An online petition, created by Natalie Molnar on the site Care2, is urging Disney against “whitewashing” – or opting to use Caucasian actors for traditionally ethnic roles – the main character of the popular story, and it has almost reached its goal of 90,000 signatures.
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Mulan is officially in line to get the live action remake treatment, following in the hugely lucrative wake of Cinderella, The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast.
Lovers of the original animated movie are calling on Disney to cast an actress of Asian descent in the leading role..
For now, though, we’ll just be over here daydreaming about the incredible live-action fight sequences and Furiosa-level awesomeness that we’re hoping to see in the upcoming Mulan film (s). “Take a stand against whitewashing in our media”. A couple years back, the studio hired Ryan Potter, a Japanese-American actor, to voice Hiro in Big Hero Six.
Fans of the Disney classic try to contain your excitement.
Tilda Swinton’s casting as the Tibetan Ancient One in Doctor Strange and Scarlett Johansson as The Major in Ghost in the Shell have also sparked a diversity debate, and a petition was launched to prevent Leonardo DiCaprio from being cast as the Persian poet, Rumi.
If Disney were to whitewash Mulan, then it is likely that Chinese audiences would respond poorly to the change.
Based on an old Chinese legend, the film follows the story of Mulan, a Chinese girl who secretly fights in a war in place of her sick father. When the 1998 animated Mulan film was released, the movie became a global success and gathered global fans who Disney would hate to lose now.
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Disney’s live-action Mulan movie was first announced in early 2015 and is still in early development stages, yet there’s already controversy surrounding the upcoming flick.
