if you can’t win, change the rules of the game

[swan_tower]

I don’t have the link, but my husband recently read me bits from an interview with or article by one of the screenwriters for the upcoming Doctor Strange movie, wherein the screenwriter referred to the character of the Ancient One as “Marvel’s Kobayashi Maru.” This is, of course, the character that recently got whitewashed by casting Tilda Swinton in the role; the screenwriter’s piece argued that it’s a situation in which there is no good solution. To wit:

1) The Ancient One is, right out of the gate, kind of a horrible racist stereotype. Mystical Asian master teaches white man the ways of magic! Yyyyyyeah, when that’s your starting point, you’re already in trouble.

2) Okay, say you don’t whitewash the role; you cast an Asian actor and just accept the fact that you’re going to perpetuate the Mystical Asian Master stereotype. The character is canonically Tibetan; you cast a Tibetan actor. Congratulations: you have just walked into a minefield, and its name is “Tibetan/Chinese politics.” China says “screw you, we’re not showing that film in this country,” and you lose out on one of the biggest markets in the entire world — a market which is pretty much necessary to make a film of this kind profitable.

3) Okay, okay, so no Tibetan actor. Cast a Chinese man instead! China’s happy! . . . at the cost of supporting China’s imperialist attitudes toward Tibet and erasing Tibetan identity.

Each one of us probably has an opinion as to which of those three options (whitewash the role and dilute the Asian stereotype; cast a Tibetan actor and eat the massive financial and political hit; cast a Chinese actor and erase Tibet) is the least of the available evils. But the fact remains that none of them are straight-up good options; up to that point, I agree with the screenwriter’s argument.

But I also look at that, and then think about the Kobayashi Maru scenario.

If you can’t win, then change the rules of the game.

For example: I’ve been told that in some versions of the Doctor Strange canon, the hero is Asian instead of white. I haven’t been able to track down a citation for that, but it doesn’t have to be previously true to be an option now; instead of whitewashing the Ancient One, racebend Doctor Strange himself. Then you may still have your Mystical Asian Master, but he’s not teaching a white man his secret ways, and you have a headlining superhero who’s a man of color. It doesn’t solve your Tibetan/Chinese political problem — plus you have to decide what ethnicity your Doctor Strange will be, which potentially carries its own complications — but it does help mitigate the problematic nature of the Ancient One himself, and his relationship with Doctor Strange.

Or my sister’s suggestion: cast a Tibetan actor as the Ancient One . . . and then re-film those scenes with a Chinese actor for the Chinese market. Sure, it’ll cost some money, but not nearly as much as losing out on the Chinese market. You’re still kind of complicit in China’s relations with Tibet, and you haven’t solved your “Asian master teaches a white man” problem (unless you combine this with the above), but it’s a potential compromise.

Or — and this is my preferred solution — get rid of the problem entirely, by getting rid of the Ancient One.

Jettison the inherently problematic baggage you inherited from previous versions of canon and come up with something better. Sure, the fanboys will wail and gnash their teeth — but whatever, they can suck it up. They already understand that there can be multiple different canons, sometimes with wildly divergent stories for how the hero got his powers; let this be another. Give Doctor Strange a different origin story, one that isn’t founded on a horrible racist stereotype. Change the rules of the game. Play something better.

I think the screenwriter did a good job of outlining the dimensions of the box they were stuck in. I just wish he and the director and the producer had realized that they didn’t have to be in the box — that they had the power to bust out of it entirely. It would have been better than the route they went.

(And Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi? There is no goddamned excuse.)

