Chloe Bennet is best known for playing Daisy Johnson/Quake on Agents of SHIELD, which came to an end back in August. The actor is also outspoken about the importance of Asian American representation and has talked about that representation in Marvel. Now, Bennet is reaching outside of Hollywood and leading an effort to get more Asian Americans to vote in the 2020 election. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bennet and Funny or Die‘s Brad Jenkins are enlisting help from the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities with big names such as directors Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) and Lulu Wang (The Farewell) to “boost voter turnout at the polls.”
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Bennet and Jenkins both attended a panel shortly after the 2016 election, which is what lead to this current initiative. “It was a very sad panel,” Jenkins explained. “It was supposed to be this celebration of the Asian-American experience, and it essentially ended up like a wake. The biggest takeaway was that Asian-Americans did not show up at the polls. The Asian-American community is so vibrant and powerful and creative and we weren’t seeing it.”
They launched RUN AAPI (aka Represent Us Now) in 2017 and are now trying to boost the signal with a new campaign called #TheNew. “We need to rebrand what it means to be Asian-American. We need to make sure we instill pride in our community,” Bennet told THR. “You might not be represented yet but look at what we’re doing so far. Let’s bring it all together to bring pride in our community.”
“It’s kind of on us as a community to step up and go, ‘We’re actually going to change that.’ This is a bigger culture issue,” she added. “The lack of pride in our community comes from generations not seeing ourselves on screen, not seeing ourselves in politics, not seeing ourselves represented. When you see yourself, you are inspired.”
“For us, Chloe and I believe a fundamental thing we want to change is we want to be a lot more out front with why our community is so important and why you need to pay attention to us,” Jenkins explained. “You have to make the case for politicians to pay attention to our story and why we matter.”
You can check out some of the celebrity posts below:
As a proud polynAsian I’d like to draw your attention to this. I can’t vote in America but if you can, you really should. I mean, like actually, you should vote. I’m not fucking with you. Vote, dude. This is (Y)our time. #TheNew @runaapi pic.twitter.com/p4rUCNesip
— Taika Waititi (@TaikaWaititi) September 25, 2020
You can learn more about the campaign here.
