Doctor Strange

The phenomenon of white washing didn't gain a lot of attention (or at least, didn't have much of a way of letting audiences be aware of it) until the SJ boom in the 2010's.

Not that I have an opinion on Kingsley playing Ghandi since I haven't seen the film.

edited 3rd May '16 7:11:10 AM by wehrmacht

No there wasn't. Half Indian is Indian enough.

That would actually make it worse. "There WAS a wise old Asian Master stereotype. He totes existed, we're still playing up that cliché. But he's not going to appear onscreen, have a white woman instead." It's the worst of both worlds.

The reason they've given is that the Ancient One is a racist caricature but they didn't want to just slap a white guy over him so they picked a white woman in order to provide at least some representation to an underrepresented group, even if it wasn't the one the original stereotype belonged to. That group being women.

Killian was.

This is the second time Marvel's come under fire for whitewashing racist Asian caricatures. They've also come under fire for playing racist Asian caricatures entirely straight via Dare Devil Season Two's The Hand.

It's a hard position to be in because there is literally no right way to present these characters, nor is there a right way to not present them. Marvel's long and storied history of playing into racial stereotypes is springing up to bite them in the ass.

And instead of trying to just, you know, tone those down with certain characters, they instead go to one extreme or another. Either play it completely straight, or jump to "cast a White person and try and dodge the issue entirely."

You know there are marvel films I dislike but thanks to the Mandarin thing IM 3's the only one I loathe.

Wait till IF comes out. I except a whole lot of btiching

A white woman, mind you. They knew they were depriving one group of representation so they tried to make it up by giving it to another group.

Which makes sense from the "Rich white guys snorting cocaine" perspective, where all marginalized groups look like a big hive-mind conglomerate of Twitter outrage rather than a wide variety of different subgroups actively competing for the same slim pickings.

For the Jar of Major Characters metaphor, they took a choco-raisin from the Asian bowl and put it in the Girl bowl, leaving a very confused Asian child stammering, staring at the White Guy bowl, and asking why they didn't take one from THERE since there's so many already.

...which I suppose, for the sake of the metaphor, would involve keeping Tilda Swinton but casting her as Doctor Strange.

edited 3rd May '16 9:12:00 AM by TobiasDrake

IM 3 wasn't the first film to pull the racial decoy switch. They basically copied the twist from Batman Begins, though I suppose BB gave fake Ra's some dignity at least. It's a shame because Ken Watanabe might've actually been a good Ra's (incorrect minority not withstanding) had he not just been futzing around playing up the mysterious stoic Asian Sensei stereotype.

Anyway, I can see both sides of the argument here, though I can't help but imagine Tilda Swinton being awesome as the Ancient One. I like her as an actor so much XD

RE: Gandhi; I didn't find anything on controversy about Kingsley's casting, but I did find a quote from director Richard Attenborough: "At one point Paramount actually said they'd give me the money if Richard Burton could play Gandhi."

Also of note, is: "Born Krishna Bhanji, Kingsley changed his name when he became an actor: the Kingsley comes from his paternal grandfather (Indian), who became a successful spice trader in East Africa and was known as King Clove."

'a successful spice trader' Way to perpetuate the stereotype Ben Kingsley's paternal grandpa.

Also. A white Welshman? That's terrible. Well at least the Welsh hate the Brits as much as we do.

Wow...that's pretty bad. Still can't beat John Wayne as Genghis Khan though. Still trying to figure out who thought that was a good idea.

edited 3rd May '16 11:04:55 AM by Sisi

John Wayne did, apparently, because he wanted the role.

I guess I can see the appeal the character had to an actor like Wayne. But still...no. Just...no.

John Wayne did, apparently.

edited 3rd May '16 11:11:22 AM by KarkatTheDalek

Plus Ben Kingsley being part Indian and part British actually makes sense because the two are rather closely mixed.

Well this is not a fictional world where we can argue why it "doesn't make sense" why someone would be the ethnicities they are.

Not fictional as far as we know...

At the Iron Man 3 thing, there is a real mystical sorcerer Mandarin somewhere, but he hasn't appeared on screen yet. He was mentioned in one of the short films.

that was more of a saving throw that will most likely never be relevant in the actual films going forward.

We can hope, but yeah, that is likely. What I don't understand is why after needing to make that saving throw they didn't learn from their mistakes at all.

Yeah, there was an interview with Shane Black lately where he said the short was made by Marvel only as an apology. Which to me confirms my suspicions that they'll never do anything with it.

All Hail the King was not an apology.

