NS: Why Dr. Strange's Ancient One is a woman

[lucean]

I just wanted to share this writer explanation as I honestly found it kind of hilarious. So, as some of you may be aware, there has been some dislike about the fact that Tilda Swinton was cast as the Ancient One in Dr. Strange, as the character in the comics was a Tibetan man. The interview can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/world/asia/china-doctor-strange-tibet.html?_r=0

It is a really interesting summary of the interview. Something that baffled me in it was that the writers argument about the Ancient One being an oriental stereotype is true, but what I continue to struggle with is that if they decided to change the ethnicity of the Ancient One because of that, why did decide everything is Tibetan. So in an attempt to avoid racial sensitivity, they decide to have a white person have teach another white person to be the bestest magic while dressed in Tibetan clothes in a Tibetan building surrounded by Tibetan people in Tibet.

The comment that killed me, though, was how insulting the writer considered casting a Chinese woman to act a Tibetan character.

Comments

(frozen)

[long_silence]

I pretty much lost all hope for this movie when they cast the most milquetoast mayonnaise whitebread actor they could find for Stephen Strange.

The Marvel movies are practically printing money, they could have cast an actor of literally any ethnicity and it wouldn't change the character at all, and they'd still make bank. And they still went with the safest option possible.

And then they chose Tilda Swinton for the Ancient One and I knew I'd made the right decision not to watch this movie.

Say what you will about the DC movies but at least they're taking a chance with Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa and Ezra Miller

(frozen)

[commodus]

Okay, disagree with the casting if you want. But why is the actor suddenly fair game to be insulted on their skin color?

(frozen)

[jlbarnett]

wouldn't changing the ethnicity without changing anything about the character upset some people, by essentially saying their ethnicity doesn't matter?

When I saw people on tumblr talking about an Asian American Dr Strange or Iron Fist I saw people pitching ideas about how they could do a story about a guy reconnecting to his heritage, despite the fact that would significantly change their stories and they'd be connecting to entirely fictional stuff. It's be like an American of Britich decent reconnecting to his heritage by going to Hogwarts

(frozen)

[kojiro]

(frozen)

[oddityangel]

People are actually offended by the terms 'mayo' and 'whitebread'? Oh dear...

(frozen) Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

Whilst there is a legitimate case to be made about the whitewashing of roles in Hollywood, and an interesting discussion which can be had out of it, going out of your way to objectify the Caucasian-ness of the skin of a Caucasian actor is more akin to the sort of body-shaming that is contrary to scans_daily's ethos.

No one should be made fun of over their skintone simply because of it's colour, regardless of whether it's one associated with privilege or not.

Please avoid such comparisons in future. Critique the casting decision process and the general principle of whitewashing as much as you wish, but leave the actor out of it.

In the interests of all concerned, we are freezing this thread. Let's all move along.

[md84]

I almost feel sorry for the people who have to make casting decisions. I'm sure most of them have good intentions, but they have to deal with their own prejudices, the prejudices of their superiors, and the prejudices of their target audiences.

If it were me, I'd just stick with using an old Tibetan guy so I could at least claim that I'm just being true to the source material if someone tries to call me out on it (and I say this as an Asian American).

I also think it's kind of hilarious that their attempt at racial sensitivity ended up playing into the old 'Mighty Whitey' trope.

[lucean]

What continues to confound me is that they could have easily avoided the Mighty Whitey trope by not just having it take place in Tibet. Or if Tibet was the difficulty, there are a lot of countries that neighbor that area, such as, I don't know, Nepal?

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, I think they really, really don't understand the objection to the entire Orientalist premise and are trying to get around it by changing the trappings but not the story. If they had understood, there wouldn't be faceless mystical ninja hordes in the Netflix Daredevil series, either!

Pretty much my thinking

[chortles81]

Both are cases where I'm perfectly happy to see a divergence from the source material.

[freezer]

Much like The Mandarin, the Ancient One was pretty much a no-win. Change the character, you're whitewashing. Portray the character faithfully, he's one "Confucius Say" away from the whole "Mysterious Oriental Stereotype" bingo card.

I find it interesting that, as least to my perception, more nerds have been up in arms about this than of the whole ScarJo/Ghost In The Shell incoming fiasco. At least, I haven't seen the think pieces and YouTube videos defending Swinton-as-The-Ancient-One yet.

