I will not stand for Mulan slander.
Mulan has two goals; she wants to bring honor to her family and she wants to save her father. She tries to go the traditional route of being pretty and making a good wife so she can have sons. She just sucks at it because she's clumsy. This makes her feel like she's worthless because she can't pull off what she should be able to.
She goes to war because her father is the family's only male and has been conscripted; he's old and walks with a cane because of a previous war, and she knows he won't make it home. The entire story is ultimately one girl's show of love for her father who loves her back. In the scene where the Emperor's messenger comes to her village and announces he wants one male from each family, Mulan tries to intervene, but unlike a modern heroine she doesn't jump up and sass the guy. She tries to explain and plead for mercy, "please, sir", her father has already served the Emperor and shouldn't have to again.
Mulan does not set out to prove anything about women or complain about her role in society. She just wants her dad not to die and ends up proving herself while she does it. Mulan's concern is herself. She wants to do something right.
When she goes to the training camp, she's very awkward and wants to blend in but has no idea how to act. She fails at training miserably, not just feats of strength but stuff like shooting bows and arrows. Her comedy sidekicks are also losers but she still fails worse than them. Her strength is ultimately her ability to think differently and use what she has at hand. Her identity is revealed because she was injured in battle. The villain makes no comment on her being a girl. He recognizes her as the "soldier" who almost took him out and just goes to kill her. A woke movie is more likely to make a big deal out of it for "catharsis" when she blows him up.
When she defeats the Huns, she is offered a position in the Emperor's inner circle, and rejects it so she can go home and give her dad her sword and the Emperor's medal. There's no indication she's going to make becoming a soldier a regular thing. She gets a hunky guy as a reward.
Also note the secondary cast. The movie goes for long stretches of time without any female characters but Mulan, but when they're there none of them speak against their role in society and instead enthusiastically play into it. The rest of the cast is men and all of them except the Emperor's lackey are portrayed overall positively. She has a group of friends in the army who are comedic because this is ultimately a Disney movie about war and until it slams on the breaks and decides to get serious it is very silly at points (there's a whole scene where Mulan tries to bathe in a river and then they all show up to skinny dip), but they're good people. Then there's Shang, who's a very strong male character, the leader of their troop and a very good sword fighter. And there's Mushu who's the comedy sidekick and also wants to prove himself to her ancestors'. They all help her out and she wouldn't win without them, the climax is a team effort where it's Mulan's big moment because it's her ideas (thinking outside the box again to make up for her lack of strength) and she ends up having the final showdown with the bad guy. The moment where it's revealed she's a woman is played very seriously and like the grave betrayal they would've seen it as in that historic context. It's acknowledged twice that the punishment for what she did is death, and Shang only doesn't plunge a sword into her because she saved him earlier. The movie doesn't punish him or any of the guys for feeling betrayed and leaving her in the snowy mountains.
Shang is the really important one here. Disney's strategy for "empowerment" used to be to have an equal balance; if you want an awesome girl, give her an awesome guy. Just look at Hunchback of Notre Dame, awesome gypsy woman, awesome French man, awesome deformed guy; they all have moments where they need help, and moments where they stand as role models. Here that's Shang. The son of a general who he wants to make proud, he loses his father to the Huns in the movie (SEE THE PARALLELS BETWEEN HIM AND MULAN!?), and keeps going. His troop was supposed to be just reserves, but now they're all that's left. He still goes. They all still follow him.
Now you have the exact opposite, you can't hold up two groups at once, you have to step on the other. Nowadays Shang would act like the Emperor's lackey.
Mulan presents the world of Ancient China as simply how it was, and this is best seen in the song lyrics.
Here's Honor to Us All, about bringing honor by being a good wife and having male babies;
Men want girls with good taste
Calm
Obedient
Who work fast-paced
With good breeding
And a tiny waist
You'll bring honor to us all
We all must serve our Emperor
Who guards us from the Huns
A man by bearing arms
A girl by bearing sons
Scarier than the undertaker
We are meeting our matchmaker
Destiny
Guard our girls
And our future as it fast unfurls
Please look kindly on these cultured pearls
Each a perfect porcelain doll
Here's the song where the guys try to get their minds off being tired by thinking of their dream girl, A Girl Worth Fighting For;
I want her paler than the moon
With eyes that shine like stars
My girl will marvel at my strength
Adore my battle scars
I couldn't care less what she'll wear
Or what she looks like
It all depends on what she cooks like
Beef, pork, chicken, mmh
My girl will think I have no faults
That I'm a major find
Uh, how 'bout a girl who's got a brain
Who always speaks her mind? (Nah)
Neither of these songs are really portrayed as wrong in the movie. It's just the way they live and Mulan doesn't fit in with it. She wants to, she just doesn't. Not because she's stronger than everyone or smarter or wants to change everything, because she's awkward.
I'll Make a Man Out of You gets more attention, but that one's during a training montage so it's more ironic than anything since haha Shang's saying he's gonna make a man out of them and she's a woman,
Let's get down to business, to defeat the Huns
Did they send me daughters, when I asked for sons?
You're the saddest bunch I ever met
But you can bet before we're through
Mister, I'll make a man out of you
Nowadays Disney cut Ursula's line of "the men up there don't like a lot of blabber, they think a girl who gossips is a bore/Yet on land it's much preferred for ladies not to say a word And after all dear, what is idle prattle for?" because the bad guy saying it was too mean. In Mulan they were willing to sing about how men like obedient wives.
And wow can you imagine Disney nowadays referencing the fact that Chinese people view paleness as beautiful twice?
