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2.3.1 Denotative and Connotative Signs ... 10
2.4 Definition and Attributes of Yin-Yang ... 13
2.5 Chinese and Western Values in MULAN and MULAN 2 VCD Cover .. 15
2.5.1 Chinese Values of Male and Female Relationship ... 16
2.5.2 Western Values of Male – Female Relationship ... 18
CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPT OF BALANCE FOUND IN MULAN AND MULAN 2 VCD COVERS: A STUDY OF SEMIOTICS
3.3 Comparison of Yin-Yang Concept in the Two Covers ... 48
3.4 Chinese and Western Values in the Two Covers ... 50
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ... 53
iii APPENDICES
iii
ABSTRACT
Apabila kita mengunjungi toko-toko yang menjual film, sampul depan CD film adalah hal pertama yang dapat menarik perhatian kita. Sampul-sampul film itulah yang banyak mendiskripsikan mengenai film apa yang akan kita beli. Hal ini dikarenakan sampul-sampul tersebut juga berfungsi sebagai pencerita dari film yang terkadang tanpa kita sadari, mengandung makna yang lebih mendalam dari film tersebut seperti filosofi, pandangan hidup, simbolisme dan lain-lain. Semiotika adalah ilmu yang mempelajari tanda dan proses penandaan yang sangat tepat untuk diaplikasikan dalam proses analisis yang bertujuan untuk menyingkap simbol-simbol di dalam suatu gambar.
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Pertama, saya menganalisis sampul VCD MULAN berdasarkan kemunculan Yin dan Yang. Kedua, saya menganalisis sampul VCD MULAN 2 dengan cara yang sama seperti saya menganalisis sampul yang pertama. Ketiga, saya membandingkan kemunculan aspek Yin dan Yang di kedua sampul VCD tersebut, di mana pada bab keempat, saya menyimpulkan bahwa elemen Yin dan Yang muncul lebih jelas dan berimbang di sampul VCD yang pertama dibandingkan sampul VCD yang kedua. Keempat, saya menganalisis penemuan elemen-elemen yang bukan berasal dari budaya Cina, melainkan berasal dari Barat di mana kedua film tersebut diproduksi. Akhirnya, saya mengambil kesimpulan bahwa pada kedua sampul film tersebut, terutama sampul film ke dua, terdapat lebih banyak pengaruh nilai-nilai dari Barat.
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APPENDICES
65 The Ballad of Mulan (Ode of Mulan)
“She doesn’t hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,
She only hears Mount Yen’s nomad horses cry tsiu tsiu.
She goes ten thousand miles on the business of war, She crosses passes and mountains like flying. Northern gusts carry the rattle of army pots, Chilly light shines on iron armor.
Generals die in a hundred battles, Stout soldiers return after ten years.
On her return she sees the Son of Heaven, The Son of Heaven sits in the Splendid Hall. He gives out promotions in twelve ranks And prizes of a hundred thousand and more. The Khan asks her what she desires.
“Mulan has no use for a minister’s post.
I wish to ride a swift mount To take me back to my home.”
When Father and Mother hear Daughter is coming
They go outside the wall to meet her, leaning on each other. When Elder Sister hears Younger Sister is coming
She fixes her rouge, facing the door.
When Little Brother hears Elder Sister is coming He whets the knife, quick quick, for pig and sheep. “I open the door to my east chamber,
66 And put on my old‑time clothes.”
Facing the window she fixes her cloudlike hair,
Hanging up a mirror she dabs on yellow flower powder She goes out the door and sees her comrades.
Her comrades are all amazed and perplexed. Traveling together for twelve years
They didn’t know Mulan was a girl.
“The he‑hare’s feet go hop and skip,
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The topic of my thesis is Concept of Balance Found in MULAN and MULAN 2 VCD Cover: A Study of Semiotics. I choose this topic because the movie is included in one of the ten most successful and popular Walt Disney‟s movies (Disney Movies Guide). The movie is based on ancient Chinese culture and philosophy. I will use semiotics, as it is a branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of signs. According to Daniel Chandler in his Semiotics: the Basic, Semiotics is “the study of signs” and a sign is anything which “„stands for‟ something else” (2). I believe that this cover stands for something else, in this
case, Chinese value of balance.
As my data is in the form of pictures or images, I believe that pictures or images have the function to communicate ideas to other people from different countries as imagery is “language that produces pictures in the minds of people
2 the message in them.
