Cosplayers: Gender and Identity 9780367715717, 9780367715991, 9781003152798

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1 All the Con’s a Stage: A Study of (Cos)players
Introduction
Setting the Stage
Limitations of Cosplay Research
The (Cos)players: Research Methodology
Conclusion
Bibliography
2 Man Describes Not Me, Nor woman Neither: Cosplayers and the Fiction of Gender
Introduction
What’s in a Name? The Drag Debate
On Crossplay and Identity: Asking for Answers
What Do You Have to Say? Cosplayers On Gender and Identity
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
3 On Bodies and Boundaries: Regulating Fantasy in Real Spaces
Introduction
Peace-bound: Convention Rules
Regulating the Cosplayer Body
A Defense of “Sexy” Cosplays
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
4 Manning the Gates: Minority Identities and Gatekeeping in Cosplay
Introduction
Cosplaying While Black
Othered Narratives
Internal Memos: Gatekeeping Within the Cosplay Community
Conclusion: Cosplay and Identity
Bibliography
5 The Cosplay’s the Thing
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

 i

Cosplayers

Cosplayers: Gender and Identity is an examination of identity practices in cosplay, as expressed by cosplayers themselves. It challenges the assumed correlation between cosplay and cosplayer identity and considers the lived experiences of cosplayers engaging in the fan practice of sartorial performance. Through a series of chapters covering the blurring lines of gender, sexualized fantasy in real spaces, and nostalgia, the author argues that observational data run the risk of affirming normative expectations of identity in the absence of cosplayer narratives, and produce misreadings that generalize. The work develops and builds an understanding of a complex cultural system of art, engaging with multiple methodologies to make identity, fandom, and critical analysis on the parts of participants and observers alike. This is an accessible and innovative study suitable for scholars and students in gender studies, cultural studies, sexuality studies, sociology, and media studies. A. Luxx Mishou (she/​her) is a queer femme Victorianist and gender studies scholar researching cosplay, comics, fashion, and the gothic. She holds a doctorate in Victorian literature and gender studies from Old Dominion University, where she defended her dissertation, Holy Stitches Batman, or, Performative Villainy in Gothic/​am, in 2020. She earned an MA in English literature and language from the University of Maryland College Park (conferred in 2007) and a BA in English from Washington College (conferred in 2005). She has recently contributed chapters to Fan Phenomena: Rocky Horror Picture Show (2015), Fashion and Material Culture in Victorian Fiction and Periodicals (2019), and Sartorial Fandom: Fashion, Beauty Culture, and Identity (forthcoming). Dr. Mishou has presented her research on masculinity in comics at the Northeast Modern Language Association conference (2015), on cosplay at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference (2017, 2019) and the Comics and Popular Arts Conference (2018), and on Alison Bechdel at the Modern Language Association conference (2018). She currently works as an adjunct and independent scholar.

 ii

Routledge Focus on Gender, Sexuality, and Comics Series Editor: Frederik Byrn Køhlert, University of East Anglia

Routledge Focus on Gender, Sexuality, and Comics publishes original short-​form research in the areas of gender and sexuality studies as they relate to comics cultures past and present. Topics in the series cover printed as well as digital media, mainstream and alternative comics industries, transmedia adaptions, comics consumption, and various comics-​associated cultural fields and forms of expression. Gendered and sexual identities are considered as intersectional and always in conversation with issues concerning race, ethnicity, ability, class, age, nationality, and religion. Books in the series are between 25,000 and 45,000 words and can be single-​authored, coauthored, or edited collections. For longer works, the companion series “Routledge Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Comics” publishes full-​length books between 60,000 to 90,000 words. Series editor Frederik Byrn Køhlert is a lecturer in American Studies at the University of East Anglia, where he is also the coordinator of the Master of Arts program in Comics Studies. In addition to several journal articles and book chapters on comics, he is the author of Serial Selves: Identity and Representation in Autobiographical Comics. Batman and the Joker Contested Sexuality in Popular Culture Chris Richardson Cosplayers Gender and Identity A. Luxx Mishou Gender and Sexuality in Israeli Graphic Novels Matt Reingold www.routledge.com/ ​ Routledge- ​ Focus- ​ o n- ​ G ender- ​ S exuality- ​ a nd-​ Comics-​Studies/​book-​series/​FGSC

 iii

Cosplayers Gender and Identity A. Luxx Mishou

 iv

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 A. Luxx Mishou The right of A. Luxx Mishou to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​71571-​7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​71599-​1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​15279-​8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

 v

Dedicated to Avi Santo

 vi

 vi

Contents

Acknowledgments 

ix

1

All the con’s a stage: a study of (cos)players  Introduction  1 Setting the stage  2 Limitations of cosplay research  4 The (cos)players: research methodology  7 Conclusion  12

1

2

Man describes not me, nor woman neither: cosplayers and the fiction of gender  Introduction  15 What’s in a name? The drag debate  18 On crossplay and identity: asking for answers  22 What do you have to say? Cosplayers on gender and identity  23 Conclusion  29

15

3

On bodies and boundaries: regulating fantasy in real spaces  33 Introduction  33 Peace-​bound: convention rules  35 Regulating the cosplayer body  40 A defense of “sexy” cosplays  48 Conclusion  49

4

Manning the gates: minority identities and gatekeeping in cosplay  Introduction  54 Cosplaying while Black  58

54

 vi

viii  Contents Othered narratives  64 Internal memos: gatekeeping within the cosplay community  67 Conclusion: cosplay and identity  71 5

The cosplay’s the thing 

75

Index 

80

 ix

newgenprepdf

Acknowledgments

I would first like to acknowledge the 167 cosplayers who took the time to respond to my surveys in 2015 and 2019. Your contributions have done a great deal to help increase an understanding of your play and your art –​I would not, and could not, have done this without you. I am especially thankful for your stories, which have made this research all the more human, and feel all the more important. To those of you who shared parts of yourselves you cannot disclose in your daily lives, please know that you were heard, and your stories are respected. I hope in the time that’s passed you’ve found peace and love. And I hope all 167 of you are still joyfully cosplaying. I would also like to acknowledge the 36 nerdlesque performers who responded to my 2020 survey. I was not able to give your stories the space they deserve in this volume, but your voices were heard, and I hope to share them soon. As forever and always, I would like to acknowledge the endless love and support of my wife Maddox, who makes writing possible. I’d also like to acknowledge my children –​enthusiastic cosplayers who were sorely disappointed they weren’t included in this book.

