Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

How can fans coax creators into diversifying the faces of their stories? Racebending.com, the site that created a stir in 2010 with The Last Airbender casting protests, hopes to inspire fans to act with solutions. And there’s no more perfect place to talk to fans than at Comic-Con.

Today, Racebending.com hosts its first Comic-Con panel after a successful debut with a Wonder Con panel. The website presents a panel on diversity in fandom with Phil Yu of Angry Asian Man, Dante Basco (who supplied his voice to the original Avatar series, on which the movie was based), television writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, author Malindo Lo, Racialicious’ Arturo Garcia, and USC professor Henry Jenkins.

Racebending.com is more than a site or the people behind it; it’s a movement. But Michael Le, who will moderate the panel, and Dariane Nabor, a stalwart component and presence in the site’s activities, are quick to give props to site founder Marissa Lee. Single-handedly, Lee contacted creators, churning out emails with requests to appear on the panel. A passionate, invaluable voice for the API community, Lee has applied steady pressure to those in Hollywood who seek to bland out their projects and cast Caucasians in originally API roles.

It is this active voice that Racebending.com believes fans can channel, to those who re-create the worlds of fantasy and imagination. Or do we continue to buy into world after world steeped in Asian cultures, with lead characters in yellowface -- every story suddenly Dances with Wolves? Another Asian culture without Asians?

On the eve of the panel, Mike worried that no one will show up. But jitters aside, the room and their message will be far from empty.

Diversity in Fandom 102

Sunday, July 24 · 10:00am – 11:00am

Room 24ABC