I ll Make a Man Out of You: A Network Analysis of Disney s Mulan. Allison Gagliano, Robert Johnson, and Stefanos Stravoravdis

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1 I ll Make a Man Out of You: A Network Analysis of Disney s Mulan Allison Gagliano, Robert Johnson, and Stefanos Stravoravdis

dragon, Mushu, and the rest of the Chinese army, including Shang, Ling, Yao,

2 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

3 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

4 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

5 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

6 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

7 Results

8 Word Clouds and Sentiment

9 Mulan

10 Mulan Most negative: They're disgusting. Most positive: Please bring honor to us all!

11 Mushu

12 Mushu Most negative: You re worst nightmare. Most positive: All right, you might want to light that right about now. Quickly! Quickly!

13 Shang

14 Shang Most negative: I don t understand. My father should have been here. Most positive: Good luck, Father.

15 Yao

16 Yao Most negative: He thinks he s such a lady-killer! Most positive: Yes! Perfect! Now I ll pull them to safe---ty.

17 Shan-Yu

18 Shan-Yu Most negative: I tire of your arrogance old man. Bow to me! Most positive: Perfect.

19 Sentiment

20 Centrality & Modularity Data Table

21 Character Degree Weighted Degree Modularity Class Eigenvector Centrality Betweenness Centrality Hero/ Villain Mulan Hero Mushu Hero Yao Hero Chi Fu Hero Chorus Neutral Fa Li Neutral Ling Hero Chien-Po Hero Shang Hero Hair Dresser Neutral Hair Dresser Neutral Cri-Kee Hero Grandma Fa Neutral Shan-Yu Villain Army Chorus Neutral Army Men Neutral All Townspeople Neutral Dresser Neutral Dresser Neutral Maiden # Neutral Maiden # Neutral Maiden # Neutral Maiden # Neutral Make-up Lady Neutral Matchmaker Neutral All Soldiers Hero Recruit # Neutral Recruit # Neutral Recruits Neutral General Li Hero All Recruits Neutral Tattoo Soldier Neutral Emperor Hero Character Degree Weighted Degree Modularity Class Eigenvector Centrality Betweenness Centrality Hero/ Villain Cow Neutral Hun Archer Villain Man in Crowd # Neutral Man in Crowd # Neutral Ancestor Neutral First Ancestor Neutral Hun Bald Man # Villain Hun Bald Man # Villain Fa Zhou Neutral Ancestor Neutral Ancestor Neutral Ancestor Neutral Ancestor Neutral Ancestor Neutral Ancestor Neutral Ancestor Neutral Ancestor Neutral Fa Deng Neutral Townspeople Neutral Yi's Son Hero Little Brother Neutral Parade Leader Neutral Bath Lady Neutral Hun Soldier Villain Barry Cook Neutral Bald Hun Man # Villain Hun Strong Man Villain Long Hair Hun Man Villain Archer Guy Villain Hun Long-Hair Guy Villain Scout # Hero Scout # Hero Guard Hero

22 Networks

23 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

24 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

25 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

Audition Information for Disney s Mulan JR.

Audition Information for Disney s Mulan JR. Please note: ALL children must be minimum age 8 by November 1 st 2017 and maximum age 18 by January 31 st 2018 Synopsis: Based on Disney s Oscar- nominated film,