 x

 1

1  All the con’s a stage A study of (cos)players

Introduction Cosplay is fun. Cosplay is an art, an act of textual analysis, a performance, an investment, and an argument. Cosplay is a social activity and a means of individual expression, a hobby, a profession (for a select few), and an active identity –​“I am a cosplayer.” Cosplay is an international artform with global roots in masquerade, fashion, carnival, theatre, and fandom. It is produced by humans and informed by all of the complex intersectional identities and experiences with which humans engage with media, and with each other (Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy, 2019). There is for some a sense of playful deviance in cosplay –​a bucking of standards and expectations, and a peaceful rebellion against social roles. Though cosplay is sanctioned by most fan conventions and enjoyed by many attendees, it is not without its detractors (Winge, 2019). Cosplay is also a source of questions: who, what, and why? Who are cosplayers, what are they doing, and why do they do it? Existing cosplay scholarship is critically invested in the acts and meanings of cosplay, reading cosplaying bodies as performative texts that function as cultural objects (“what?”) and reflections of the practices of an identified in-​group (“why?”). Broadly, cosplay scholarship is grounded in the act and moment of play –​the cosplayed body performing in sanctioned spaces. This work does not yet engage with the practicality of being a cosplayer –​the social and economic barriers, limitations, and anxieties that cosplayers negotiate in order to bring their performative art to the social stage. By contrast, this book is invested in cosplayers (“who?”) rather than their specific cosplays, arguing that cosplay is not an exception from societal regulation, but remains fully defined by social, political, and economical structures that both enable and inhibit specific cosplay practices, and cosplayers. The contribution of this book is to bring an understanding of the practical

 2

2  All the con’s a stage and social to an understanding of cosplay, arguing that cosplayers are not divorced from barriers of sexism, racism, ableism, and phobias, but must directly negotiate the challenges of their communities in order to manifest the fantasy of cosplay. Cosplay is a narrative site that represents intersections of fantasy and reality performed by real people in real spaces. These people are my subject –​the cosplayers. The work of Cosplayers is to examine cosplayer experiences in America, as influenced by American media, institutions, and respectability politics.

Setting the stage An interest in how and why people dress as they do has inspired an entire field of study; so too has the desire to understand why people consume different media, and what this media says about time, place, and demographics. Cosplay is thus an interdisciplinary playground for scholars to read the art of dress, the impact and performance of fandom, and the psychological drive behind it all. Cosplay makes space to challenge artificial boundaries of age, gender, and natural cultural economies, and can itself perform an inquiry into definitions of sex, gender, and identity. As Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, and Geczy write, it is a global phenomenon (2019), and as Winge shows it is a social sphere with its own rituals and communities (2010). As an international practice, cosplay has attracted the attention of scholars from around the world who examine the practice through both national and international lenses. Though informed by her experiences abroad, Nicolle Lamerichs’s Productive Fandom (2018) is grounded in Lamerichs’s research at Dutch conventions, just as Norris and Bainbridge (2009) are informed by the practice of cosplay in Australia –​ as is Larissa Hjorth (2009). Crawford and Hancock (2019) position their research from the framework of cosplay in the United Kingdom, and Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, and Geczy (2019) are invested in the practices of Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Osmud Rahman, Liu Wing-​ sun, and Brittany Hei-​man Cheung (2012) likewise write of the emergence of cosplay in Hong Kong, while Kane Anderson (2014, 2015) and Suzanne Scott (2015, 2019) write as Americans attending the world-​ famous San Diego Comic-Con, where they are figuratively joined by Indian scholar Catherine Thomas (2014); Matthew Hale (2014) writes instead of Dragon Con, and Jen Gunnels (2009) reports her findings from New York. As an American cosplayer, my own research is directly informed by my attendance at New York Comic Con, Dragon Con, Emerald City Comic Con, Awesome Con, Baltimore Comic Con, Katsucon, and Otakon. Frankly, I’ll rarely pass on an opportunity to

 3

All the con’s a stage  3 cosplay, but my personal observations are limited to these national conventions, which cannot represent the universal experiences of cosplayers around the world. Much of this worldly existing research on cosplay is invested in the interrogation of fandom as related to fan identities, fan practices, and fan productions. Suzanne Scott writes of gender and fandom in both 2015 and 2018, and Craig Norris and Jason Bainbridge write that cosplay “displays how heavily an audience member is invested in the ideals of the show or identifies with a particular character and shows others how ‘serious’ a fan they are” (2009, par. 7). In 2011 Joel Gn argues that cosplay “is primarily motivated by [the cosplayer’s] intense attraction towards the character to which they were exposed” (587), and The Superhero Costume authors Barbara Brownie and Danny Graydon say explicitly that “the costume communicates efficiently and specifically the subject of one’s fandom, and their level of devotion to that particular cultural artifact” (2016, 109). Julia Round agrees and suggests that “cosplay … signals the wearer’s identity through their taste” (147). Cosplay scholarship has also recognized cosplay as a productive site through which to challenge notions of gender. Katrien Jacobs writes of queerness and cosplay in Japan, Hong Kong, and China in 2013, and Christopher McGunnigle interrogates comic book “genderswapping” cosplay in 2019. Also in 2019, Tompkins uses statistical data to answer the question “Is Gender Just a Costume?” in an examination of crossplay, and in 2020 Rachel Hui Ying Leng argues that “M2F crossplay is significant as an emergent and increasingly popular trend in the growing cosplay community” (91). When researchers seek to address particular questions related to cosplay practices, they routinely utilize surveys and interviews to gather statistical data. Juli Gittinger (2018) explores the intersection of performative religious identities and performative fan identities in hijabi cosplay through the circulation of an online questionnaire, and Rosenberg and Letamendi (2013) administer surveys to conduct psychological research to determine whether cosplayers are more likely to be introverts or extroverts. To test a list of nine hypotheses about cosplay, Dunn and Hermann (2020) collect hardcopy survey responses from 227 convention attendees, 152 of which self-​identify as cosplayers. Connor Emont Leshner and Sarah Amira De La Garza (2019) consider the relationship between cosplay, identity, and interpersonal relationships by surveying 929 self-​identified cosplayers. Exploring cosplay in Hong Kong, Osmud Rahman, Liu Wing-​sun, and Brittany Hei-​man Cheung (2012) conduct interviews of 15 cosplaying university students. As the field grows, an increasing number of cosplay scholars are also “coming out” as participants. Whereas Jen Gunnels’s “A Jedi like my

