COOL GIRL OF THE DAY: MULAN

It's 2am right now and I really should be in bed, trying to avoid rolling into work looking like a crackwhore again. But I'm not. So I'm going to put a video on. Yes, a good old fashioned VHS tape, none of that new fandangled DVD shit. I'm gonna watch Mulan, my favourite Disney film.

Before anyone steps in to say how historically accurate the film is or how it portrays this race or that race, I'll just ask you to leave that shit at the door for now and simply look at Mulan as a character. She's basically a girl who society tried to force to become more ladylike to fit in with traditional notions of what a girl should be, which she HATED. All she wanted to do was hang out and have fun in her camo tracksuit bottoms and Air Jordans. Oh no, sorry, that's me. But I'm sure if she was about now, she'd want the same. I'm sure of it.

Then war breaks out and a male from her family has got to represent. But the only male who can do it is her old pops who is in a bit of a fragile state. No-one wants him to go off to war, but he has no choice. It's either that or shame on the family forever.

But Mulan ain't having that. She chops her hair off and masquerades as a boy so that she can take her father's place. When he finds out, he runs out into the rain and falls over in the mud which is the most heartbreaking scene in cinematic history. Well, after that bit in Dumbo where his mum goes nuts and starts smashing up the gaff. But pops needn't have worried because Mulan gets the job done and saves China and it's all good.

I love Mulan because she would do anything for her family. Now let's compare her to another Disney character: that floozy Pocahontas.

Yes, yes, I know that this film is TOTALLY historically inaccurate, but let's just take it at face value for the purpose of my rather tenuous comparison. Pocahontas, in Disney's film, is not only happy to ponce around all day doing nothing, but she actually sells out her family for a man! And a man that she only met because he was on his way to burn down her village and wipe out her people or some shit. Mulan would never do that. NEVER!

I know who I'd rather hang out with.

Next week - Finding Nemo: who gives a shit?