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

[freezer]

I recall complaints that the character should've been Asian, even if you weren't going to make him the "real" Mandarin (Kingsley being half-Indian was as mollifying as half-Chinese Kristin Kreuk playing Chun-Li).

[freezer]

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

[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.

Pretty much what I was thinking, in line with md84

[chortles81]

I guess it's because the Oriental trappings of Doctor Strange's origin were considered too important to the character to ditch, but for some reason they were adverse to casting an actual Asian actor.

That's on the people coming up with the lore for the mystical side of Marvel movies/TV then, especially because at last check Doctor Strange is supposed to be the beginning of the 'definitely mystical' side of things; janegray's already posted their explicit explanation for why the character wouldn't be Tibetan, and like silicondream I can't think of ANYTHING I've seen about Doctor Strange anywhere outside of his comics origin story that fell apart without the Orientalist trappings... and I'm pretty sure they didn't feel as tight a need to adhere to Black Panther's first appearance.

Pretty much my thinking

[chortles81]

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

[shadowpsykie]

easy solution to this?

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[md84]

But...but The Wiz was basically a modernized reinterpretation of the Wizard of Oz, which ALREADY had a white cast! That's just...WHAT?!

[gnarll]

Mustang. Not that that would have pleased China either.

(frozen comment)

[shadowpsykie]

as a person of color myself. i must say that i myself found your comments to be very offensive. if you want to criticize his acting as bland, fine. Call his acting milquetoast. no need to make so many comments in regards solely to his skin tone. I would take personal offense if someone said said someone was "Cafe con leche" "wheat bread" "bean toned" etc. arbitraty objects have been used to criticise and denigrate people based on their skin tone quite often enough. Hell you can criticise his being one amongst a sea of plain white, bland actors, without it being directly an attack on his skin tone.

[shadowpsykie]

no i am saying, that the ancient one appears to Stephen as a gender neutral white person because that's what he can comprehend.

[bruinsfan]

I hope that doesn't happen in this movie. I'd like to see the status quo as it was in Strange's book for the first decade or so—the Ancient One semi-retires and lets Strange take over the active duties of Sorcerer Supreme, but is still available to give advice and occasionally pitch in against major threats like Zom and He-Who-Sleeps-but-Shall-Awake.

[md84]

Yeah, it took a surprisingly long time for the Ancient One to be Obiwaned in the comics.

In the animated movie otoh, he bit it in the final act.

(frozen comment)

[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

[grumman]

I guess it's because the Oriental trappings of Doctor Strange's origin were considered too important to the character to ditch, but for some reason they were adverse to casting an actual Asian actor.

"An actual Asian actor" still probably wouldn't work. Chinese-Americans are the largest Asian-American demographic so I assume they represent the largest group of Asian-American actors, but casting a Chinese-American actor as a Tibetan isn't going to stop people yelling at you, given the whole occupation of Tibet. There are only 9,000 Tibetans in the entire United States, so it's unlikely that you're going to find one who happens to be a B- or C-list male actor old enough to pass as "The Ancient One."

[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.

[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?"

[freezer]

It flared up during the live Wiz special a few months ago. NEVER underestimate the power, numbers or stupidity of Angry White People on The Internet.

(frozen comment)

[kojiro]

[freezer]

I have heard this defense before. And I reject it utterly. To me, it's the exact same thing as saying "Aang isn't really a Tibetan monk, therefore it's okay that a white kid plays him in the movie. Zuko and Iroh aren't really Chinese, so it's fine we had an Indian and a Persian playing them."

Just no.

(frozen comment)

[long_silence]

The thing about Stephen Strange is that his ethnicity doesn't matter to his back story. Successful and arrogant surgeon injures his hands and turns to magic to heal them and ends up becoming more accomplished as a sorcerer then he ever was as a doctor.

The back story is universal, you could use an actor of any ethnicity and it wouldn't change the core parts of his origin. It would give his background some context, people of color can often feel more pressure to be successful, to be doctors, "you have to work twice as hard to get half of what they have". That kind of pressure could help explain why Strange feels desperate enough to turn to magic to fix his hands.

And the thing about Iron Fist is that one of the arguments I've seen defending the need to keep his character white is that it's important to his dynamic with Luke Cage, and that the fact that he comes from a place of privilege but grew up as an outsider in K'un-Lun colors his perception of the world. And that's fair enough but that's assuming the show will bother addressing those aspects at all.

(frozen comment)

[long_silence]

I wasn't denigrating his appearance. I used paler than a ghost which is a common turn of phrase. I compared his skin tone to mayonnaise or yogurt, which isn't very different from saying coffee colored skin or the like. Any criticism I had was in regards to the casting process and I did not make any comments on his degree of attractiveness

I didn't call him or his acting bland, I did not attribute his whiteness to being a reason he was bland, that was you. So I'm not sure how what I said was an attack on Cumberbatch but what you said wasn't.

But since what I said was offensive to several posters, then I apologize and I will try to refrain from making such comments in the future.

[super_fly]

Something like what they did with Dr Orpheus' Master in Venture Bros?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foEQE7HHBrg

That's what I've been thinking during this whole thing.