 4

4  All the con’s a stage father before me” establishes a narrative of anthropologic distance from a subject of observation, Lamerichs has from the first acknowledged her cosplay experience as informing her research, and Kane Anderson recounts not only personal Comicon experiences, but unanticipated representation within his own research, finding photos of himself in cosplay as the subject of cultural discourse (2014, 2015). Jordan Kass Lome’s (2016) experiences as a cosplayer provide her with insight to consider “The creative empowerment of body positivity in the cosplay community,” and Katarina HS Birkedal’s research on affect and cosplay is greatly enriched by her autoethnographic accounts and allows her to argue for the relevance of cosplay study to International Relations (2019). As a cosplayer I know a few things, but only a few, and look to both participant researchers and nonparticipant researchers who have established and explored the field. As a costumer and a cosplayer, I am also aware of the gatekeeping within the community –​cosplayers who scoff at purchased costumes and props, for example, or conversely deride professional cosplayers. Those who seek to define “cosplayer” by excluding the cosplay practices of some and lauding the cosplay practices of others. As Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, and Geczy recognize “this community is itself a double-​ edged sword that can mete out approval or condemnation” (2019, 5). Online and in person, at cons and backstage at shows, I have heard from participants who are afraid to label themselves as cosplayers because they purchased their cosplays, or have never been able to attend a large convention. As a cosplayer I am intimately aware of the sexism within cosplay communities, as participants vociferously condemn or defend femme-​bodied people who elect to cosplay “sexy” characters, or controversially sexualize a traditionally sex-​neutral character. I learned of my privilege as a white cosplayer when I listened to cosplayers of color who face institutional racism and bigotry from majority audiences condemning their adoption of white characters, despite the dearth of black characters available. I learned of the ableism, transphobia, and fat-​shaming within and without the community, and saw how it directly impacted the choices made by cosplayers. These complex narratives of experience are presently missing in cosplay research, and it is my intention here to bring cosplayer voices into the narrative of cosplay studies.

Limitations of cosplay research As recognized by Crawford and Hancock (2019), the expense of cosplay and accessing cosplay sites directly impacts participation, resulting in the impression that cosplay is a middle-​class hobby. To this point, it’s

 5

All the con’s a stage  5 important to acknowledge that conventions and comic cons are an inherent space of privilege, limiting attendance by virtue of cost, location, and attendance demographics. The best-​known in the United States –​San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic Con, Atlanta’s Dragon Con, and Baltimore’s Otakon –​are all hosted in coastal cities, which are known to deliberately increase rental costs during convention times. In addition to travel costs and expensive food costs is the literal price of admission, the least expensive ticket $40 per day (Otakon), and as much as $85 a day (Dragon Con). Further, one’s ability to secure badges to attend San Diego Comic-Con relies on a lottery, purposefully limiting and controlling attendance. Any patron who relies on a mobility device is forced to consider whether the site makes an effort to accommodate their attendance. Thrifty convention attendees will lessen the financial burden of con attendance by purchasing ticket packages, bunking several to a room, and strictly rationing food, but attendance still requires social, financial, and professional security, all of which are disproportionately more available to white, able-​bodied attendees than minority attendees. This will likely lead to disproportional representation in observational studies. Some conventions, like Dragon Con, are marketed as fan conventions, welcoming fandoms –​and cosplayers –​of wide genres, and enabling cosplayers from around the world to meet according to their favored mediums, genres, properties, characters, and archetypes. Other conventions, like Otakon, are marketed toward specific fandoms; Otakon celebrates Asian pop culture like manga, anime, video games, and more. One is more likely to find manga cosplayers than superhero cosplayers at Otakon, while a larger convention may demonstrate greater breadth. But the reputation of a convention, as well as its standard demographic, will impact cosplayer attendance and representation. One local convention has a reputation for attracting a largely masculine audience interested in sifting through boxes of unsorted comics. Another east coast con is notoriously unwelcoming for those who use mobility aids, as the crush of people makes it impossible to navigate vendor floors. Each of these factors, shared by word of mouth within cosplayer and fan communities, will impact the representation and demographics at an individual con, and will thus impact the quality and quantity of data collected by researchers conducting field work. Jen Gunnel’s 2009 analysis of Star Wars cosplay at New York Comic Con demonstrates the limitations of ethnographic research when it comes in conflict with the rules of a rule-​based performance site (Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy, 2019). As a nonparticipant observer, Gunnels’ research focuses on the observational surface,

 6

6  All the con’s a stage counting heads, witnessing photo ops, and speaking with hand-​selected cosplay participants. What her research does not consider is the unconscious learning of group participation –​that cosplayers will perform not just characters but even fandom for the entertainment of the nonparticipant observer. In her approach Gunnels assumes the fandom of the cosplayers and excitedly asks questions takes photos, and tries on costume pieces. What her essay does not immediately demonstrate is an awareness that cosplayers will err on the side of positive performance, choosing to be supportive of other fans even if it exceeds their own fandom (Winge, 2019; Mishou, 2019). The work of Nicolle Lamerichs offers other potentials. Lamerichs is a foundational scholar whose work importantly offers analyses of fan practices, experiences, affect, and methods. As a self-​identified cosplayer, Lamerichs has useful and intimate access to the cosplayer social sphere and uniquely considers elements of cosplay practices not readily available to nonparticipant observers, such as the material motivations that go into selecting and building a cosplay, or why one may elect to cosplay a character of which they are not a fan (2011). Over 29% of my own 2019 survey respondents indicated that they have cosplayed a character or property of which they are not a fan, echoing Lamerichs’s research on fan motivation. As a cosplayer who frequently cosplays characters and properties of which I am not a fan, I recognize that other cosplayers are more likely to play along than alienate a non-​costumed observer for an assumption of fandom. To this end, I conclude that the discovery of personal attachment or motivation in cosplaying is best disclosed by anonymous surveys and individual personal narratives. The observational analysis of cosplay is akin to the textual analysis of other cultural artifacts, in which the observer consumes the cultural product from a distance and interprets its intention, meaning, argument, and effectiveness in a theoretical context. As an understanding of theatrical conventions and social structures is important to a reading of Shakespeare, so too do cosplay scholars recognize the importance of the history of cosplay, theories of play, actual space, and consumption of fandom in their analyses. Observers are situated to speak on trends, participant and non-​participant interaction, the construction of convention space, and the material construction of cosplays as they interrogate practices and performances (Scott, 2015; Norris & Bainbridge, 2013; Gn, 2011; Kirkpatrick, 2015; Anderson, 2014; Truong, 2013; Lamerichs, 2018). Their research renders cosplay as a tangible object of study, distilling it to a static form akin to a manga or a film. But unlike such textual research, in which it is often productive to analyze an object in the absence of the author, cosplay research is additionally