A cover from a VCD or DVD or CD or magazine or any media has the function not only to show the characters, the title and „hints‟ about the story of the
movie but also to communicate ideas, philosophy, beliefs, and so on. The more attractive the covers are, the more the people will be attracted to the covers and to know the content of the VCD, DVD, VCD or other medias. Thus, the covers have the function to transfer information what the movies are about to the people. Accordingly, the covers act as the media.
Media, in this case the VCD cover, is the language that makes the communication happen as the cover can tell the readers or the viewers about the philosophy and belief without them realizing it. By using the cover, the message and the concept of the movie are being represented. Not many people bother to search for the message and the concept except those who are interested in it. Thus Semiotics, as the study of signs, will help those who are interested in searching for the message and the concept of the signs.
In order to analyze the VCD cover, I use semiotic theories. My analysis will be based on Saussure‟s and Barthes‟ theories which I believe will help me to
reveal the balance concept in MULAN VCD Cover. The media which I would like to analyze in this thesis are two VCD covers; MULAN and MULAN 2.
3
Hua Mulan is a legend about a female warrior that was written in The Ballad of Mulan / Ode of Mulan. It is said that Mulan lived in the Wei, Sui, or Tang Dynasties (no one knows the exact time and place when and where she lived approximately around 500 – 600 A.D). The ballad tells about a daughter of an old and frail retired general who cut her hair short, dressed in his father‟s armour and disguised herself as a man so that she was able to replace his father‟s position to
go to the warfare. She became the heroine for her country as well as her family (“Hua Mulan”).
I choose this cover because it is the only movie among Walt Disney‟s movies, besides MULAN 2, that tells a story about a Chinese heroine. MULAN is also one of the many Walt Disney‟s movies that show a woman as the strong and unfeminine woman while other movies depicted women as beautiful, relentless and waiting-for-the-right-prince-to-come princesses. I also believe that there are a lot of Chinese values and philosophy that are inserted into this movie. My analysis will be about the way the cover shows the ancient Chinese value and philosophy about balance (Yin-Yang). Yin-Yang is the value of the unity of two totally different things in order to create the balance system in the whole universe. The acceptance of either side of lives is obligatory to prevent the unbalanced life. The totally different sides are for example; the bad and the good, men and women, rich and poor, and so on (“Yin and Yang Meaning”).
4
girl who is whisked away by a British Prince Charming to happiness in the West. Then Disney consultant and children's book writer 'Robert San Souci' suggested making a movie of the Chinese poem, 'The Song of Fa Mu Lan', so the 2 projects were combined” (IMDb - Internet Movie Database).
The movie was also produced to smooth over the relations between the Chinese government and Walt Disney Feature Animation Company following the upset that had been caused by the Disney-funded release of Kundun. Kundun is a movie about the oppression and other problems that Tibet‟s 14th Dalai Lama
has had to suffer from his childhood until his adulthood caused by the Chinese government (IMDb - Internet Movie Database).
I believe the significance of my study is that by reading this analysis, the readers will be able to realize that a picture from a VCD cover has a meaning, which is not only to communicate what the movie is about, but also to communicate the belief and philosophy about certain things. People tend to look at the cover of a movie as only a piece of art but actually it may have more meanings than what it shows. By reading this analysis, I hope people will look at covers of VCD not only as pieces of arts but also as meaningful parts that contain messages and symbolism. I also believe that by reading this analysis people can be more aware of signs around them. I also hope that people will realize that everything they see contains signs and messages that if those signs are analysed further, they can symbolize something, which is more than what they see.
5 1.2 Statement of the Problem
In this thesis, I would like to analyse the following problems:
1. What are the linguistic signs represented in MULAN and MULAN 2 VCD cover?
2. How do the signs create the concept of balance?
3. How do the signs represent Chinese and Western values?
1.3 Purpose of the Study In this thesis I intend:
1. to show what linguistic signs are represented in MULAN and MULAN 2 VCD cover.
2. to analyze how the signs create the concept of balance.
3. to prove how the signs represent Chinese and Western values.
1.4 Method of Research
6 1.5 Organization of the Thesis
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
After analyzing both of the covers through Chinese philosophy of balance, Yin and Yang, I gain knowledge that Yin-Yang becomes the first order sign system of MULAN and MULAN 2 VCD covers. In the first cover, the division of
Mulan’s face really adopts the symbol of Yin-Yang. While in the second cover,
the placement of the women and men signifies the symbol of Yin-Yang which becomes the first order. Thus, both VCD covers have the same sign systems, the concept of balance.
