I’ll Make a Man Out of You:A Network Analysis of Disney’s Mulan

Allison Gagliano, Robert Johnson, and Stefanos Stravoravdis

Background´ Mulan pretends to be a man and takes her father’s place in the Chinese

army to fight against the Huns

´ She is accompanied by her guardian dragon, Mushu, and the rest of the Chinese army, including Shang, Ling, Yao, and Chien-Po

´ She becomes the hero of China by defeating the Hun army and its leader, Shan-Yu

Research Questions and Hypotheses´ Who is the most important character(s)?

´ Based on the betweenness centrality and the Eigenvector centrality measures, we expected Mulan to be the most important character

´ What are the communities in Mulan?´ Heroes, Villains, and a couple of Neutral Character communities

´ What is the sentiment of the following characters: Mulan, Mushu, Shang, Shan-Yu, and Yao?´ Mulan has mostly positive sentiment

´ Mushu has mostly negative sentiment

´ Shang has mostly neutral sentiment

´ Shan-Yu has mostly negative sentiment

´ Yao has mostly negative sentiment

Methods for Collecting Data´ Used R to:

´ Extract a list of characters

´ Extract the lines for each character by scene

´ Create a edge list based on the character dialogue in each scene

´ Edge list: all combinations of character interactions by scene

´ Create a word cloud for Mulan, Mushu, Shang, Shan-Yu, and Yao

´ Word cloud: displays frequency of unique, important words (removing stop words such as the, and, a, etc.)

´ Perform a sentiment analysis for the 5 characters to identify:

´ The number of positive, negative, and neutral phrases and create a bar graph from these values

´ The most positive and most negative line for each

´ Highlight the positive, negative, and neutral phrases, with scores, for each

Methods for Collecting Data´ Used Gephi to:

´ Run Betweenness Centrality

´ “How frequently that [node] lies on short paths between other pairs of [nodes]” (Beveridge, 2016)

´ Indicates that a large amount of information passes through that character

´ Run Eigenvector Centrality

´ A measure of how important a node is based on its connection to other important nodes

´ Determine communities based on modularity

´ A community is a subgraph of similar and connected characters in the main network

´ Modularity is a method to find optimal community divisions within a network

´ Create Networks based on:

´ Modularity class, with nodes colored by ranking betweenness centrality

´ Villain/Hero comparison, with nodes colored by ranking Eigenvector centrality and positioned by degree

Challenges´ Script format

´ Character labels were formatted as Mulan: or Mulan [stage direction]:

´ Songs

´ Inconsistency/Misspelling of names such as “Long Hair Hun Man” versus “Hun Long Hair Guy”

´ Combining characters for labels, such as “Both”, “All Three”, “Ling, Yao, and Chien-Po”

´ These issues made it difficult to create a regular expression for R

´ We had to create new characters, separate characters, and assume characters with different labels were truly different

Results

Word Clouds and Sentiment

Mulan

Mulan´ Most negative: “They're disgusting.”

´ Most positive: “Please bring honor to us all!”

Mushu

Mushu´ Most negative: “You’re worst nightmare.”

´ Most positive: “All right, you might want to light that right about now. Quickly! Quickly!”

Shang

Shang´ Most negative: “I don’t understand. My father

should have been here.”

´ Most positive: “Good luck, Father.”

Yao

Yao´ Most negative: “He thinks he’s such a lady-killer!”´ Most positive: “Yes! Perfect! Now I’ll pull them to

safe---ty.”

Shan-Yu

Shan-Yu´ Most negative: “I tire of your arrogance old man.

Bow to me!”´ Most positive: “Perfect.”

Sentiment

Centrality & Modularity Data Table

Character DegreeWeighted Degree

Modularity Class

Eigenvector Centrality

Betweenness Centrality

Hero/Villain

Mulan 46 129 2 1.000000 558.141697 HeroMushu 43 105 2 0.876342 576.819078 Hero

Yao 28 79 2 0.71909 56.829792 HeroChi Fu 28 62 2 0.706712 82.108547 HeroChorus 24 25 1 0.685255 48.21627 NeutralFa Li 26 40 1 0.679984 71.252778 NeutralLing 25 61 2 0.674227 45.190507 Hero

