Comic book fans are an insistent subgroup of art aficionados. Some might go so far as to say they are belligerent. They covet elements of their heroes; Superman’s cape, Captain America’s shield, Spiderman’s mask, as if they are talisman objects of veneration. They hang objects on their walls, wear costumes during Halloween, don the same outfits at Comic Conventions, and blur the lines between a preoccupation and religious observation.
Where faith has always depended on a creation myth to explain how and why their object of affection came to be, comic superheroes have relied on origin stories. Along with the previously mentioned superheroes, most fans can easily rattle off the origins of Batman, the Incredible Hulk, or Iron Man. These characters did not derive their powers from other cultures. Superheroes are supernatural beings and fans can rest comfortably understanding that any rationale for their existence is from a fabricated world. Create a rich world with many textures that springs solely from the imagination and nobody ends up feeling hurt.
Of course, the comfort of a purely imaginative superhero industrial complex is eventually ruined u[pon further examination. Viewers need only to remember the understandable furor that followed the release of 2016’s Doctor Strange. It’s a furor that eventually subsided but deserves to be reexamined now that the sequel Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness has been released. What is the origin story of Doctor Stephen Strange? How did he get his powers? Was he originally supposed to be an Asian man? If so, why and how did he become the very white and very British Benedict Cumberbatch?
The Doctor Strange origin story (by co-creators Stephen Ditko and Stan Lee) first appeared in Strange Tales #110, July 1963, The vain and egotistical Doctor Stephen Strange injures his hands in a car crash. After all conventional (read: Western) means of curing his problems fail, Strange travels to Tibet and seeks guidance from “The Ancient One,” a Tibetan monk who transforms him into a :Master of the Mystic Arts.” Strange becomes a Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, fighting all manner of evil forces with the powers he received from the Tibetan monk. It’s within this context of mystical forces from the “Dark Orient” that Strange is foisted upon the world.
The first of several problematic issues came when advance news surfaced before the release of the 2016 Doctor Strange that the Tibetan mystic monk “The Ancient One” was to be played by the very female and very British Tilda Swinton. In a June 2021 posting in Indie Wire, writer Zack Sharf took on the debate that had been happening for five years and would continue through today: was the casting of Tilda Swinton an example of whitewashing? In the article, Sharf noted that Swinton sought the advice of Korean American comic Margaret Cho “on why starring as the Ancient One was problematic.”
“Cho explained to Swinton [in a text exchange] that Asian and Asian American stories ‘are
told by white actors over and over again and we feel at a loss to know how to cope with it.’”
Cho, a comedienne/actress who came to the mainstream American consciousness in her short-lived but historic 1994-1995 sitcom All American Girl went on to express her displeasure over “…being asked to explain ‘whitewashing’ on behalf of all Asian Americans to someone she had never met-a request that…highlighted Swinton’s white privilege and fragility.”
It’s those last two points, white privilege and fragility, that are at the heart of this issue. Marvel and Disney Studios has taken strides towards inclusiveness through such films as Black Panther, but Doctor Strange is still locked in the marginalization and fetishising of Asian iconography that was a given in 1963 but would have been filtered out when it came time to make the films. Sean Howe’s 201w book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story effectively summarized the essence of Stephen Strange:
“Stephen Strange was part of a Ditko tradition that carried back to the 1950s, the glory-craving bastard whose journeys in a snow-capped East leads him to a comeuppance from a wise and ancient mystic.”
It takes only a little research regarding Marvel’s tendency to recycle characters, to see even more problems with the story. Simply put, Doctor Strange was a variation of Doctor Anthony Druid, also known as Doctor Droom and Druid. In Droom’s origin story, the transformation to what he was (a white man) to what he was destined to be (an Asian man) was played as horrific:
“‘ My eyes, they’re becoming slanted! And I’ve a- a moustache!”
“”Yes,Doctor Droom” [the eastern mystic responds] “I have given you an appearance suitable to your new role.”
While this is not a direct indication that Strange was supposed to be Asian and that the transformation was meant to seem horrific, the point is clear. All these characters are interchangeable once the formula is cracked. A difficult and troubled genius (usually a white man) finds himself at a crossroads in his personal and professional life. In exchange for infinite powers and/or immortality, he makes a deal with a malevolent force. While the origins of Doctor Strange suggested he could have been Asian back in 1963, that was not to be. A November 2, 2016 posting in comicbookmovie.com puts it this way:
“…once [co-creator] Stan Lee noticed that Strange had the potential of becoming a character who could carry his own title, they needed to use his origin story to transform him into an archetype of a Marvel hero, a.k.a a strong-jawed, handsome white dude.”
Beyond what movie studios may or may not have done regarding appropriating Asian culture to serve antiquated notions of “The Mystical Orient,” the issue of how sci-fi/superhero films portray Asian society as a whole has always been problematic. In a November 16, 2021 Hollywood Reporter article by Evan Nicole Brown titled “How Sci-Fi Films Use Characters to Telegraph the Future While Also Dehumanizing Them,” the conclusion is clear. There are still problems. The article focuses on a new (at that time) video presentation by Thai-American artist Astria Suparak. In it, the artist explores how “Asian cityscapes, symbols, and cultural traditions [create] a gulf between how the ‘future’ is coded and who gets meaningful character development.” Suparak presents her thesis:
“This whole series…draws on over 50 years of white-made American futuristic sci-fi…that still [has] these really old, tired, stale stereotypes of Asian culture and what Asians can be.” In short, sympathetic robots are often coded as white while the malevolent and homicidal robots are coded as Asian. While exploiting the richness of Samurais and Katana swords for what they can offer white culture, these films (including the Doctor Strange series) will just as well dismiss them as stale and static. Stephen Strange is not a robot, but he might as well be. His control of many multiverses is shaky and uncertain at times. A perceptive viewer might justifiably argue that Strange would be nowhere without Wong, his faithful Asian guide through his own films and four other Marvel titles. It’s probably nor beyond the realm of possibility that Wong might get his own film, but in the meantime we still have Stephen Strange. While the good Doctor’s films are equal parts exciting and horrific, the stench of Asian cultural appropriation is unavoidable. Perhaps future films in the series will address these issues, but I’m not holding my breath.
SAMPAN, published by the nonprofit Asian American Civic Association, is the only bilingual Chinese-English newspaper in New England, acting as a bridge between Asian American community organizations and individuals in the Greater Boston area. It is published biweekly and distributed free-of-charge throughout metro Boston; it is also delivered to as far away as Hawaii.
