Even 'Mulan' Voice Actor BD Wong Says Li Shang Is Sexually Fluid

Disney's 1998 film Mulanis often hailed as one of the greatest animated films of all time — and for very good reason. Starring one of the coolest and most relatable heroines to ever grace the screen, the film thoughtfully explores the roles and expectations placed on women simply because of their gender and gave visibility to Asian kids who wanted to see themselves as the center of a Disney story. 

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It also unintentionally blessed the world with Li Shang, who many queer Disney fans hail as a bisexual icon for his perceived attraction/bond to both titular character Mulan and her male-presenting alter ego Ping. While the film never explicitly confirmed Li Shang's sexuality (it was a Disney movie made in the late '90s, after all), longtime actor BD Wong, the man behind the bi icon, is weighing in all these years later. 

During a recent appearance on the Las Culturistas podcast (hosted by Matt Rogers and Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang), Wong opened up about what he thought about his iconic character's sexuality, going on to label Li Shang as sexually fluid.

"BD Wong, do you think Captain Li Shang was attracted to Ping?" Yang asked.

"I would like to think that he was," he replied. "I don’t want to disappoint anyone and I don’t want to be a coward or anything like that...okay, but you know what. Okay, no. fluidity is a very important thing to acknowledge." 

Wong then went on to talk about how discussions of sexuality, and the language associated with it, have changed since 1998 when Mulan was originally released.

"When we made the movie, fluidity was not a word. We didn’t talk about fluidity. Now we have fluidity. Now we watch Shang and his choices and his actions and see it through fluidity," he said. "This whole idea that there’s a needle and it goes from zero to 100 and it doesn’t have to be one place or another. It can move. You can change your pronouns and then change them the next day if you want and that’s good and should be the way it is."

He continued: 

"So in that case, I’m recalibrating my answer. Of course, he was. Of course, he was! What other reason would there be?"

While we wish we as viewers could have received more explicit representation when it came to Shang's sexuality and fluidity (last year's live-action, Disney+ retelling of Mulan completely did away with Li's character), we're glad that at least one person involved in the creation of such an iconic and beloved character is acknowledging the impact he had on queer fans growing up!