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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I agree, but most of those films were also agreed to be terrible and/or mediocre in general. The whitewashing, while horrible on its own, was also just another symptom of the lack of care and laziness that went into those productions. Meanwhile Doctor Strange by most accounts is at least a decently entertaining and functional movie with good actors, even with the horrible whitewashing controversy and the mighty whitey elements. Like I said, I don't think we're quite at the point where most reviewers are going to heavily criticize a film for problematic elements alone.
edited 6th Jan '18 12:15:33 PM by Draghinazzo
Unless the story was specifically about racial issues or something else that the casting would directly undermine, it's unlikely to be something that would cause the score to drop down concretely, as opposed to brought up in an editorial or boxed-out part of the review. Film critics generally are supposed to analyze how well the message is told rather than what it happens to be, whether it's intentional or not. So until film critics are explicitly required to make politics a consideration when writing their reviews, I don't expect that to change in the immediate future.
And as much as I hated the whitewashing and thought it wasn't justified by the narrative, it didn't really make a difference to the film itself as a piece of storytelling. Even if Dr. Strange was the most progressive work ever in terms of casting I would still have been bored out of my mind, because while it's a competent movie, the writing just wasn't there.
Yeah, in those cases it feels like the whitewashing is a side effect of what seems like a general lack of care given to the film. Marvel Studios, for all their problems, is very adamant on making films that can appeal to general audiences, irrespective of other qualities. Hence the different reception from critics.
edited 6th Jan '18 12:22:06 PM by AlleyOop
On a total different note: If the first episode of Ao S this year is any indication, I have the feeling that we will end up with a LOT of bodies before the year is over.
Also...I am kind of wondering, who else is watching Runaways? The discussion around the show is pretty quiet overall and I have no idea if it does well or not because streaming doesn't release ratings.
For the rating system of RT: if you don’t like it, then go with IMDB for audience scoring.
As for Doctor Strange casting of Ancient One as a Celtic Woman instead of an old Tibetan monk: don’t really care especially after the performance Swifton gave to the Ancient One. Same could be said for Ejiofor as Mordo who is by far the one character who changed a lot from his source material.
I think this is one of the few movies where a race change in character didn’t affect the quality or narrative of the movie.
Completely unrelated I just realized something: Donald Glover played a criminal who helps Spiderman in catching the bad guys so that his nephew can be safe. His nephew is Miles Morales. In the Ultimate Spider Man comic, Miles Morales uncle is the Prowler. The Prowler is foe turned ally for Spider-Man in the original Amazing Spiderman comic. Prowler in an issue of Amazing Spiderman masquerade as Spidey to help him in drawing away suspicion on who Spiderman is. Holy Shit! Donald Glover as SpiderMan has been confirmed after all these years!
edited 6th Jan '18 12:37:17 PM by BigK1337
I'm not going to bother explaining for the umpteenth time why the whitewashing and the excuses given to defend it are such a clusterfuck, because I already know you're the type who aggressively doesn't care and will just brush off anything I say as "SJW speak" no matter how tactfully I put it.
I will say that, independently of that, Mordo was the closest thing the film had to a complex character and for that I think Ejiofor deserves particular praise for helping him maintain that sense of balance and depth. But honestly while Swinton did a good job I feel like almost anyone could've played the Ancient One just as well. The character wasn't given challenging material, and while her dying speech was good I don't think it was very technically demanding. Honestly given how they ended up handling the character it feels like a waste of Swinton's talent. So much telling, so little showing with the characterization (and much of it coming from based Mordo). They might as well put an Asian actor in there since visibility ended up being her most valuable aspect in the end.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:10:35 PM by AlleyOop
The real problem with casting Swinton was more that it was an attempt to avoid bringing up the comic book Ancient One's Tibetian heritage so it wouldn't get in trouble in China, which is honestly pretty cowardly.
That aside, you're stuck in a vice, because there are plenty of those who decried it for whitewashing who would look at an old Asian man as a wizened old Yoda figure and chew the movie out for being stereotypical.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Praising Swinton's performance misses the entire damn point that they whitewashed an Asian character to be white. It's not that hard to understand, whitewashing is shit and what they did is shit. As for Mordo, he's only barely saved by Ejiofior. Outside of that he's a really badly done attempt at trying to do another Loki but his progression from good guy to villain is really poorly done, rushed, and inconsistent. He's just suddenly crippling a guy at the end, there's no consistent development there.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I like Mordo, but his development does feel rushed. His arc as of itself is very understandable (he's a Knight Templar who discovers his fanatical devotion is based on a lie so he decides to tear the whole thing down), it just leaps from place to place due the fact it's done in a film with a lot on its plate as it is what with the whole magic shenanigans.
For me the final whitewashing insult was making Wong, a Tibetan character, into a Chinese character. You know, Tibet, the land which has been on the genocidal stranglehold of China for a few decades now. It's like making a Polish character German c. 1942.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."![]()
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It's...kind of eh. I mean, I went into it with little expectations since I didn't read the comics. I only expected there to be a group of kids which run away from their villain parents....and the show didn't even manage to match THAT low bar.
I mean, I don't hate it, but it is really, really slow paced (granted, I am used to Ao S speed, but it even feels slow compared to the Netflix shows), the plotting is very choppy, the story keeps going in circles and the one fight scene they had so far was frankly awfully shot. Honestly, if I didn't knew that it's only 10 episodes, I would have given up on it by now.