 7

All the con’s a stage  7 complicated for its deeply human and individual complexity. As I argue elsewhere, there are two subjects within the text of a cosplay: the cosplay as an artifact and the cosplayer as both creator and subject. Kirkpatrick (2015) likewise separates cosplayer from practice when she writes that her intention is not to elucidate the experiences of the players but “identifying and then interrogating the general understanding of the practices” (1.7), recognizing the duality of the “source character and [the] cosplayer” (2.1). The results of my surveys suggest an unanticipated element necessary in an interrogation of personal identities: anonymity and disclosures. Under the safety of an anonymous survey, participants in both 2015 and 2019 disclosed elements of their identity they would be unwilling to address in personal interviews. Surveys demonstrate that cosplay is a performative space that gives participants the freedom to not just explore spectrums of sartorial coding but a guise under which they can perform their true identity. A number of trans and gender-​ nonconforming individuals wrote of being closeted by necessity (under pressure from family, from communities, from work), and using cosplay to combat their dysphoria.

The (cos)players: research methodology As a White, queer, cis femme American cosplayer and researcher (and comics fan), my own observations and personal experiences are inevitably bound by my unconscious bias and limitations. It is for this reason that I elected to conduct surveys of cosplayers anonymously and online. In the springs of 2015 and 2019, I published IRB-​approved surveys to gather both demographic data and personal narratives from individual cosplayers. Like Rosenberg and Letamendi’s 2013 “Expressions of Fandom: Findings from a Psychological Survey of Cosplay and Costume Wear,” both surveys asked for demographic information such as gender and sexuality; unlike their report, I used a number of “other” options in survey questions to allow respondents the opportunity to share narratives, concerns, fandoms, and practices at their discretion and desire. The 2015 survey, conducted through Survey Monkey, solicited responses exclusively from self-​identified “crossplayers,” or those who portray characters unaligned with their personal identities. In order to amass a wider perspective on identity and crossplay, this anonymous online survey was distributed on social media sites used by crossplayers, such as /​r/​crossplay on Reddit. The survey asked participants to self-​ identify their gender and sexuality, and to describe their crossplay participation. Questions included frequency of crossplaying, initial

 8

8  All the con’s a stage inspiration, and favorite experiences. In recognition of the potential complexity of expressing identity and interest, the ten-​question survey offered both multiple-​choice answer options and open text boxes. Open from March 17 to April 3, 2015, this initial survey resulted in 33 unique responses, hereafter individually referenced by year and respondent number (clumsily but necessarily as “Respondent 2015*13”). In 2019 I returned to my research to broaden my field of inquiry to hear from cosplayers more generally. The 2019 survey, conducted through Survey Planet and consisting of 23 questions, focused on the personal experiences of cosplayers as unique individuals. Questions 1 through 4, and 16, asked for demographic information, such as gender identification, preferred pronouns, and influential identity markers (discussed at length in Chapter 4). Questions 5 through 15, and 23, asked respondents to relate their cosplaying experiences, and questions 17–​22 asked additional questions of self-​identified crossplayers. The survey included both multiple-​choice questions and short answers, as a primary goal was to gain a sense of cosplayer voices –​what the individual thinks of their own experiences, and not just what an observer may discern at a cosplay event. To advertise the survey, I published an active link through my Twitter feed, my Instagram accounts, on Facebook, and in private groups populated by cosplayers and nerdlesque performers. The posts were made shareable on each platform and were circulated by academic and performance colleagues alike. As of July 3, 2019, the survey gathered 133 unique responses, from new cosplayers (29.8% indicated they have cosplayed for 1–​3 years) to veteran cosplayers (26% indicated they have cosplayed for over a decade), hereafter referred to individually by year and respondent number (i.e., “Respondent 2019*103”). The response data includes a breadth of demographic information, but, more important to the present research, individual narratives from cosplayers on their personal identities as individuals, their identities as cosplayers, their interests, motivations, fandoms, and social experiences. The theoretical approach of Cosplayers: Gender and Identity is grounded in gender studies, queer theory, and fashion studies, focusing on the ways people construct and live identities of their purposeful naming and making. Cosplay is a decisive act of dressing, making, and analysis, which negotiates several cultural spaces simultaneously –​ gender, race, ability, fandom, labor –​that culminate in a public act of play and performance art. In Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics José Esteban Muñoz writes that: I understand the labor (and it is often, if not always, work) of making identity as a process that takes place at the point of