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In the first VCD cover, the separation between male and female is still clear. The sword divides Mulan’s male and female faces. There are an old man
and a young man on the background. This is shown by the depiction of the elements that are more balanced on the women side while the elements on the men side are rather unbalanced. Thus, I conclude that the second order sign system of the first and the second cover are different.
In the second VCD cover, the elements that include women (the left side) are more balanced than the one in the right which is the position of the men. The elements from the left which are the women contain Yin, Yang and both Yin and Yang while the elements from the right which belongs to the men, the little dragon and the horse only contain Yang and both Yin and Yang. None of them has the quality of Yin. Thus, I believe the maker(s) of the cover have the intention to put forth the balance on the left side. This theory is supported by the occurrence of the Yin-Yang symbol in the middle of the cover.
As I have written in the second chapter of this thesis, Yin-Yang is a philosophy from ancient China about the balance between everything in the world, not concerning with the any equality between male and female. The equality that is shown in the covers is, I believe, actually the Western value. The quantity of Western values that occur in the second cover is more than the one in the first cover. I believe this could happen because the second movie was made as the sequel of the first movie.
The cause of this difference is that unlike the first movie which is closely based on the legend, Hua Mulan from the Chinese poem “The Song of Fa Mu Lan”, the second movie is loosely based on the legend. The second movie is a
55
based on the poem. I believe the purpose of the making of the second movie is different from the first one. Moreover; the first movie was made by Walt Disney as a way to smooth over their relationship with Chinese government which was tense because Disney has funded Kundun, a movie that tells the life of Dalai Lama.
I also believe that the long interval of releasing time between the release of the first and the second movie (the second movie was released in 2004, while the first movie was released in 1998) and the different directors and story writers become the reasons why there is such a change in the storyline and the concept in the second VCD cover. The second movie tells about the conflict between Mulan and Captain Li Shang, her fiancée, when they are sent off to do a very important mission by the emperor just when they are about to get married. The story is far deviated from the story of Mulan. In the poem about Hua Mulan, the poem ends when she is finally recognized as a girl by her comrades. There is no further explanation about what happened to her and what she did after her comrades recognize her as a female.
Accordingly, it is very clear that in order to produce MULAN 2, Walt
Disney’s story writers made up a story about Mulan’s next chapter of life that she
is going to marry her captain. Being produced by Walt Disney Pictures, a famous Western movie manufacturer makes it very possible that there are Western values in MULAN and MULAN 2.
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concept, Yin-Yang, and the theory of male-female relationship in ancient China and in Western point of view.
Semiotic researchers have to put up with the basic understanding of study of signs in their minds. It is very essential for semiotic researchers to understand the difference between the first order and the second order of a sign. In order to analyze these two covers, I relate the signs in the covers with Chinese cultural and historical backgrounds.
The first order in Barthesian semiotics is the first concept that first comes into our mind after seeing the object that contains messages, whereas the second order is the concept that circulated in our mind after looking at the image that we relate to the culture, history and values around us and the one that might influence the making of the image.
For further researches about movie covers, I recommend other movies produced by Walt Disney such as; Pocahontas and Anastasia to analyze. The movie Pocahontas tells about a historical Indian woman who helped a British officer named John Smith and his fellow. It will be very interesting as by analyzing Pocahontas, we will find out how Walt Disney portrays Indian people as opposed to the British troops. As for Anastasia, which tells about the lost princess of Russia who was separated from her family during the Revolution, there is a possibility that by analyzing the cover of the movie, we will be able to find out how Disney tells the history of the Revolution of Russia and the Falling of Tsar. Other movies that I believe will be interesting to discuss are; Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid because we might find out how Disney portrays the women’s characters
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It will be amusing and challenging when we are able to reveal the concept that we unconsciously learned from our childhood. After doing one research, we will become automatically aware with signs around us and we will know more about symbolism and signs that we probably did not know before.
58
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
Mulan. Dir. Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft. PT. Vision Interprima Pictures, 1998. VCD.
Mulan 2. Dir. Darrell Rooney and Lynne Southerland. PT. Vision Interprima Pictures, 2004. VCD.
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“Yin and Yang Philosophy” Chinese Science and Philosophy: Cultural Knowledge