On the upside (for those who care about this) we have a very diverse cast including an openly lesbian character who just shared her first kiss. So, I guess props for the show for going there, even though it is a teenager-aimed show and not the Netflix r-rated bubble.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:26:51 PM by Swanpride
Old wizened Japanese woman (few of them get to be female). Youngish Southeast Asian man (underrepresented group). A black or Middle Eastern person of any age. Or even keep Swinton but at least get swap the Orientalist trappings for a more cosmopolitan or explicitly Celtic-looking form of mysticism. There's hundreds of Take a Third Option alternatives that negate most of the offensive aspects of the Magical Asian (who is usually specifically an old Asian male) without resorting to whitewashing, but they were apparently too lazy/closeminded for any of these to come up despite requiring very little effort.
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Basically. He's probably the most interesting character in the movie but is prevented from living up to his full potential because of all the problems that you just pointed out. That it's still more than what most of the other characters got is a nail in the script's coffin. I keep jumping back to praising Markus and Mcfeely and the Russos but they make a good contrast in terms of having a ton of material to cover on their plate and still finding the time to properly develop even minor characters. Especially since Dr. Strange's plot isn't even that complex. It's just addled by a lot of the cinematic equivalent of empty calories.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:30:49 PM by AlleyOop
While all of those might have been better than what we got, they still miss the main problem which is that TAO note is Tibetian in the comic book and the main reason he was changed was pressure from China, (as someone else has mentioned above as well).
That's in my mind much more of a problem than her simply being white; we can't treat the situation as if all the various peoples in the area can just be lumped into one.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:32:54 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Agreed, but I think getting an authentically Tibetan actor was a stretch as it was, so as long as they don't use a Chinese actor and thus feed into Chinese ethnonationalist propaganda they'd be in OK shape. Since the people of this version of Kamar-Taj are shown to be multiethnic and there were said to be multiple Sorcerers Supreme in the past, I think the danger of running into the All Asians Are Alike trope is less of a problem here than it could've been.
Marcus and Mc Feely are just awesome. They are imho the reason why the Captain America Franchise is by far the best with the best character development and the most consistent storyline. The MCU needs more writers like this.
I don't want Ao S to end anytime soon, but if it does, I hope Marvel will shuffle some of the writing talent there over to the movies. The people behind that are just so passionate details. I don't think I know any other show in which everything is relevant and can be pulled back into the story at any point without any trouble at all. Plus, those writers actually know how to write romance!
@Alley Oop “I'm not going to bother explaining for the umpteenth time why the whitewashing and the excuses given to defend it are such a clusterfuck, because I already know you're the type who aggressively doesn't care and will just brush off anything I say as "SJW speak" no matter how tactfully I put it.”
Wow, that came out of nowhere. When I said I didn’t care I meant as in the whole case of Ability Over Appearance arguement and that the role of Ancient One in the film can be treated as a title for multiple successor as Ra’s al Ghul in both Batman Begins and Arrow. I was actually one of the people who were weirded out by this change initially as it makes more sense for the Ancient One to be Tibetan as he was in the comics.
Though what really made the comment came out of nowhere was the whole assumption you made on my character that I would aggressively ignore the elephant in the room regarding the cast choice and write it off as “SJW speak”. Seriously? All I said was I didn’t care in the end after seeing the movie; it bother me during the initial production of the movie as it is an unnecessary change to a charcter, but after seeing the movie its not a problem for me as I liked it for how they handle the character.
Honestly my biggest problem with TAO thing was that they cast a white woman, and then kept all of the Asian trappings. It's still an Asian monastery in Asia, the clothing/aesthetics are still Asian, there's still some elements of Asian philosophy, etc. And yet the only actual Asian of any real prominence is Wong, and even he doesn't get that much to do. The rest are just background fodder/glorified wall-paper essentially.
If they wanted Tilda Swinton so bad, then they should have changed the setting and/or removed the Asian stuff entirely. Then at least there also wouldn't be this feel of "trying to have your cake and eat it to" permeating throughout the film.
In hindsight they should of taken a Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adevntures approach with the magic order.
. . . Yeah I just mentioned that manga just for the excuse to point out that series have a Tibetan monk name Tom Petty! Why wasn’t that made into a movie . . . the first three parts, they already did a live action movie of the fourth.
edited 6th Jan '18 2:10:29 PM by BigK1337
@Punisher 286-
I'd also add that I forget the specifics, but like the magical texts they name drop are actually quite Western, despite the implication that they are in Tibetan. Like I believe the immortality related one is supposed to be by Count Cagliostro.
Another thing is that Swinton's race makes for some iffy undertones in how Strange figures that she's an intellectual using the spiritual/magical stuff as metaphor especially after she starts intelligently citing various contemporary scientists. I say iffy because since Swinton is white and British, it gives the impression that Strange trusts her as a fellow Westerner, not just because of what she's saying.

I am not saying that this isn't something which should be discussed, but I hate the hyperbole which always slips into the discussion, acting that Marvel did the worst thing ever. It's not a Ghost in the Shell situation, in which Sony created the unfortunate implication for itself. We are talking about the director having to navigate a minefield, and while I don't think that he did a great job, I also don't think that he did the worst job ever.
And I think that Swinton is awesome in the role. Sorry, but she really is. She has this air around her only a few actors have....I actually can't think of anyone else which has this otherworldly quality. I guess there might be someone if you search long enough, but off the top of my mind, nope, can't come up with anyone of any skin colour.
edited 6th Jan '18 12:14:02 PM by Swanpride