Honestly, when Disney first announced plans to make a live-action version of Mulan, we were all full of pure, unadulterated JOY. Finally, a remake of one of our favorite Disney movies, with genuine female bad-assery, one of the best makeover scenes of all time (casually cutting a bob with a sword? So cool), and a talking dragon. You can't top that.
But, sadly, Hollywood's reputation has put a bit of a dampener on things. The film's announcement caused a LOT of people to worry that, considering how a lot of remakes go down, Disney might decide to cast a non-Asian actress in the lead role of Mulan.
More than 25,000 people have now signed the petition that preemptively asks Disney to please, please, not cast a white actress as Mulan. "Whitewashing, the practice of casting white Caucasian actors and actresses in roles originally meant to be characters of color, is all too common in Hollywood," reads the petition. "The Last Airbender, Pan, the upcoming Ghost in the Shell adaptation, and many, many others have demonstrated this problem."
Disney hasn't yet made any announcements on the movie's casting, which we hope means they'll take the petition to heart.
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This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.co.uk. Minor edits have been made by the Cosmo.ph editors.