Drew Pierce: It’s weird because that was kind of the last thing that was on our minds, certainly my mind. It was really the interest, purely and simply, of getting to play with Sir Ben and Trevor Slattery again. Obviously some of the reaction plays into the dialogue in it but as far as the storyline goes – obviously avoiding spoilers though everyone has illegally downloaded the short by now anyway, so “what spoilers?” –

I actually just felt like it was in the lineage of the information we already dolled out in the movies. In the first movie there was the Ten Rings and in the second movie there was a deleted scene where the rings appear again, and in the third movie we were quite clear in the movie and in the press that there was a mantel that had been co-opted by Killian – partly because if we hadn’t said that it would have completely invalidated a huge part of the first movie which is Raza works for The Ten Rings. So for me I was just joining dots to be honest and using that to give the short some drama and some form of momentum. I didn’t want the short to feel like just a skit. I felt like it had to earn its place in the MCU so that was really the driving force behind it.

Note: Stephen Broussard alongside Drew Pierce already had a rough idea for using more of Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery outside of Iron Man 3 DURING production. Meanwhile, Josh Whedon approved. Regardless of what fans said, a continuation of Trevor's story was going to be told.

Although your average fan does not read the prelude, there is still a Mandarin who claimed "we now have all we require to wipe Iron Man off from the face of Earth". This man, only with his arms and torso showing, is disconnected from Killian's goal while he obviously isn't the goofy dressed Trevor. It's up to any new director to reuse this person shrouded in mystery. Nobody is holding a gun at insert name's face, telling them they can't reveal him in live action just like if anyone wants to reuse Helen Cho they are free to. The Mandarin existed before Iron Man 3 released and still does after. It's just a matter of having a director who wants him in their movie - case point Jon Favreau was originally going to use him, which would obviously have changed the context of how Iron Man 3 introduced him.

There are plenty of characters who haven't shown up in years or mentioned in dialogue only. Well... we have to wait until someone is willing to pick them up raaaaaaaaaaaaagh

edited 17th May '16 11:30:49 AM by FictionWriterKing

Perhaps for Pearce, since he had more involvement with the short, but one could easily interpret his statements as "I like my job at Marvel and they will fire me if I say they copped out on keeping Killian as the Mandarin." Compare that to Shane Black who's independent again and doesn't have to worry about Marvel corporate embargoing him. Same reason why he's so frank about the original villain getting sexistly shoved aside to sell toys.

Shane Black says the "true Mandarin" bullshit was just thrown out there to appease butthurt fans. Drew Pearce says the idea of doing a short starring Trevor Slattery was something they really wanted to do. The two statements don't have to contradict each other.

A lot of changes happen to a film between conceptualizing an idea and releasing the final product. For the most part, All Hail the King is a celebration of the character of Trevor Slattery. It's just the last few moments that suddenly twist the thing in a mean-spirited direction to kill him off and toss a bone to the upset fandom.

It's 95% "Trevor Slattery is hilarious and funny!" and 5% "Take That! Trevor Slattery! MY Mandarin that I'm never going to put on film is so much better than YOUR Mandarin! Amirite, Audience?"

edited 17th May '16 11:29:42 AM by TobiasDrake

Sidenote: Loving how "snorting cocaine" was appended to the usual demonization of "rich white guys".

Seems like this conversation would better serve in the Film Diversity and Representation Thread.

All Hail The King or something akin to it was still going to be made despite fan backlash. The exact plot details on Mandarin were a follow up to Iron Man 3. Yes clarity was also within its purpose, expanding upon what was an idea. Remember what I keep on saying here? "Here's an idea, the end". Most audience members want their money spent towards something juicer. A story is more than an idea, but this is such a large universe full of mulutpile writers and directors that who uses who is up in the air.

Kevin Feige: There have been [talks]. That's one of the reasons we wanted to do the fun short that Drew Pearce wrote and directed. That was to clarify, 'Hey, just because we did this thing doesn't mean this other thing doesn't exist.' And as we were making Iron Man 3 — and I think Drew's spoken about this — that was always our intention, was that Aldrich Killian was perverting the notion of these things he's heard.

Shane Black is blunt like Josh Whedon. Blunt or deferential I don't care. I know for a fact All Hail the King is an idea turned into a tiny story NOT because the fans moaned and complained.Their complaints didn't give rise to using more of Trevor (that was already in place) or Mandarin's origin (already established plot threads expanded upon - Ten Ring's true leader because no one in IM 3 worked for Ten Rings). I'm talking about the exact details in All Hail the King. Where it goes from there is once again up in the air. If someone really cared to show off Mandarin in all his glory then they would have already. Like Black said, he didn't know people would be this butt hurt over a character he neglects (low importance). Pierce gave him importance. Now someone else finishes IF they want. Otherwise the plot remains open.

Sure you can think All Hail The King is fan service but to me the intention was to become something stronger and not just another short film. For sake of continuity. Lessen confusion. Problem is... who CARES to add on

Finally Trevor. I don't believe anything would have been made if the studio wasn't interstend in Trevor. If they thought he was as boring as Shane's prescriptive of Mandarin. Boring doesn't sell well

edited 17th May '16 12:30:47 PM by FictionWriterKing