Doctor Strange

[charliepanayi]

The latest MCU film is out today in the UK (though the US have to wait until 4th November). Anticipate, discuss once seen etc

[Del Murder]

Skipping it in protest as it casts Tilda Swinton as one of the few Asian characters in Marvel universe, at least of those comics that have major movies, and puts her in like a weird Asianface. Also, I always found Doctor Strange to be lame.

I'm sure I'll get over that and rent it at some point if it is good.

[DMKA]

Skipping it in protest as it casts Tilda Swinton as one of the few Asian characters in Marvel universe, at least of those comics that have major movies, and puts her in like a weird Asianface.

They cast Idris Elba as Heimdall in Thor so I consider it a wash.

I'm no fan of Benedict Cumberbatch personally, and I too don't really care about Dr. Strange, so my interest is almost non-existent. I live with people who absolutely adore Mr Cumberbatch though, so I'll inevitably end up seeing it.

[Vermachtnis]

I heard it was really, really good.

[Del Murder]

Skipping it in protest as it casts Tilda Swinton as one of the few Asian characters in Marvel universe, at least of those comics that have major movies, and puts her in like a weird Asianface.

They cast Idris Elba as Heimdall in Thor so I consider it a wash.

Casting one black person (the only minority that matters to Hollywood) in a historically white character's role where 90% of the Marvel Universe characters (at least those that get into the movies) are white is not a wash for ignoring one of the few Asian characters they had a chance to cast.

[Wolf Kanno]

They didn't cast an Asian for the Ancient One because technically the character is from Tibet and China is the biggest box office venue for Hollywood right now. So they basically had to change the character's origins or risk having the film banned in China. She is of Celtic origin now according to the Wikipedia article on the film, and technically her character is meant to be androgynous and unknowable so even that might not stick since Ancient One appears to be a title.

[charliepanayi]

I don't really mind them casting Tilda Swinton (as she's great), but I'm pretty sure they could have just made the Ancient One from anywhere else in east Asia and still cast an Asian-ethnicity actor if they didn't want to upset the Chinese market.

[Slothy]

and puts her in like a weird Asianface.

That's just her face. All they did was shave her head and not give her gender specific makeup from what I've seen. She always looks like that.

[Del Murder]

Ha, you're right. I guess she's just weird looking.

[Shauna]

Yeah, Tilda Swinton looks very strange.

[Miriel]

They didn't cast an Asian for the Ancient One because technically the character is from Tibet and China is the biggest box office venue for Hollywood right now. So they basically had to change the character's origins or risk having the film banned in China. She is of Celtic origin now according to the Wikipedia article on the film, and technically her character is meant to be androgynous and unknowable so even that might not stick since Ancient One appears to be a title.

This whole "she's Celtic" thing was an excuse they trotted out after there was significant backlash about this whole thing. And if that were truly their intent, to make it a Celtic character, than put her in smurfing traditional Celtic dress, not in blatantly Asian inspired outfits, surroundings, and motifs.

Such a bs excuse.

smurf that.

It every year, movie after movie, this constant whitewashing. I'm sick of it.

Let's say the motivating factor here was money, and not offending China means money. Since they cast a white person in the role of an Asian person, did they then go on to cast an Asian person in a role of equal significance to make up for it? Hell no! Did they even think to do that? I bet you that was never even in consideration. Casting for diversity beyond the lucky black actor or actress here or there is not a priority for studios.

[charliepanayi]

Audiences (or at least the vast majority of audiences) don't really care about diversity. Studios have no incentive to make progress on the issue. And I'm part of the problem since I'm still going to watch this. I'm not losing any sleep over it, mind you (white privilege talking here!).

[charliepanayi]

OK, saw it.

What I liked:
- The mind-bending trippy stuff.
- Some good laughs, especially the (SPOILER)Beyonce bit.
- Benedict Cumberbatch (though he can play cocky arsehole in his sleep by now)
- Tilda Swinton (but then she's always great)
- Benedict Wong (easily the best thing in the film, wish there'd been more of him)
- The climax was a bit different to the norm, giving us a twisted variation on (SPOILER)Groundhog Day
- The mid-credits bit. (SPOILER)Thor and the refilling mug!

What I didn't like:
- Being an origin story it takes a while to get going, and we have to deal with Emo Strange with his emo beard for a while. It only really kicks in when he meets The Ancient One.
- Mads Mikkelsen's villain is pretty dull. Marvel still have an issue with lack of interesting villains.
- Chiwetel Ejiofor is saddled with delivering a lot of exposition and little beyond that. Of course being Chiwetel Ejiofor I should have known (SPOILER)his character wouldn't stay a good guy
- Rachel McAdams is stuck in a nothing role.
- Michael Stuhlbarg is stuck in an even more nothing role. Why cast one of Hollywood's best character actors if you're going to give him just one scene and a vending machine gag?

[Miriel]

Audiences (or at least the vast majority of audiences) don't really care about diversity. Studios have no incentive to make progress on the issue. And I'm part of the problem since I'm still going to watch this. I'm not losing any sleep over it, mind you (white privilege talking here!).

That's simply untrue. Movies with more diversity make more money on average than movies with less than 10% diversity in the cast. And same for television, shows with diverse casts get higher ratings and viewership than shows without a diverse cast.

Just purely based on numbers, studios SHOULD want diversity because they will MAKE MORE MONEY. But they are resistant to it because they are racist. Yeah, I went there.

The millions of black people in this country want representation in media, the millions of latinos in this country want representation in media, the millions of Asian people in this country want representation in media. It's utterly false to claim that all of us people of color just don't give a trout about diversity. Of course we do.

The biggest cultural phenomenon of the past year is Hamilton, and its mind blowing success is due at least in part to the fact that nearly every single principal cast member is a person of color! Of smurfing course audiences want it. We're practically begging for it.

[Calliope]

1) One of the most successful movie franchises I can think of is The Fast and the Furious, which manages to have a very ethnically diverse cast without shoehorning it down our throats that it's ~diversity~
2) Racial representation in the media is pretty poor, but Asian actors have it worst than most. There's a great line in an Aziz bit about him hoping that it gets to the point where he can like an Indian character on the merits of the character, and not just because it's the only one for ten thousand miles. We want to watch people we can identify with!
3) If you don't think that cis-het whitewashing doesn't exist, then you're delusional. Let's look at some castings where Asian characters are replaced by white actors, shall we? Let's see...we have Scarlett Johansen playing The Major in Ghost in the Shell, we have Emma Stone playing Allison Ng in Aloha, we have Tilda Swinton obviously playing The Ancient One, we have all the white people in The Last Airbender, Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow completely replacing his novel counterpart, Keiji Kiriya, Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and my personal, heart-crushing worst/favourite, Fisher Stevens as Ben Jabituya in Short Circuit.
4) This is nothing new. Everything, including Hollywood, privileges white people; whether it's whites-only on Friends or Girls or Elizabeth smurfing Taylor as Cleopatra, or Ben Kingsley in his best Maori geddup, or whatever. And on the flipside, my boy Cliff Curtis has to play terrorists and gangsters and criminals of every shade of caramel, chocolate, and toffee, and the only recent time he gets to be Maori and not a homeless guy/rapist/criminal is when he's being chased by zombies (I'll take what I can get).
5) Here is a popular article if you would like more examples.

I probably won't see Dr Strange, I'm not very attached to the comic. One comic I am attached to is Spiderman, so it's even more of a shame that we're stuck with a third smurfing whitey spidey reboot, instead of going down the Miles Morales route.