 9

All the con’s a stage  9 collision of perspectives that some critics and theorists have understood as essentialists and constructivist. This collision is precisely the moment of negotiation when hybrid, radically predicated, and deviantly gendered identities arrive at representation. In doing so, a representation contract is broken; the queer and the colored come into perception and the social order receives a jolt that may reverberate loudly and widely, or in less dramatic, yet locally indispensable, ways. (6) I propose that the act of cosplay recalls this identity-​making labor that has the power to both affirm and challenge majoritarian representation, and that the self-​identification of cosplayers allows for deeper insight into identity building than observational data alone. I wish to offer a convention anecdote that illustrates a number of concerns with which the book is invested: questions of representation, identity, fandom, and the misreadings of observers. On April 1, 2018 –​Easter, that year –​my wife and I donned bunny-​themed cosplay mashups to attend Awesome Con in Washington DC. My wife wore her Roger Rabbit/​Donnie Darko Frank mashup, covering her body from head to toe, and lending an intimidating face (Frank) to an otherwise friendly and familiar character (Roger Rabbit); I wore a black leotard and my own Frank mask for a macabre twist on the “bunny” cosplay trend, in which cosplayers reimagine characters as Playboy “bunnies.” Fans of the 2001 sci-​fi cult classic film readily recognized our cosplays, and we were frequently asked to pose for pictures. Others, unfamiliar with the film, referred to us as “creepy Easter bunnies,” and posed with us for the oddity of it. My wife, fully costumed and standing over six feet tall, was consistently misgendered throughout the day. As fans and photographers asked us to pose for photos, and called for our attention, their language reflected a reading of our identities based on a majority assumption of heteronormativity: they saw an average-​height femme-​bodied person walking closely with a tall masked person and assumed we must be a heteronormative couple. They called her “he,” and asked if my “boyfriend” or “husband” could pose in this way or that. Here, her masked body disguised her gender and identity, whereas my revealing costume broadcast a performance of normative femininity. Silently, and in photos, our cosplay identities communicated to observers an unintended narrative; our performance was a play of our fandom for the offbeat and unusual, but our costumed bodies were read as an upholding of normative gender performances –​a coupled man and woman.

 10

10  All the con’s a stage But an understanding of a spectrum of identities reminds us that determining one’s sexuality and gender based on material performances results in the erasure of all but heteronormative binary expressions. In the “Trans Woman Manifesto” with which Julia Serano begins Whipping Girl she asserts that “We make assumptions every day about other people’s genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex” (2016, 13). Serano’s argument is that “there is no such thing as a ‘real gender’ –​there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be,” but significant to this text is the concept of assumption –​individuals who read signs, signifiers, and performances of gender and assume the truth of their observation. A genderqueer person may elect to present femininely one day, and masculinely the next, but to identify this person as a man or a woman or a crossdresser is to project binary identities that do not respect the lived identify of the individual. Neither of these fashionable choices would make this person less genderqueer or gender-​ fluid, as these identities are not static categorical expressions –​“there is no reason to assume that genders ought also to remain as two,” writes Judith Butler in Gender Trouble (6), and the assumption implied by the term “crossplay” is called into question directly by cosplayers themselves. Reading one’s gender identification in relation to their cosplay is the primary concern of the second chapter of this volume. “Man Describes Me Not, Nor Woman Neither: Cosplayers and the Fiction of Gender” considers the genre of cosplay commonly, and I will argue problematically, called “crossplay,” or the practice of a cosplayer representing a character of the “opposite” gender. Challenging this definition, and the standards of cosplay research related to the practice, Chapter 2 reads narratives from trans, nonbinary, and cis cosplayers to articulate the manifold meanings involved in “crossplay,” and the spectrum of cosplayer identities who participate. Survey responses reveal that the practice of “crossplay” defies notions of heteronormativity, as cosplayers of all identities adopt characters of all identities, and vocally challenge that the performative identities they establish are “crossed” from anything. Further enlightening are the ways that cosplayers utilize the space of cosplay in order to explore their actual identities, making use of an established fantasy space to push the normative boundaries that restrict them in their daily lives. Controlling and censoring bodies has long been a cultural preoccupation, from the 1953 Comics Code, which saw the forced retirement of “sexy” comics characters like Catwoman, to the 2018

 1

All the con’s a stage  11 legislation of SESTA-​ FOSTA, which enables the targeting and censoring of femme bodies on social media platforms. Even as cosplay allows participants to challenge normative boundaries of identity, their bodies are still controlled by the literal and figurative boundaries associated with cosplaying in America. These boundaries materialize at sites of cosplay performance –​specifically fan conventions. As cultural sites catering to a spectrum of attendees, fan conventions take it upon themselves to regulate patron behavior and dress, setting the tone of programing as they assert cultural mores and values. The policies established by conventions are overwhelmingly gendered, as cons seek to regulate the femme body in the name of both decency and cosplayer protection. In Chapter 3, “On Bodies and Boundaries: Regulating Fantasy in Real Spaces,” I examine the policies of several American fan conventions to illustrate the ways in which cosplay performances are restricted and controlled by the site of performance. In this chapter, I address the gendered motivation behind cosplayer harassment and assert that cosplayers themselves are unfairly positioned as both models and enforcers of respectability politics. Chapter 4 “Breaches, Breeches, and Keeping the Other at the Gate: Minority Identities and Gatekeeping in Cosplay,” takes an understanding of boundaries further as it seeks to introduce readers to the gatekeeping practices both within and without cosplayer communities. Cosplay is not an inherently “safe space,” and gatekeeping is a purposefully exclusionary practice utilized by individuals to define a community on the basis of excluding others. With or without consensus, gatekeepers will challenge community membership of individuals or demographics, often gaslighting and harassing the other as acts of exclusion. Minority groups are especially susceptible to gatekeeping efforts by majoritarian members, and in cosplay those who do not ascribe to aesthetic or performative rules, performers of color, disabled cosplayers, and fat cosplayers will all find their art challenged by community members and convention patrons alike. Gatekeeping practices emphasize the importance of considering intersectional identities to understand the challenges facing cosplayers in America, and the spectrum of cosplayer experiences. Chapter 4 seeks to challenge the gatekeeping of racism, ableism, and fat-​shaming, and lift voices of minority cosplayers who are demanding recognition. Throughout the whole, cosplayers speak to their experiences, their anxieties, fandoms, motivations, and selves. Chapter 5, “The Play’s the Thing,” is a final look at cosplayers and the narratives they choose to share. The goal of this narratively focused end is to literally give voice

 12

12  All the con’s a stage to survey participants and demonstrate the breadth of humanity that participates in this fan practice, unbound by regional attendance or authorial fandom. These narratives offer further perspectives on the work still to be done in cosplay scholarship and welcomes engagement for additional study.

