Despite the fact that The Ancient One as he's classically appeared in the Doctor Strange comic books is a pretty horrible racist stereotype, Marvel's decision to "whitewash" the role by casting Tilda Swinton has created a lot of discussion (mostly from D-List actors like George Takei who have never heard of the character and are looking for a bit of press). Still, it's become a very big talking point lately.
Talking to Deadline, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was asked to weigh in on claims that Marvel didn't cast an Asian actor for fear of offending China (something he describes as being "completely erroneous"), and gave a very insightful look into why they've handled the character this way.
"We make all of our decisions on all of our films, and certainly on Doctor Strange, for creative reasons and not political reasons. That’s just always been the case. I’ve always believed that it is the films themselves that will cross all borders and really get people to identify with these heroes, and that always comes down to creative and not political reasons. The casting of The Ancient One was a major topic of conversation in the development and the creative process of the story. We didn’t want to play into any of the stereotypes found in the comic books, some of which go back as far as 50 years or more. We felt the idea of gender swapping the role of The Ancient One was exciting. It opened up possibilities, it was a fresh way into this old and very typical storyline. Why not make the wisest bestower of knowledge in the universe to our heroes in the particular film a woman instead of a man? We made changes to some of the other key character in the comic for similar reasons. Specifically, casting Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo and there’s a character named Wong, who is a very big part of comics, and we cast this amazing Asian actor [Benedict Wong] and modernized that role and his talents people will begin to see as materials on the film begin to come out."
The mention of Wong there is very interesting, especially as he's another character - Doctor Strange's manservant in the source material - who could easily offend if not handled the right way. Anyway, the full interview is well worth checking out as Feige talks in detail about Marvel's plan to diversify their Cinematic Universe and specifically Ryan Coogler's big plans for Captain America: Civil War breakout character, Black Panther. However, one more noteworthy comment comes when the Marvel boss is quized about the apparent edict being passed around talent agents that the studio is only looking for female filmmakers to take the helm of the Captain Marvel movie, their first female led blockbuster.
"That’s not true," he confirmed. "We didn’t lay down any edict like that. When it came to Ryan Coogler, we loved both of his films and in particular, most recently, Creed. It coincided exactly with the start of our director search for Black Panther. Luckily for us, he was very interested and pursued it and we signed him up relatively quickly. There was not a particularly large search. We got very lucky. In terms of Captain Marvel, we don’t send out edicts. That being said, we are meeting with many, many immensely talented directors, the majority of whom are female. I do hope they will have announcements certainly by the summer, before the summer’s end, on a director for that." What do you guys think of these comments? Do you think Captain Marvel should have a female director or does it not matter? As always, be sure to weigh in with your thoughts in the usual place.
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