Chien-Po 23 63 2 0.651081 31.163309 HeroShang 26 70 2 0.642589 69.524634 Hero

Hair Dresser 1 21 24 1 0.613175 29.990079 NeutralHair Dresser 2 21 24 1 0.613175 29.990079 Neutral

Cri-Kee 19 27 3 0.453136 90.40119 HeroGrandma Fa 17 24 1 0.436798 10.838889 Neutral

Shan-Yu 20 36 2 0.396262 406.566392 VillainArmy Chorus 11 11 2 0.391193 0.375 Neutral

Army Men 11 11 2 0.391193 0.375 NeutralAll Townspeople 14 14 1 0.386072 0 Neutral

Dresser 1 14 14 1 0.386072 0 NeutralDresser 2 14 14 1 0.386072 0 NeutralMaiden #1 14 14 1 0.386072 0 NeutralMaiden #2 14 14 1 0.386072 0 NeutralMaiden #3 14 14 1 0.386072 0 NeutralMaiden #4 14 14 1 0.386072 0 Neutral

Make-up Lady 14 14 1 0.386072 0 NeutralMatchmaker 14 15 1 0.386072 0 NeutralAll Soldiers 11 11 2 0.38551 0 HeroRecruit #2 11 11 2 0.38551 0 NeutralRecruit #3 11 11 2 0.38551 0 NeutralRecruits 11 11 2 0.38551 0 Neutral

General Li 10 13 2 0.338919 0.410714 HeroAll Recruits 9 9 2 0.322263 0 Neutral

Tattoo Soldier 9 9 2 0.322263 0 NeutralEmperor 10 21 2 0.320632 1.599817 Hero

Character DegreeWeighted Degree

Modularity Class

Eigenvector Centrality

Betweenness Centrality

Hero/Villain

Cow 8 8 2 0.293555 0 NeutralHun Archer 11 11 4 0.271967 69.75385 Villain

Man in Crowd #1 8 8 2 0.269887 0 NeutralMan in Crowd #2 8 8 2 0.269887 0 Neutral

Ancestor 3 14 16 3 0.265716 22.39643 NeutralFirst Ancestor 14 16 3 0.265716 22.39643 Neutral

Hun Bald Man #1 7 7 2 0.241814 0 VillainHun Bald Man #2 7 7 2 0.241814 0 Villain

Fa Zhou 8 15 1 0.213816 3.809524 NeutralAncestor 1 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralAncestor 2 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralAncestor 4 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralAncestor 5 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralAncestor 6 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralAncestor 7 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralAncestor 8 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralAncestor 9 12 12 3 0.205912 0 NeutralFa Deng 12 12 3 0.205912 0 Neutral

Townspeople 5 5 1 0.149996 0 NeutralYi's Son 5 5 1 0.149996 0 Hero

Little Brother 5 6 3 0.14652 3.85 NeutralParade Leader 3 3 2 0.137944 0 Neutral

Bath Lady 3 3 1 0.11508 0 NeutralHun Soldier 1 1 2 0.04853 0 VillainBarry Cook 1 1 2 0.04853 0 Neutral

Bald Hun Man #1 4 4 4 0.044217 0 VillainHun Strong Man 4 4 4 0.044217 0 Villain

Long Hair Hun Man 4 4 4 0.044217 0 VillainArcher Guy 4 4 0 0.030072 0 Villain

Hun Long-Hair Guy 4 4 0 0.030072 0 VillainScout #1 4 4 0 0.030072 0 HeroScout #2 4 4 0 0.030072 0 Hero

Guard 1 2 2 0.022443 0 Hero

Networks

Modularity Network

´ 5 communities´ Main characters are found in

pink community- regardless of heroism

´ Remaining communities consist of close-knit characters based on their scenes

´ Nodes colored by ranking betweenness centrality

Heroes and Villains´ Nodes colored by

ranking Eigenvector centrality and positioned by degree

´ Highest degree is closest to center of spiral

´ Blue- more associations with important characters

´ Red- fewer associations with important characters

Ideas for Future Research´ Analysis using characters who perform actions in scenes, rather than just

those who talk

´ Sub-communities within the communities we found

´ Expand to other Disney movies´ Determine if focal character is always the most important character

´ Other major franchises, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Pirates of the Caribbean series