Affiliation:
1. Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar
Abstract
Representations of female characters are prone to marginalization and misrepresentation in films and TV series. This chapter examines how two female representations in Disney's children's movie Mulan (1998) and Netflix's teenage Spanish series Elite (2018) resonate with the concept of the marginal man. This study draws on the concept of the marginal man developed by Robert Park, which was introduced in The Stranger by Georg Simmel (1908). It refers to the state of a person who is not determinedly affiliated with a dominant community. This chapter contributes to the scholarship about the marginal man by conceptualizing the marginal woman as a prototype of a social oddity. In what ways do these characters portray the notion of marginal woman? The female characters in Mulan and Elite are discussed as manifestations of the marginal woman who are deemed strangers by their own communities.