e. v.

What Marvel is doing with this film is inexcusable. I’m Tibetan, and I grew up in America as a child of refugees. My father was a fan of Marvel comics as a child, and one of his favorite stories was Doctor Strange’s, because of his connection to our homeland, Tibet. The Ancient One was a high Tibetan lama who taught Doctor Strange the art of magic. You might think Marvel’s only crime is whitewashing him, but its a lot worse then that. tl;dr Marvel blatantly turned the Ancient One into a white woman, as well as changed Doctor Strange’s original setting of Tibet to Nepal, in order to avoid any involvement with Tibet’s current politics (aka oppression) with Communist China. 

The reason my parents are refugees is because of the Chinese genocide of Tibetans. Tibet is a country occupied by China, and is one of the most oppressed countries in the world. You probably don’t know much about it because China’s position as a global superpower as well as the government’s complete control of media and news. There is no freedom of speech in all of China, therefore national censorship is extremely common and no one who isn’t involved really knows anything. China pretends that all Tibetans are happy and they really do not like anyone even mentioning the Tibet situation, especially outsiders.