Mulan vs. Franz

So in class we talked about how Franz idealizes what it means to be a “woman” and how he goes on and on about “respecting the woman” in Marie-Claude (totally ignoring the fact that Marie-Claude is a real human being).  Here are a couple quotes about what being a woman means to Franz:

In Franz’s mind, “Not every woman was worthy of being called woman” (Kundera 89). 
“His mother and the Platonic ideal of womanhood were one and the same” (90).

Franz seems to set pretty high standards for what it means to be a woman (I’m sure all the women out there really appreciate his input).  So much of his ideal is based on his mom: “His mother, sad and wounded, his mother, wearing unmatched shoes” (114).  And here: “For twenty years he had seen his mother—A POOR, WEAK CREATURE WHO NEEDED HIS PROTECTION—in his wife” (117).  So he’s got this image of a “true woman” in his head, and that image seems to be mostly based around weakness. 

And I really feel like Mulan (I hope you all have watched the Disney movie Mulan) would not agree at all.  There’s this pretty awesome song called “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSS5dEeMX64

“Be a man
We must be swift as the coursing river
Be a man
With all the force of a great typhoon
Be a man
With all the strength of a raging fire
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon”

It’s all greatly ironic because the song lists the qualities a man should have, when Mulan’s actually a woman.  So what it’s saying is that women can be just as strong as men.  In fact, for a really long time, nobody even finds out that Mulan’s a woman because she exhibits all the qualities that people expect only men to have (basically, she’s super strong and beats all the guys in everything she does).

So…I wonder what Mulan would have to have to say to Franz’s idea of what a “woman” is/should be.