So Marvel has gotten a lot of heat in some circles about "whitewashing" the character of the Ancient One in the upcoming Dr. Strange movie, genderbending the timeless Oriental master of the mystic arts into a bald Tilda Swinton. Not that there's anything wrong with a bald Tilda Swinton, but given some rather tone-deaf and pointless casting of Caucasian as Asian characters in the past decade or so, it's attracted some commentary.
This article, describing an interview with a Doctor Strange co-writer Robert Cargill sheds some new light into this casting decision — basically placing it in the lap of Chinese sensitivities, since
(a) the ancient Oriental guru is not exactly the most modern or PC of tropes.
(b) having an ancient Chinese master in a hidden temple deep in Tibet gets all sorts of panties in wads, as would having an ancient Tibetan master in a hidden temple deep in Tibet — whether we're talking about the politically active (in America) Free Tibet folk, or, more importantly, the movie-audience-economically-powerful Chinese government.
Clearly there's some level of Asian stuff going on in the Doctor Strange trailer, but Marvel was faced (as with Iron Man's Mandarin super-villain) with a key part of origin mythos being something that, on the face of it, played a lot better in the early 60s[1] than it would today. And, with money involved on top of that, it's not surprising they veered in a different direction, even if that let to its own backlash.
But it does give us more Tilda Swinton, so that's a silver lining.
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[1] See also from that same era Jonny Quest, which I dearly love, but which incorporates some horrifyingly bad racial / ethnic stereotypes in its B-movie adventure plots.
Doctor Strange Writer Says Ancient One Was Changed To Avoid Upsetting China
Doctor Strange co-writer Robert Cargill described the writing and casting of the Ancient one as a no-win scenario akin to Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru.
This was a bad idea. Art has the capability to create change. This could have significantly impacted Chinese policy (as other films can, too), but they've gone for dollar values over human values. Standard, but disappointing. Sorry to say this makes me very less inclined to bother seeing it.
There are countless things China do that "upset" the rest of the world #justsaying
I'm slightly skeptical, because I think that it's more than likely that the character would have been played by a white actor anyway regardless of the politics surrounding it. (Although Marvel's had a couple of prominent racebendings, like Heimdall and Nick Fury, so perhaps not.) But yeah, even if something can fit into an apparent pattern, it's worth remembering that sometimes there are other factors at play.
+Gaffer Venar This would have done little to "impact Chinese policy" — China would have simply denounced it and blocked the film from distribution within its borders. I don't see this as the the particular movie to take a stand on, given the problematic nature of the Ancient One anyway.
+Paul Scollon Absolutely. But, as the article notes, they make up about a quarter of the foreign market for Hollywood. That leverage is not easily ignored.
+Brittany Constable Given that Marvel was willing to genderbend the character as well as racebend it, I'm not at all certain that they would have whitewashed the Ancient One, geopolitics notwithstanding.