Conclusion In this volume I consider the actual and lived identities of cosplayers in relation to their crafts, as expressed by cosplayers themselves. I suggest that observational-​only data run the risk of affirming normative expectations of identity in the absence of cosplayer narratives, and thus produces misreadings that generalize, where closer readings are more productive. The anonymously solicited survey responses of 167 cosplayers serve as my primary object of study in the present analysis, allowing me to respond directly to their expressed identities over assumptions made at the time of convention performance. My primary interests in this text lie in lesser-​represented identities within cosplay studies: LGBTQ+ cosplayers, BIPOC cosplayers, disabled cosplayers, and cosplayers facing harassment. This work is intended as a supplement to existing research to develop and build an understanding of a complex cultural system of art, making, identity, fandom, and critical analysis on the parts of participants and observers alike. Where Winge’s Costuming Cosplay (2019) is a celebration, mine is a bit critical; where Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, and Geczy’s Planet Cosplay (2019) is global, mine is American; and where Crawford and Hancock’s Cosplay and the Art of Play (2019) is artistic, mine focuses most tightly on the artist. Together, we can work to build a solid understanding from which the field can continue to grow.

Bibliography Anderson, K. (2014). Actualized Fantasy at Comic-​Con and the Confessions of a ‘Sad Cosplayer.’ Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at Comic-​ Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. McFarland & Company, 16–​28. Anderson, K. (2015). Becoming Batman. Omasta, M., & Chappell, D., eds. Play, Performance, and Identity. Routledge. https://​doi.org/​10.4324/​ 9781315780689. Birkedal, K. H. S. (2019) Closing Traps: Emotional Attachment, Intervention and Juxtaposition in Cosplay and International Relations. Journal of

 13

All the con’s a stage  13 International Political Theory, 15 (2). 188–​ 209. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​ 1755088219830112. Brownie, B., & Graydon, D. (2016). The Superhero Costume: Identity and Disguise in Fact and Fiction. Bloomsbury Academic. Buszek, M. E. (2006). Pin-​Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture. Duke University Press. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge. https://​doi.org/​10.4324/​9780203824979 Crawford, G., & Hancock, D. (2019). Cosplay and the Art of Play: Exploring Sub-​Culture Through Art. Palgrave MacMillan. Dunn, R.A., & A.F. Herrmann (2020). “Comic Con Communion: Gender, Cosplay, and Media Fandom.” Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Media Fandom, IGI Global. Frueh, J. (2001). Monster|Beauty: Building the Body of Love. University of California Press. Gittinger, J. L. (2018). Hijabi Cosplay: Performances of Culture, Religion, and Fandom. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 30 (2). 87–​105. https://​doi. org/​10.3138/​jrpc.2016-​0005.r1 Gn, J. (2011). Queer simulation: The Practice, Performance and Pleasure of Cosplay. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 25 (4). https://​doi. org/​10.1080/​10304312.2011.582937 Gunnels, J. (2009). “A Jedi Like My Father before Me”: Social Identity and the New York Comic Con. Transformative Works and Culture, (3). https://​doi. org/​10.3983/​twc.2009.0161 Hale, M. (2014). Cosplay: Intertextuality, Public Texts, and the Body Fantastic. Western Folklore, 73 (1). Hjorth, L. (2009). Game Girl: Re-​imagining Japanese Gender and Gaming via Melbourne Female Cosplayers. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 20. Jacobs, K. (2013). Impersonating and Performing Queer Sexuality in the Cosplay Zone. Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 10 (2). Kirkpatrick, E. (2015). Toward New Horizons: Cosplay (re)imagined through the Superhero Genre, Authenticity, and Transformation. Transformative Works and Culture, 28. https://​doi.org/​10.3983/​twc.2015.0613. Lamerichs, N. (2011). Stranger than Fiction: Fan Identity in Cosplay. Transformative Works and Culture, 7. https://​doi.org/​10.3983/​twc.2011.0246. Lamerichs, N. (2018). Productive Fandom. Amsterdam University Press. DOI: 10.5117/​9789089649386. Leng, R. H. Y. (2013). Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-​to-​ Female Crossplay. Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard, Harvard Library. Leshner, C. E., & S. A. De La Garza (2019). Dress for Success: How Cosplay Plays a Role in Relationship Dynamics. Journal of Interpersonal Relations, Intergroup Relations and Identity, (12). 92–​100. Lome, J. K. (2016). The Creative Empowerment of Body Positivity in the Cosplay Community. Transformative Works and Cultures, 22. https://​doi.org/​ 10.3983/​twc.2016.0712

 14

14  All the con’s a stage McGunnigle, C. (2019). Rule 63: Genderswapping in Female Superhero Cosplay. Goodrum, M., Prescott, T., & Smith, P., eds. Gender and the Superhero Narrative. University Press of Mississippi, 144–​179. https://​doi. org/​10.14325/​mississippi/​9781496818805.001.0001. Mishou, A. L. (2015). Survey: Crossplay and Identity. Mishou, A. L. (2019). Survey: Cosplay and Identity. Mountfort, P., Peirson-​Smith, A., & Geczy, A. (2019). Planet Cosplay: Costume Play, Identity and Global Fandom. Intellect. DOI: 10.1386/​jepc_​00015_​5. Munoz, E. J. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. University of Minnesota Press. Norris, C., & Bainbridge, J. (2013). Posthuman Drag: Understanding Cosplay as Social Networking in a Material Culture. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 32. Norris, C., & Bainbridge, J. (2009). Selling Otaku? Mapping the Relationship between Industry and Fandom in the Australian Cosplay Scene. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 20. Rahman, O., Wing-​sun, L., & Hei-​man Cheung, B. (2012). “Cosplay”: Imaginative Self and Performing Identity. Fashion Theory, 16 (3). Round, J. (2014). Gothic in Comics and Graphic Novels: A Critical Approach. McFarland & Company. Rosenberg, R. S., & Letamendi, A. M. (2013). Expressions of Fandom: Findings from a Psychological Survey of Cosplay and Costume Wear. Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, (5). Scott, S. (2015). “Cosplay Is Serious Business”: Gendering Material Fan Labor on Heroes of Cosplay. Cinema Journal, 54 (3). 146–​154. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1353/​cj.2015.0029. Scott, S. (2019). Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. New York University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​jpcu.12933. Serano, J. (2016). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. 2nd ed., Seal Press. Thomas, C. (2014). “Love to Mess with Minds”: En(Gendering) Identities Through Chrossplay. Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at Comic-​ Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. McFarland & Company, 29–​39. Tompkins, J. E. (2019). Is Gender Just a Costume? An Exploratory Study of Crossplay. Transformative Works and Culture, 30. https://​doi.org/​10.3983/​ twc.2019.1459. Truong, Alexis Hieu (2013). Framing Cosplay: How ‘Layers’ Negotiate Body and Subjective Experience through Play. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, (32). Winge, T. M. (2019). Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination. Bloomsbury Visual Arts. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.5040/​9781350035935.0007