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, this kind of no-win situation is why I think they should have retooled his origin. "Arrogant surgeon can no longer operate, learns magic" does not have to involve mysterious oriental stereotypes. And they could involve Asian characters in other roles, to get past the whitewashing issues.

[sadoeuphemist]

Was anyone really complaining about the Mandarin? I was under the impression that it was pretty well received, aside from the 'it's not accurate to the source material' folks.

[janegray]

Probably because ScarJo is a very beloved actress. Even those who hated the whitewashing and loudly complained about it, often prefaced their comments with "no offense to scarJo" or "I get why ScarJo accepted the role but."

Swinton hasn't had the chance to build up a loyal following with her excellent portrayal of a popular character in the best selling and most critically acclaimed movies of the entire MCU, and with her cool interviews that flipped the bird to sexist reporters. So people are far less willing to protect&forgive her.

[grumman]

Scarlett Johanssen is playing a full 'borg. The Major's face is not Japanese and never was, even if it was designed by a Japanese person. So the real question is not "Does she look like a Japanese woman?" it's "Does she conform to Japanese ideals of beauty?"

[bj_l]

And where's the link to the producer (or was it director?) who explained a few days before this that "nope, the Ancient One is not Tibetan because we'd really like to see this movie do well in China, thanks"?

[cainofdreaming]

Next: Amistad remake with all white cast to avoid stereotypes.

[freezer]

Heh. Shades of the "What if they made an all-white version of The Wiz" whining. (Yes, that was a real thing)

[janegray]

The comment that killed me, though, was how insulting the writer considered casting a Chinese woman to act a Tibetan character.

Why would that kill you? It makes perfect sense.

China has been doing horrible, horrible thing to Tibet. And in fact, the article you linked to outright says that the real reason they changed the race of the character was that they didn't want the movie to be banned in China.

It turns out that the filmmakers wanted to avoid the Tibetan origins of the character altogether, in large part over fears of offending the Chinese government and people — and of losing access to one of the world’s most lucrative film markets, according to one insider account.

China is so determined to erase Tibet as its own country with its own people and colture, they would ban a movie for having a Tibetan character in an important role. They absolutely would.

If I were Tibetan, I'd be infinitely more offended by the idea of changing the race of a character from Tibetan to Chinese than from Tibetan to white.

[md84]

Would you believe there's a TV Tropes trivia page covering this? It's even called "Banned in China", though there are pages for other countries too.

Supposedly it's why the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 was portrayed by Ben Kingsley and has little in common with his comics incarnation -- the PRoC's gov't wouldn't be very happy with a movie whose villain was basically the Marvel version of Fu Manchu.

[lucean]

No, I understand the China/Tibet problem, but the writer basically saying that it would have been a huge minefield while arguing that people shouldn't thinkm aking the character white isn't a huge minefield. It even ignores the fact that they had more casting than either making the character white or Asian. There are other options there.

To me, to repeat myself, what makes my head hurt is that at the same time the writer argues that using an Asian actor would have been offensive, yet they decided to still have the actual setting be Asian. As has been pointed out, if they wanted to cast Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, there was nothing in the story preventing them to switching the setting to Ireland which would have been a lot better solution avoiding the Orientalism issue.

[informationgeek]

It's an interesting issue and I personally thought the writer explained the reasons behind the casting very well to where I can understand why they made the decision.

Now, here's the full interview with the guy. It's an interesting watch, showing the thought process behind writing the movie, how the guy got the job, what Marvel's plans are with Phase 3, and so on:
Click me please

They start discussing the casting choice at 17:55 if you just want to hear that. While I roll my eyes at the SJW comment, I thought he did explain things very well.

[shadowpsykie]

i agree, his arguement seems very valid. and well thought out. the SJW comment made me roll my eyes too, but i think he meant it in the way it is largely portrayed (you know that lady that calls herself a God Warrior? there are similar people going around that call themselves SJW and are equally offensive...) what sucks is that all people who seek for social justice get lumped in with those people. much like feminists kinda get lumped into terfs and 1st wavers.

[shadowpsykie]

easy solution to this?

The Ancient One has no gender or ethnicity, and appears to Strange in a form his mind would understand.

[md84]

TBF, maybe a bit of pathos would be lost when the Ancient One inevitably receives the "Obiwan" treatment if the Ancient One was CGI instead of a live actor. Then again, maybe not -- I'm sure audiences shed some tears when Yoda died and he was a Muppet.