Mulan is not a princess. Courtesy | Flickr

Let’s get down to business to defeat the ridiculous notion that Mulan is a Disney princess. Here’s the cold, hard truth: Mulan should not be a Disney princess. No matter how much we try to deny it, Disney’s standard for who is or isn’t a princess is basically nonexistent and chock full of inconsistency. Disney seems to be taking what a princess is and redefining it to fit their own idea of what a princess should be, rather than sticking to the objective definition.

While it is true that Mulan is listed as one of Disney’s 12 official princesses, the list of characters has no real common denominator other than the fact that they are all women. Most of them are royalty, either by birth or by marriage, but there are a few awkward cases, Mulan being one of the most problematic. Fa Mulan, like her father before her, was a high-ranking soldier in the Chinese imperial army. She later married General Li Shang, another high-ranking officer in the same army. While noble in status and heroic in deeds, she is not royal by blood or by marriage, making her role as a princess, by Disney’s standards, baffling.

According to Mirriam-Webster, A princess is, by definition, “A female member of a royal family.  Especially a daughter or granddaughter of a sovereign.” Mulan, unfortunately, does not meet that criteria.  Sure, Disney may say that Mulan is a princess, but logic and objective truth say otherwise, which should take precedence over Disney’s attempt to redefine that term. We attend a school where the pursuit of truth is one of our core tenets. As students at such an institution, how dare we blindly accept the flimsy standards of a woke, postmodern mass-media conglomerate? For all we know, the next Disney princess could very well be a man, all because the Walt Disney Company said so. 

Mulan is not the only inconsistency. Anna and Elsa, of “Frozen,” are princesses by birthright and yet are not included in the official list of Disney princesses, but Mulan, who isn’t even royal by marriage, is. Why? One can only speculate. Even the characters Disney defines as princesses vocally disagree with their assertions. Moana outright says in a conversation with Maui that she is not a princess, but rather distinguishes herself as a chief’s daughter. This inevitably imposes the same implications on Pocahontas as well, who is in the same position as the daughter of an American Indian chief. Both women are noble, but technically speaking, their status as princesses is questionable at best.  

Disney, I only have one thing left to say: in the words of Mushu, “Dishonor. Dishonor on you, dishonor on your family, and dishonor on your cow.”