 15

2 Man describes not me, nor woman neither1 Cosplayers and the fiction of gender

Introduction My research into cosplay and identity began in 2015 with an interrogation of the practice of “crossplay,” a genre of cosplay in which cosplayers reinterpret their own or a property’s gender identity, and since that time I have grown more and more dissatisfied with the term. In Productive Fandom (2018), Nicolle Lamerichs notes that “While the gender dimension in cosplay is apparent and a common topic of discussion among fans and in the media, studies on how cosplayers negotiate gender patterns are rare” and that the popularity of crossplay, or “cross-​gender cosplay” has lead researchers to believe that “that gender and sexuality are not a real issue for many cosplayers” (199). It is, however, a polemical concern, as gender identity itself is an “issue” with which scholars grapple, and cosplayers interrogate in their practices (Leng, 2013; Close, 2016; Gn, 2011; Norris & Bainbridge, 2009). As Lamerichs suggests, cosplay is a form of interpretation –​ “bodies, fabrics, plastic –​[which] allows us to tell stories” (Productive Fandom 199). But these bodies are not fixed points, and while the cosplay may be unpacked as a text, the cosplayer’s identity cannot be fixed by their single representation; the cosplay is the surface performance of a person. This chapter seeks to interrogate the relationship between gender, performance, and self-​identification in the genre of cosplay known as crossplay, arguing against the reading of crossplay as drag. I believe, as Leng, that “this parallelism between drag and crossplay illustrate[s]‌how gender performance exposes the socially constructed nature of femininity and masculinity yet reconfirms heteronormativity” (2013, 97), and as such assert that the designation of “crossplay” should be abandoned as an arbitrator of heteronormative binaries that do not adequately describe the nuanced experiences and relationships cosplayers have with gender.

 16

16  Man describes not me, nor woman neither Foucault warns that “visibility is a trap” when he writes of the literal and figurative panopticons of society (1995, 200). To an outside observer cosplay can appear both wondrous and monstrous –​an unusual act in which participants willfully defy normative social structures to enact and perform fantasy identities in collective social spaces. The work of theorists such as Judith Butler and J. Halberstam reveal the trappings of external readings, and challenge the ease with which observers come to conclusions about the media they consume. Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, detailed in her 1988 article “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution” and her 1990 Gender Trouble, has become a pillar of gender, queer, and identity theories, encouraging scholars and readers to consider gender identity not as biologically imperative, but as cultural (522). An oft-​applied lens for cultural analysis, identity studies engage with performativity as a site of oppression, problematizing gender as an institutional performance forced upon the individual, whose compliance or defiance is a sustained struggle under the weight of normativity. In relating the theory of performativity to theatricality, Butler asserts that gender is inherently a surface construction, with “cultural survival at its end” (1990, 522) –​a strictly policed romance of normativity that one literally “put[s]‌on” (1990, 531). J. Halberstam recognizes this function in the costuming of Gothic monsters in novels and film, saying that “The monster is always a master of disguise,” and that the fluidity of his identification, his rejection of definition, is what ultimately marks him as “monstrous” and causes unease for the audience (1995, 59). Further, Halberstam asserts that “We might almost say that the grotesque effect of Gothic is achieved through a kind of transvestism, a dressing up that reveals itself as costume. Gothic is a cross-​dressing, drag, a performance of textuality, an infinite readability …” (1995, 60), forming a connection to Butler’s assertions of dress, performance, and space, wherein a drag queen in a theatre is applauded, but a drag queen on a bus is regarded with fear and suspicion (Butler, 1990, 527). Scholar Kane Anderson experiences this same social dichotomy, as he describes in 2014 “other passengers on my bus cho[osing] not to sit next to me” as he traveled in cosplay to attend Comic-​Con, where his Mr. Incredible cosplay would be more appreciated (20). That cosplayers dress up in defiance of cultural sartorial codes of decency and normativity makes them both a spectacle to be enjoyed –​like the drag queen on stage –​ and a potential threat –​like the drag queen on the bus. As Halberstam suggests, the obviousness of the costume itself becomes a social safety for observers, who can recognize and limit and define the work of the cosplayer, without those performances interrupting their understanding of lived identities.

 17

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  17 This deviance is often read in the theatrical space of fan conventions, where cosplayers take up social space in costumes ranging from the subtle to the assertively uncanny, calling attention to not just their fandoms, but the creative production of surface identification: otherworldly bodies in unusual fabrics, supported by armatures or subtly shifting a body into the uncanny. In 2011, Lamerichs reflects that [t]‌hough the practice of dressing up at fan conventions is almost as old as the conventions themselves, it has scarcely been examined academically. It is often addressed in fan studies that devote a short chapter to conventions … The scholars who mention costuming in their books often use it as an introduction to fandom and its “strange” and sometimes ritual-​like practices. (3) This approach is not uncommon, as art and fashion historian Anne Hollander writes, “Dressing up meaningfully to perform a rite is as old an institution as religion itself ” (1978, 238), and when Nicolle Lamerichs compares cosplay spaces to historical reenactments, masquerades, and carnivals, she affirms a history of costuming (2018, 200). Though the field, and the practice, has seen extraordinary growth in the nine years since Lamerichs’ observation, scholars respect the pointed uncanniness of cosplaying (Thomas, 2014; Anderson, 2014; Winge, 2019). As an object of study, cosplay is read both as a performance and a signifier –​an artform that “is primarily motivated by their intense attraction towards the character to which they were exposed” as Gn suggests, and a hobby that “bears minimal relation to a […] conscious desire to be deviant” (2011, 587). But as Foucault warns, in their moment of performance cosplayers are trapped between notions of “rightness” in the performance of their identity –​playing to type, or sex, or gender, or x –​and the rightness of their personal and artistic investment. Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, and Geczy assert of crafted performativity, from cosplay to social media, “at this point it may be useful to dispense with the presumption that there is a real identity behind the constructed one, a vestigial human truth behind the mask” calling digital moments of self-​creation “projections of a self that the individual deems desirable, and reflects the kinds of personalities and types they wish to attract” (2019, 7), arguing for the individual’s place in media as opposed to an outside spectator. But in the act of cosplay participants may wear literal masks, and the self they project may not be motivated by desire, but by factors as simple as a creative challenge, group participation, or ease with which the cosplay may be adopted.