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[uneasy-spirit.livejournal.com]

It does show a weird lack of imagination in someone whose job is, essentially, imagination. Even I can think of other options if they wanted to keep the Ancient One role - turn the Ancient One into the Ancient Ones and have multiple Masters (and dare I suggest Mistresses) of a variety of Asian backgrounds; turn the Ancient One into some sort of animal or mythical creature; turn the Ancient One into a demigod-like being who's of no apparent race or gender, who's humanoid but not human. None of those options are perfect, either, but they're just off the top of a non-professional writer's head. Surely a professional screenwriter and the hordes of other people involved in fleshing out the storyline of a many-multi-million dollar movie could come up with *something*.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

and dare I suggest Mistresses

They did turn a male character female (or at least cast a female actress; given Swinton's history of playing male, androgynous, or otherwise genderqueer characters, I'm not sure what pronounes they'll be using for the Ancient One), which is a deliberate move to break up some of the original shape of the idea. But yeah, they could have been much more radical in their changes. Basically, stop trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse; drop the pig bits and get yourself some silk, or at least a nice functional canvas.

[sovay]

I don't have the link, but my husband recently read me bits from an interview with or article by one of the screenwriters for the upcoming Doctor Strange movie, wherein the screenwriter referred to the character of the Ancient One as "Marvel's Kobayashi Maru."

It was a YouTube interview, but the relevant excerpt has since been transcribed in multiple places online (I picked the most extensive-looking one off the front page of a search engine).

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[marycatelli]

They will wail and gnash their teeth and stay away in droves.

Making a film that alienates your most likely audience is going to have problems of the immediate and financial variety.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

A bigger problem than alienating the entire Chinese market?

A bigger problem than the increasing pushback against whitewashing characters of color?

If every fanboy decided to boycott the movie because somebody changed the origin, it would be a problem, sure. But I'm dubious the backlash would really be on that scale: a few would pitch hissy fits, and the rest would go see it anyway.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

High end comic book sales are around 150,000. A movie like this probably gets at least 10 million movie-goers. The "fanboys" could all stay home and not make a big difference.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

"a market which is pretty much necessary to make a film of this kind profitable."

Really? They've lost the ability to break even in the US market alone?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I know that overseas sales at this point are generally a larger chunk of the take than the U.S. I can't swear to whether they could break even on the U.S. alone, though.

[siduri1959]

And there is always one more option.

Just don't make this movie. You already know there will be problems with casting for this for all the reasons outlined. Just don't make it. It is not like they don't have material to work with-people have been howling for a Black Widow origin movie. Captain Marvel. There was a petition for a Loki movie. There are plenty of movies that could be made that would not create a political firestorm or be a target for racism/whitewashing.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't take it for granted that other properties wouldn't have their own baggage of a similar kind. :-P But yes, I would give my left arm for a Black Widow or Captain Marvel movie. I'm already planning to see Wonder Woman multiple times in the theatre, because voting with your wallet is about the only thing they listen to.

[aliettedb.livejournal.com]

I was going to post about this but got really tired (between that, Ghost in the Shell and a bunch of other things I really felt like I'd had it with Hollywood and Asians). But yeah, "why don't we get rid of the stereotypically bad racist cliché" should have been high on that list. I mean, they're reworking the characters significantly for the movie anyway, so it's even more annoying that they don't bother with the... baggage.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

They bothered -- but only up to a point. It really sounds to me like a failure to think big enough.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I thought she was playing Clea D: She would have made a GREAT Clea -- plus, eleventh hour plot twist: the mystical master is the niece of the Dread Dormammu!

Another option would have been to make this movie NOT an origin story. Or it has to be an origin story, it could be "How Strange became Sorcerer Supreme" instead of "how Strange got magic powers" which would let me see "Triumph and Torment" on the big screen and I love that story, not least because Doom tricks Strange into helping him free his mother from hell. There's also "The Oath" where Doctor Strange is looking for a cure for cancer, on account of how he's a doctor and took the Hyppocratic Oath. Or hey, you've got Scarlet WITCH in the MCU already, how about having her be Sorcerer Supreme? (WHERE IS MY SCARLET WITCH SOLO MOVIE)

Point being, there are a lot of interesting Doctor Strange stories that do not involve the Ancient One.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really wish superhero movies would let go of the whole "we have to start with the origin" thing and just jump into the middle. It's generally more interesting anyway.