![]() ![]() You couldn’t cobble together more ethnic villain stereotypes if you tried. He took a British man with dark skin and turned him into a modern terrorist who was allegedly a follower of the teachings of Sun Tzu. remember the “Mandarin”’s spiel on fortune cookies? They’re an American invention, made by taken vaguely foreign things and presenting it to look Chinese? Well, that’s exactly what Shane Black did with the Mandarin. They grounded it in reality and changed Tony Stark's captivity to being in the Middle East, rather than the eastern part of Asia.īen Kinglsey as the Mandarin is exactly what we expect the character to be like in a sequel to the first Iron Man film. Which is exactly how they changed Iron Man's backstory in the first film. On the most basic level, this version of the Mandarin has no super-powerful rings and takes cues from modern-day Middle Eastern terrorists. Let me explain, because that’s a heck of a statement. In an interesting twist, the character is a racist caricature on purpose. What if he's sort of this all-things-to-all-people uber-terrorist? What if he is the myth, and in the end that is what we're dealing with: a created myth perpetuated and cobbled together from popular consciousness?" They took the idea and ran with it.Īccording to Shane Black: “I wanted to do an interesting story choice, something that was about our own fear and our own ways of viewing villains. It was Drew Pierce, the film’s screenwriter, who suggested that “the Mandarin” should be a fake a front for the real villain. Third of all, Marvel was bending over backwards to please Chinese audiences, and not even the stunt casting of Fan Bingbing for a China-only cut would make up for the fact that the Mandarin is, once again, a Yellow Peril stereotype. Second of all, Shane Black wanted to adapt the “Extremis” storyline. First of all, the first film basically covered the Mandarin by having the Ten Rings represent him metaphorically. Superman will always end up fighting Lex Luthor and Batman will always end up fighting the Joker.Įxcept here, but who knows what Season 2 would have brought us?īut when Iron Man 3 was first being planned, Shane Black did not want to use the character at all. But the plan was soon reversed for many reasons, including the fact that the Mandarin’s Ten Rings of Power were a little far-fetched for their grounded, realistic take on the character.īut you can’t not use a hero’s arch villain. The plan was to build up Obadiah Stane’s treachery over the trilogy and have the Mandarin be the villain in the first film. In fact, he actually appeared in an early draft of the first Iron Man film, revamped into being a young, millionaire playboy, much like Tony. Including making him look greener, I guess.īut even with all these revamps, he simply isn’t used as much these days because of. Including making him look whiter, I guess.Īnd the various cartoons have their own methods of trying to make him less of a stereotype. The character first appeared in Tales of Suspense #50 in 1964, when such things weren’t considered racist.Īs such, the character has been given numerous revamps in the comics to make him more relevant and less of a stereotype. And with his magical Ten Rings of Power (later retconned into being alien technology), he has the means to inflict his horrible will on the world. A brilliant Asian man who dreams of conquest and idolizes his ancestor, Genghis Khan. ![]() Iron Man’s classic arch nemesis is a Yellow Peril stereotype. ![]() No, Rā's al Ghūl… and, yes, the Mandarin. The character was so popular that he inspired similar “Yellow Peril” villains like Ming the Merciless, Dr. Long story short, Fu Manchu's massive cruelty was matched by his massive intellect and enormous criminal empire. (I’ll be getting to that soon enough, don’t you worry.) But there was once a character called Dr. The British alternate between being suave masterminds to Cockney brutes, South Americans are usually portrayed as drug dealers, and anyone who doesn’t look white can be cast as some kind of terrorist. Most, if not all, ethnicities have a go-to villain stereotype that we tend to use here in America, many of which have fallen out of fashion as racist stereotypes stop being okay to use. ![]() The Mandarin, despite any and all depth the character has gained since his creation, was designed as a stereotype. I’m sorry to all the character’s fans, but it’s true. Joy.įirst and foremost, let’s talk about the original Mandarin from the comics. ![]()
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