamwork: highlight non-individualistic forms of courage (care work, listening, repairing harm) alongside battlefield heroism.
Clinician’s Corner: When Mulan Hurts
Some clients have lived “Mulan stories,” too, literally carrying the family, hiding parts of self, soldiering on without rest. Their armor is heavy. When empowerment narratives become internalized perfectionism, we see burnout, panic, and complicated grief. Here we pivot from “more courage” to “gentle permission”: to rest, to be helped, to be seen without a mask. We also address intersectional risks: e.g., when gender nonconformity, racialization, immigration status, or disability raise the stakes of visibility.
Interventions:
- CBT + ACT blend: Defuse from punitive “shoulds,” anchor in chosen values, and set humane, graded exposures to authenticity.
- Narrative therapy: Externalize “The Good Daughter/Son Story” and renegotiate its contract.
- Family sessions: Translate personal values into relational agreements (what help looks like, how duties will be shared).
- Mind-body: Breathwork, progressive muscle relaxation, tai chi/qigong, honoring the story’s cultural roots while regulating arousal.
- Media literacy: Use recent scholarship to validate mixed feelings about popular portrayals. Hill Publishing Group+1
The Future Mulan: Why She Keeps Working
Why does Mulan persist? Because she sits at the live wire of human experience: love for family, fear of failure, hope for self-authorship. Recent media accounts underline that her resonance keeps renewing as societies renegotiate gender and power. CGTN News+1 Scholarship’s insistence on multiplicity gives clinicians permission to keep the story open: less as a rulebook, more as a companion.
At Caliper Wellness, that’s how we use myth: not as a commandment, but as a conversation. Clients do not need to become Mulan. They need to become themselves with courage appropriate to their risks, rest sized to their fatigue, and community sturdy enough to carry them when armor pinches.
Conclusion
Mulan’s latest scholarship and media presence remind us that she is not a statue but a verb: an unfolding practice of aligning duty and desire, fear and value. The 2024–2025 research highlights her layered classical roots and the contemporary mechanisms by which children and adults are taught to “see” her. Academy Publishing Center+3Taylor & Francis Online+3Ingenta Connect+3 For mental-health care, that matters. Stories can either shrink a person into a role or enlarge them into a life. Our work is to help clients discern the difference, keep the parts that give courage, and release what harms.
If Mulan is your mirror right now, you don’t have to carry the whole army. Name one value. Take one step. Breathe. Let the story walk beside you, not ahead of you.
References (APA 7th ed.)
CGTN. (2025, March 7). The evolution of Mulan: From dutiful daughter to icon of empowerment. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-03-07/The-Evolution-of-Mulan-From-Dutiful-Daughter-to-Icon-of-Empowerment-1Bwtttqemvm/p.html CGTN News
Disney by Mark. (2024, January 20). “Mulan’s Lunar New Year Procession” returns for 2024 (with Mushu) at Disney California Adventure. https://disneybymark.com/2024/01/photos-video-mulans-lunar-new-year-procession-returns-for-2024-with-mushu-for-year-of-the-dragon-at-disney-california-adventure/ Disney by Mark
He, Y. (2024). The multiple layers of Mulan’s legend in Chinese classical literature. Monumenta Serica, 72(2), 195–219. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02549948.2024.2414635 Taylor & Francis Online
He, Y. (2024). The multiple layers of Mulan’s legend in Chinese classical literature. Monumenta Serica, 72(2). (Alt. access). https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ymon20/2024/00000072/00000002/art00003 Ingenta Connect
Hill Publisher. (2025). A multimodal discourse analysis of Mulan in Disney’s children’s book adaptation (PDF). https://www.hillpublisher.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?cid=4147&type=PDF Hill Publishing Group
People Magazine. (2025, May 27). Ming-Na Wen says “Mulan”’s legacy will continue ‘forever’ as Disney favorite marks 27th anniversary (Exclusive). https://people.com/ming-na-wen-says-mulan-legacy-will-continue-on-forever-exclusive-11747629 People.com
Shaaban, R. (2025). Investigating the construction of gender stereotypes in the animated movie “Mulan” (Conference paper PDF). Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport, International Language & Culture Conference. https://apc.aast.edu/ojs/index.php/ILCC/article/download/ILCC.2025.05.1.1144/pdf_54 Academy Publishing Center
Soho in China. (2025, March 7). The timeless evolution of Hua Mulan: From ancient ballad to global icon. https://khabarasia.com/culture/20250307-the-timeless-evolution-of-hua-mulan-from-ancient-ballad-to-global-icon/ Khabar Asia
Note on scope: This blog intentionally privileges sources from 2024–2025 to meet the recency criterion and to foreground current scholarly and media conversations about Mulan’s cultural meaning.