The ‘mixed feelings’ that people might be having concerning the new video by Christina Aguilera kind of proves that people are needing to invent things to gripe about these days since despite her attire and hairstyle in the video for Loyal, Brave, True, there’s still not a lot of reason to label this as appropriation or even problematic. Those that have ‘mixed feelings’ are typically those that would state that her current appearance in the video is a mockery, or at least an ill-advised attempt to ‘Asian’ her up in order to make her fit the ideals of the movie that the song is connected to. Yes, people are really that bored and yes, they do feel the need to harp on just about anything. Whether a person likes the singer or not there isn’t much reason to grind on anyone for their attire unless they’re being needlessly harmful to culture by mocking and/or degrading said culture with what they’re wearing. This obviously isn’t the case in the video since like it or not, many upon many music videos have depicted singers dressed in garb that, from a cultural standpoint, could have been found offensive. Several pop singers have done this throughout the years such as Katy Perry and Beyonce just to name a couple, and yet their videos and their songs have been big hits without any real controversy, which does exist, being brought to light. Why is this do you think?
Rather than get into the obvious lines of reasoning that would take us down a path that a lot of us don’t want to travel right now, let’s just say that Christina’s contribution to the live-action Mulan isn’t nearly as bad as some might think. But living in an era where sneezing in someone’s general direction could be construed as a hate crime by some twisting, acrobatic lunge of logic makes it possible for some folks to think that her hairstyle and choice of dress is simply too problematic to let go without comment. For many people, though the thought of Mulan finally coming to theaters, hopefully, and to Disney+, definitely, isn’t reason enough to vilify someone that is doing her part to promote the movie and enhance the enjoyment of those that are ready and willing to welcome the movie into the mainstream. There are always bound to be critics, and as it’s been seen in recent decades there are always bound to be those that are going to think that everything they don’t care for is worth calling out as appropriation or something equally problematic.
To be fair, a lot of people didn’t even care for the animated version of Mulan since obviously it wasn’t realistic for soldiers to be marching into war singing at the top of their lungs, at least not in the manner that it was seen in the movie. Plus, Mushu and the cricket, two of the favorite parts of the movie in the eyes of many, were taken out in order to add some realism to the whole thing, which is kind of ironic really. I say ironic since the moment someone utters the word ‘realism’, they have to take into account that the trailer does show that there is a witch that can change her shape and that there is wire-work in the movie that allows several of the actors to defy gravity as people are so fond of seeing. So, ‘realism’? It feels as though Mushu and the cricket got the chop for no reason at this point, though there’s likely some reason that the director and producer decided to use to justify this, it’s just that ‘realism’ is pretty weak when looking at the trailer.
As far as Christina’s contribution goes the song is decent and it has a nice sound to it, but again, it’s usually better if a person is a fan of hers since they tend to appreciate it a little more. She does have a nice voice that packs a lot of emotion and power into the words, but at the same time, it’s either something a person likes or something that they can simply say ‘meh’ to. In terms of people having mixed feelings though it’s fairly easy to come to the defense of the video since too many times it’s happened that people have cried ‘appropriation’ while forgetting that such a thing has taken place quite often in the annals of history and while there are many instances when it’s troubling to see, there are moments that many people have gone without commenting on for various reasons, despite the fact that the next person that does such a thing will be vilified. At this point, it feels as though people just need something else to focus on in order to stop hating on something that’s actually kind of nice and in no way problematic.
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