Once Upon A Time had quite a few LGBTQ characters during its seven-season run, but Mulan was it’s first. ABC’s fantasy series Once Upon A Time features a smorgasbord of characters borrowed from popular fairy tales, folklore and Disney movies – from Snow White and Cinderella to Jiminy Cricket and King Arthur. The show’s second season borrowed the eponymous character from Disney’s 1998 movie Mulan, which was inspired by the Chinese legend of female warrior Hua Mulan and is the latest Disney animation to get a live-action remake.
Played by Jamie Chung, Once Upon A Time’s Mulan was introduced in the season 2 premiere episode “Broken” alongside Prince Phillip (Julian Morris) and his true love Princess Aurora (Sarah Bolger) of Sleeping Beauty fame. After Phillip’s soul was claimed by a wraith, Mulan made it her mission to protect Aurora, later saving the princess from certain doom after her heart fell into the evil clutches of the Queen of Hearts (Barbara Hershey) and helping her resurrect and reunite with Prince Phillip.
Mulan returned in Once Upon A Time’s third season and the episode “Quite A Common Fairy” revealed something fans of the show had long suspected – that Mulan was in love with Aurora. Just as Mulan was about to confess her feelings, however, the princess revealed she was pregnant with Prince Phillip’s baby. Her love unrequited, a heartbroken Mulan took off and joined Robin Hood (Sean Maguire) and his band of Merry Men, becoming their first female member.
Mulan may have been Once Upon A Time’s first LGBTQ character, but she certainly wasn’t it’s last. In season 5, long-running character Ruby Lucas/Red Riding Hood (Meghan Ory) met and fell in love with Dorothy Gale (Teri Reeves) of The Wizard Of Oz fame. Mulan encouraged Ruby to let Dorothy know how she felt, lest she make the mistake of waiting too long to confess her love as she did with Aurora. Dorothy took the advice and – unlike poor Mulan – the feeling was reciprocated with Once Upon A Time’s latest LGBTQ characters sealing their relationship with a kiss in the season 5 episode “Ruby Slippers.”
Mulan paved the way for other LGBTQ characters too, with Once Upon A Time’s softly rebooted seventh season introducing a romance between Robin Hood/Margot West (Tiera Skovbye) and Alice Jones/Tilly (Rose Reynolds). Once Upon A Time fans may have noticed a trend among its LGBTQ characters – they all happen to be female. Unfortunately, the show never featured a male character that openly identified as LGBTQ during its run but at least Once Upon A Time wasn’t totally unrepresentative of LGBTQ characters as Mulan and company prove.
