While many people are proud of Mulan as a film where gender stereotypes are broken, this ends up distracting people from many of the other stereotypes within the film . In Mulan the character, designers and writers make many of the characters fit different stereotypes within the film. I will talk about the film Mulan and compare the characters in the film to the common stereotypes discussed in the text "Teaching (Popular) Visual Culture: Deconstructing Disney in the Elementary Art Classroom", written by Kevin Tavin and David Anderson. This article discusses many different types of stereotypes and uses examples from many different Disney films. Along with common stereotypes, there are more subtle ones that you don't often think about when watching a Disney film. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Racial stereotypes are often the first to be noticed in movies, mainly because they are the most prominent and controversial in today's society. They are also the most difficult films to insert without immediately being criticized as racist films, however this has never stopped Disney from inserting its own prejudices into films: "Disney's discussions of race and ethnicity are part of a set of messages unconscious on power". and social memories about history” (Tavin. P. 24). Tavin is saying that racial stereotypes are often shown to arise from the normal way people acted in their culture's past. At the beginning of the film Mulan is shown getting ready and dressed for the matchmaker to choose her and find a husband. In the song sung during this scene, one of the main lines has the singer saying “Men want girls with good taste, calm, obedient. Those who work at a fast pace. With a good education and a slim waist, you will bring honor to us all” (Mulan). This clearly shows a stereotype of not only some of the things considered attractive at this time in China, but also how important it was to honor one's family at that time. Tavin also discusses the stereotyping of protagonists versus antagonists in a film: Repeatedly non-white human characters appear as stereotypical representations of the "other," who are often inferior, grotesque, violent, or unscrupulous [...] in Aladdin, the Movie hero is light-skinned with Anglo-Saxon features and speaks standard American English, while other "Arabs" […] are dark-skinned with exaggerated facial features and speak with thick accents. All of this is in line with […] white Western culture representing order, rationality and self-control [and non-Western, non-white culture] stands for chaos, irrationality, violence and breakdown of self-regulation. (Tavin, P. 24) There is an extremely similar parallel in the movie Mulan where all the main characters speak perfect English while the enemies, in this case the Huns, have very barbaric, almost animalistic darker skin with sharp teeth and yellow, they claw like nails and speak with a strong accent thus identifying them as the enemy. While many would say that Disney is simply seeking accuracy in the sense that the Huns wouldn't even speak English, this doesn't explain why the protagonists, who are all Chinese, speak without any accent. In this film the characters aren't even always stereotyped based on their character's appearance. “Animals and non-human representations in Disney films are not immune to these racial stereotypes. Characters often use language in the form of racially coded accents and inflections” (Tavin, P. 24). The last major racial stereotype comes from a very important character who is a dragon of.