When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?

Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it's about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy. Spoilers... More »

The Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu, and the Ethnic Future

Welcome back to MangoBot, a biweekly column about Asian futurism by TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama. Back in the 1920s and 30s, when Asian immigration to the US and Europe was picking up steam, prominent science fiction writers like Philip Nowlan and H.P. Lovecraft created speculative scenarios starring massive hordes of horrible, slanty-eyed, intelligent Asians who were either taking over or destroying the world. Yellow peril science fiction was never large enough to be a genre in and of itself, but I decided it was worth traveling back in time to revisit the trend in its historical context. To kick off this topic, let me introduce you to a character you may already know. Fu Manchu, the Chinese master criminal with the infamous long sinister mustache, was created by British author Sax Rohmer around 1912. More »