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The 'Dr. Strange' director finally said something smart about whitewashing in the movie.

When Marvel Studios began working on their upcoming "Doctor Strange" movie, the creators found themselves in a bit of a pickle.

See, the character of Dr. Strange as he was originally created involves a once-arrogant surgeon who shatters his hands in an accident then travels to Tibet and learns magic from someone called The Ancient One and becomes the planet's "Sorcerer Supreme."


GIF from "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "Doctor Strange." Kind of.

That's all good and well and comic book-y, but it also reeks of the whole "white savior" trope, which is, erm, kinda really colonialist in a way that may have been overlooked 50 years ago when the character debuted.

But not so much in 2016.

Mind=BLOWN. GIF from "Doctor Strange."

Which makes their casting decision for the role of a Tibetan magic man even more puzzling.

According to the movie's screenwriter C. Robert Cargill, the filmmakers were concerned that acknowledging the Tibetan aspects of the story would anger China, the second largest movie market in the world, to the point of banning the film. And casting the part with a non-Tibetan Asian actor could, itself, be seen as cultural erasure.

Hence, the pickle.

In the end, the filmmakers made the choice that was best for their bottom line.

GIF from "Only Lovers Left Alive."

While the blow was somewhat softened by casting a woman — specifically the amazing Tilda Swinton — the decision also highlighted another glaring, grievous Hollywood problem.

Quite frankly, there aren't a lot of parts for Asians. In fact, there were no Asian actors in 40 of the 100 top-grossing films from 2007 to 2014. At all.

The roles that are available are already extremely limited, often to stereotypes or minor roles. The number of leading roles for Asian actors has actually shrunk over the years because the roles are whitewashed instead and given to marquee actors.

And don't even get me started on this:


GIF from "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

The reaction to the casting was swift and forceful. Prominent Asian entertainers like George Takei and Margaret Cho took to Twitter, where the hashtag #whitewashedOUT gained fast prominence.

"So let me get this straight. You cast a white actress so you wouldn’t hurt sales … in Asia?" Takei wrote on Facebook. "This backpedaling is nearly as cringeworthy as the casting. Marvel must think we’re all idiots."

"We have been invisible for so long we don't even know what we can do," Cho told IndieWire.

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GIF from the Webby Awards.

Marvel Studio and the "Doctor Strange" creative team tried several times to double-down, but the hole just keep getting deeper — until director Scott Derrickson issued his own response:

Certainly Marvel has and continues to make tremendous strides in the diversity department — heck, they cast Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Transylvanian Baron Mordo in "Doctor Strange." Would they have consciously participated in the whitewashing of Asian culture if not for those perceived political-economic pressures? Who knows.

The simple truth is that there's no magic that can change the multilayered oppressions of the past. There's not necessarily one "right choice" in these situations, but that's because it's not a zero-sum game.

It's not a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario because the damning has already been done throughout history.

All there's left to do is help in righting the course of the culture.

GIF from "Doctor Strange."

Derrickson's simple statement is a humbling acknowledgement that sometimes when you screw up, all you can do is learn, move forward, and do better next time.

After all, that's basically how the arrogant Dr. Stephen Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme.

Joy

Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

The sweet-faced, loveable Labrador Retriever is no longer America’s favorite dog breed. The breed best known for having a heart of gold has been replaced by the smaller, more urban-friendly French Bulldog.

According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

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Pop Culture

Woman was mocked online for calling an $80 purse a 'luxury item.' Her response went viral.

"I'm so grateful that my dad was able to get me one. He worked so hard for that money.”

@zohtaco/TikTok

Zoe Gabriel, showing off her new purse from Charles & Keith

Insults of any kind are painful, but jabs towards someone’s financial status are their own breed.

In January 2023, Singapore-based Zoe Gabriel was on the receiving end of this particular flavor of mockery when she posted a TikTok about a purse from local retail brand Charles & Keith—a gift bought for her by her father.

In her excitement, the 17-year-old called the bag, which costs around $80, a “luxury” item as she unwrapped it. Her excitement was sadly cut short by some of the negative comments she received.

One comment seemed to stand out above the rest and prompted Gabriel to post an emotional response video.

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Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS.

On May 25, the show’s Instagram page posted a touching video of an off-the-cuff moment between Barrymore and a fan during a taping of her show. In the clip, Barrymore realizes that someone in the audience is crying. So, instead of ignoring the fan, she jumps to action to see what is the matter.

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PeacefulBarb's "7 Things Adult Children May Need to Hear"

Just like there are no hard-set rules for raising children, there is no perfect guidebook on how to be a supportive parent to an older child. As parents watch their kids grow and start their own families, it can be hard for them to navigate the new role they have in their lives.

That’s why Barb Schmidt, who goes by PeacefulBarb on TikTok, shared her list of the ‘7 Things Adult Children May Need to Hear’ from their parents. It’s a great starting point for parents who aren’t sure what their older children need.

Schmidt is an international best-selling author, sought-after motivational speaker, mindset coach and mindfulness teacher.

Here’s her list:

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Education

Nurse explains how babies breathe in utero and the internet is amazed

A new mom asked how babies practice breathing, and Nurse Jen delivered an answer that's blowing people's minds.

Nurse explains how babies breathe in utero.

There are so many questions out there that we don't realize we want to know the answers to until someone else asks. Once the question is in the vicinity of our ear holes, suddenly we're like, "Oh, yeah. How does that work?" That's pretty much how this TikTok video went for a lot of viewers, myself included.

I have had four (yes, four) children exit my body, and it never dawned on me to ask further than the initial question of how babies breathe in there. It's a question that most new moms either don't think to ask or ask only once and get a similar answer to the one I received, which is that they take in oxygen via their umbilical cord connected to the placenta, so they don't need to breathe in the traditional way we think of until after birth.

But when a new mom asked the people of the internet how her unborn baby was able to practice breathing without drowning, Jen Hamilton, an OB nurse, decided to answer in a video.

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A mother with a megaphone goes on strike.

Every parent knows that sometimes their kids, especially teenagers, can say things in the heat of the moment they don’t really mean. But the mother at the center of this story took her teenage son’s outburst seriously and turned it into an opportunity to teach him a lesson. The question is, did she go too far to make a point?

A 35-year-old mom wanted to learn if she had been too hard on her 14-year-old son, so she shared her story on Reddit’s AITA subforum (we've abbreviated the forum's name to avoid printing foul language). AITA is where people vote on whether the poster was right or wrong in how they handled a situation.

“Lately, he has been acting out a little at home and school, so I decided to sit him down to try and figure out what was happening,” the mother wrote in a post that received over 800 comments. She said that the boy had been cursing out his parents as well as his teacher.

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