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 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

(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)

[arilou_skiff]

I think Strange could work as any ethnicity... So long as that ethnicity is different from the culture the Ancient One represents.

Basically, he can't be framed as reconnecting wtih his heritage, he is stepping into the (to him) unknown.