BayCon, as a convention run by fans, has a yearly tradition in which we honor someone who has made significant contributions to fandom. This year, we welcome Wanda Kurtcu, a Bay Area convention veteran, as our Fan Guest of Honor. We sat down with Wanda for a short interview to help our members get to know her before BayCon 2019.
BayCon Fan Guest of Honor Dr. Wanda Kurtcu has been a regular panelist on issues of equality and inclusiveness in fandom for more than 10 years, but her honored guest status was unexpected. “I’m honored to be the Fan Guest of Honor, but I was surprised to be asked”, she said. “In my experience, this is usually not a person of color. This broke a barrier.”
Redefining that experience is what keeps her coming back to BayCon and other fan gatherings (she named WorldCon, Silicon Valley Comic-Con, and SiliCon). “I’ve been very vocal about diversity in fandom, hosting panels promoting a diverse community.” At several BayCons, Kurtcu and friends have cosplayed The Three Doctors. “‘Doctor Who has never been a black woman’, I’ve been told. ‘So what?’, I say. ‘Doctor Who is a time lord, taking on new appearances.’ Within cosplay, you don’t see many [people of color], but we’re celebrating our interests. Don’t tell me we don’t belong here, because we belong here.” She said that experience included her arcade visits in the early ’80s, as an Air Force officer in Germany. She went to play Space Invaders, Centipede, and Breakout, but the vibe was ‘What’s she doing here?’, she said.
The writer of “A Matter of Honor”, an episode in Season 3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Kurtcu’s license plate is “NCC 1954.” “I was parked in front of a Starbucks,” she said. “A man comes in and says: ‘Who’s the guy who owns that car?’. ‘I own that car’, I said. He didn’t believe it. That’s the kind of life experience I have. I’m as geeky as the next person, but because I’m a woman of color, and some people have a hard time with that. When I talk to fanboys, they’re usually white men, amazed at my knowledge.”
Kurtcu cited the “Asian conundrum” and “whitewashing” in popular fiction as a common obstacle. “Manga and anime come from Asia, but manga characters have white eyes, and are fair-skinned. The majority of lead characters [in popular culture] are white, and people of color get killed first.” She gave the SyFy series Z Nation as an example: “They seek a cure for the zombie outbreak. There’s a sharp black guy, ex-military, who’s killed in the first episode, and it was written so he couldn’t be used as a zombie later.”
Speaking of the intersection of her fandom and her advocacy Wanda says, “I will continue to vigorously and loudly address the challenges of diversity of Fandom, from the whitewashing of people of color in movies in media, to the lack of diversity on SF/F convention panels. And no, I will not back down. I am happy to have the continued support of my BayCon friends as allies and supporters. I am thoroughly confident they will not only ‘talk the talk’ but have the courage to ‘walk the walk’ with me on my journey of inclusion.”