I'll Make a Man Out of You
"I'll Make a Man Out of You" is a song written by composer Matthew Wilder and lyricist David Zippel for Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Mulan (1998).
The song also features contributions from Lea Salonga as the singing voice of Mulan, Eddie Murphy as Mushu, and Harvey Fierstein, Jerry Tondo and Wilder himself as Yao, Chien-Po and Ling, respectively.
An up-tempo military-style song that incorporates both Eastern and Western musical styles, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is performed by Shang during a rigorous training montage in which his young, inexperienced soldiers attempt to justify their worth.
Critics have also drawn comparisons between the song and Disney's Hercules, while likening Mulan's role and transformation to actress Demi Moore's performance as Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil in the film G. I. Jane (1997).
"[1] While Zippel, a Broadway lyricist, was recruited because the directors were impressed with his work on Disney's Hercules (1997), at the time Wilder, a pop singer, had been best known for his song "Break My Stride".
[3] The song was ultimately replaced with Wilder and Zippel's "I'll Make a Man Out of You" when Schwartz was forced to resign from Mulan by Disney executives Peter Schneider and Michael Eisner because the songwriter had also agreed to score rival studio DreamWorks' animated film The Prince of Egypt (1998).
[6] Zippel identified determining the song's ironic title as the moment "he knew he'd hit on something great" by "contrasting Mulan's gender with the concept of what it means to be a man.
[6] Wilder and Zippel decided to incorporate drums into the track to demonstrate a sense of masculinity and musculature, identifying the song as very odd in structure but appropriate for its lyrics.
"[12] The scene explores Shang's attempt to train his newly recruited squadron of incompetent soldiers in the hopes of ultimately transforming them into a skilled army.
[13] Occupying a significant portion of the film's plot, Shang promises to turn his team of "rag-tag recruits" into men,[14][15] implying that they are merely boys unless they learn to fight while entirely unaware that Mulan is a woman.
[17] The scene begins with Shang shooting an arrow into the top of a tall pole and challenging all of his soldiers to retrieve it, each of whom fail until Mulan eventually succeeds.
According to the book Into the Closet: Cross-Dressing and the Gendered Body in Children's Literature and Film by Victoria Flanagan, Mulan is successful in retrieving the arrow because she uses "an ingenuity that is based upon her ability to incorporate aspects of femininity into her masculine performance.
[19] In what Joshua and Judges author Athalya Brenner called "a humorous reversal toward the end of the movie," Mulan and her male comrades disguise themselves as concubines in order to infiltrate the palace and rescue the emperor while "I'll Make a Man Out of You" reprises in the background.
[20]Critics have observed ways in which the scene explores Mulan's growth and transformation as the character evolves from a clumsy, inexperienced recruit into one of the army's most skilled soldiers, in spite of her gender.
According to the book Literacy, Play and Globalization: Converging Imaginaries in Children's Critical and Cultural Performances, the montage depicts Mulan's gender as "an obstacle to overcome.
"[21] Author Phyllis Frus wrote in her book Beyond Adaptation: Essays on Radical Transformations of Original Works, "The need for inexperienced young men to go through a rigorous training results in a sequence common to many films," and that the scene "shows the challenges Ping/Mulan faces due to her" inexperience.
"[26] In her article Disney's "Mulan"—the "True" Deconstructed Heroine?, Lisa Brocklebank argued the song explores themes such as othering, ostracism and abjection.
"[29] Written in common time at a tempo of 114 beats per minute and starting out in the key of G major, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" has been identified as a "heroic power ballad"[30] and anthem[31] that features an upbeat, "thumping" rhythm.
"[34] Beginning with "a military-style drum" introduction,[23] "I'll Make a Man Out of You", which is immediately preceded by the emotional ballad "Reflection" on the film's soundtrack album, "breaks up the slower pace of the songs," according to Filmtracks.com.
[37] Johnson Cheu, author of Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability, received the song as a counterpart to the all-female musical number "Honor to Us All".
"[42] According to Victoria Flanagan, author of Into the Closet: Cross-Dressing and the Gendered Body in Children's Literature and Film, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is "a playful parody of conventional masculinity.
Irving Tan of Sputnikmusic wrote, "there hasn't been a single chorus in all of post-Mulan pop music that has managed to rival the roaring power in the refrain.
[53] Writing for The Seattle Times, Moira Macdonald criticized Wilder and Zippel's songs as "forgettable," calling "I'll Make a Man Out of You" "annoying.
[59] Although the 2020 remake of Mulan leaves out, "I'll Make a Man Out of You," a fanedit by Blue Hippo Films uses the movie's new training scenes to convincingly add the song back.
[6] Actress Daisy Ridley said that she listens to the song to prepare for action sequences in film roles,[68] particularly for her performance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).
