By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Nov. 4: Tibetan activists in the city of New York are set to protest against the woe concerning casting of an ethnically white person in place of a character who is originally a Tibetan in the Marvel studios production ‘Doctor Strange’ which hit theatres worldwide Friday.
Urgyen Badheytsang, Campaign Director of Students for a Free Tibet, told NBC that his organization and fellow activists carried out protests outside the AMC Village 7 theatre in Manhattan’s East Village Thursday evening. He added that the protests are not targeted against moviegoers.
The makers of the Hollywood action/fantasy film cast Tilda Swinton for the role of the ‘Ancient One’ based on a Tibetan master who becomes Doctor Strange’s mentor and teacher in the original marvel comic books. Owing to the fear of losing and offending China and its government, one of their biggest and most lucrative markets after the US, the makers had scrapped the Tibetan origin of the character.
“I think that’s very sad, and that might be even worse than whitewashing. Right now they are just completely mish mashing cultures. They’re making people dumber by placing this white woman in the middle of a monastery in Nepal,” Badheytsang said. “If people are already watching this, I think that’s fine, but you have to educate yourself about why this is happening. And if you can, you have to make a stand and communicate that,” he further added.
The C Robert Cargill, the Screenwriter of the movie, in an interview earlier explained, “The Ancient One was a racist stereotype who comes from a region of the world that is in a very weird political place. He originates from Tibet, so if you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he’s Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people.”
He also added there was the risk factor of Beijing banning the movie if they cast a Tibetan for the role. He said that China may go, ‘Hey, you know one of the biggest film-watching countries in the world? We’re not going to show your movie because you decided to get political.’
The studio and film Director has denied allegations of white washing and said the role in the movie was written especially for Swinton in mind.
Last year the gross box office in China was 6.78 billion USD with experts forecasting that the Chinese markets will overtake Hollywood by 2018.