 18

18  Man describes not me, nor woman neither To attribute deep psychological investment, in the absence of cosplayer voices, is problematic. As I write in Chapter 1, much of the existing critical work begins from an assumption of fan identity over creative performance or aestheticism, leaving an opening where other motivations may be discovered. Though cosplay scholarship is actively engaged in understanding the drive that inspires adults to mimic fantastic characters, crossplay further complicates the subject by necessitating a consideration of sexuality, gender, and performative identity in conjunction with fandom and creative production. Usefully, Gn directly addresses the subject of crossplay, asking if the act is “directed towards an essentialist form of deviance” and “Are cosplayers consciously devoted to exploring multiple gender identities or are they also expressing their pleasure with the image?” (2011, 588). He also considers crossplay in relation to traditional drag and concludes that crossplaying is different because of a variance in performativity –​ that crossplayed characters “[denote] a movement of the sign beyond the established gender dichotomy” because characters are subjects of fantasy, and often nonhuman, and therefore cannot be read as the repetitive genders established in human cultures (2011, 589). Complicating this reading is the fact that the creators of these properties are human and establish gender normativity through their own human relation to sex and gender as repetitively reinforced in their own cultures (Leng, 2013; Close, 2016; McGunnigle, 2019). Still, Gn’s primary thesis is one that is useful in the initial pursuit of my own readings. He argues “that the cosplay performance should first be understood as an expression of emotional attachment to the animated body. On this premise, cosplay therefore becomes a creative, pleasurable gesture that is at once incompatible with, yet not external to, the discursive effects of the gendered body” (2011, 589). Though I remain uneasy with the attachment between cosplayer and property that Gn emphasizes in his work, his argument that cosplay and the presumed performance of the gendered body are incompatible resonates with my own research. In this chapter, I question the definition of crossplay, using 143 survey responses from trans, nonbinary, and cis cosplayers to broaden an understanding of participant motivation, and ultimately argue that observational data cannot adequately represent the experiences and identities of crossplayers, and that by projecting an “otherness” on the practice researchers are enforcing majoritarian identity categories not upheld by crossplayers themselves.

What’s in a name? The drag debate The mods of the subreddit board r/​crossplay pinned a note to the top of their feed on February 14, 2019, with the subject line “Mod Note: This

 19

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  19 is /​r/​crossplay, not /​r/​crossdressing. Please post in respective subreddits.” The purpose of the missive is to define the context of the board. In their own space, and in their own community, self-​identified cosplayers and crossplayers write that: Lately there has been an influx of users posting on this subreddit posts that aren’t even cosplay/​ crossplay. These posts are pure crossdressing that have zero ties to any character or the like. These will be removed from now on since they simply have no basis being here. Cosplay by definition is: The practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga and anime. Crossplay is someone of the opposite gender of the character doing cosplay. (Karma, 2019) For the mod, the distinction between crossdressing and crossplaying is clear, and for the purpose of cultivating a crossplayer space they offer definitions they feel best defines their practice –​“someone of the opposite gender of the character doing cosplay.” Echoing Leng, who makes a similar distinction and argues that “Drag Queens in Western culture typically connotes men cross-​dressing as an exhibition of self-​ identity, whereas M2F crossplayers costume as female anime characters to partake in an aesthetic transformation that goes beyond mere self-​ expression” (2013, 90), the redditors define their space by clarifying that crossdressing is not crossplay, because it involves no identifiable intellectual property –​it doesn’t simulate a “character” and is therefore differently motivated and executed. Although the following analysis will consider the drag versus crossplay debate active within cosplay studies, it is significant that this reddit board does not refer to either crossplay or crossdressing as “drag.” This demonstrates an understanding that the practice of crossdressing is not necessarily drag, just as crossdressing does not qualify as crossplay. Each of these sartorial performances crosses separate boundaries, with separate intentions and conclusions. That the mods feel compelled to offer a distinction, and clearly define their own practices, speaks to the contentious blurring between spaces of fandom, identity, and even sexual practices. This section will similarly argue against the definition of crossplay as drag, as part of the

 20

20  Man describes not me, nor woman neither larger argument that crossplay should not be considered a separate sphere of cosplay practice from other adaptive cosplays and cosplay performances. As the reddit mod conveys, “crossplay” is popularly understood to be a cosplay practice in which an individual portrays a character “opposite” of their own gender identification. McGunnigle writes in 2019 that “crossplay, defined by Frenchy Lunning as ‘the performance of a character of the opposite sex,’ has become a trend in the cosplay community. A male cosplayer may crossplay as Wonder Woman (M2F), while a female fan might crossplay as Batman (F2M),” in this definition affirming the binary gender identities of both the proposed cosplayers and the characters they may choose to represent (145). Joel Gn adds another dimension to the understanding of the practice, by specifying that “the socially accepted gender of the subject is at odds with that of the character” (2011, 584). In his definition Gn directly acknowledges and dismisses the complexity of gender identification, privileging observational categories of “socially accepted gender,” by which he clearly means only “male/​female,” and performative gender signifiers. Reflective in these definitions is the normative binary understanding described by Diane Torr and Stephen Bottoms, a drag king and researcher team who argue in 2013 that “female-​to-​male drag is, after all, as much concerned with men as it is with women” (3). Gn’s definition stresses the primary importance of the observer, which suggests the possibility that it is the audience-​as-​social-​majority who identifies the gender of the cosplayer and thus defines whether or not the cosplayer’s work is “crossplay” (584). This challenges the agency of the subject as both a cosplayer and a person, and determines the primacy of collective majoritarian definitions of gender and representation. The concept, and vocabulary, of “crossing” privileges designations clinically assigned to humans at birth, and upholds notions of performativity as being biological and therefore infallible. Reading the disciplinary trend to associate crossplay with drag, McGunnigle agrees with Nicolle Lamerichs that both performance arts are sites of purposeful construction that allow participants agency in their ability to script identifying signs outside of a rigid social order –​ that is, aligning with, or rejecting, the gender codes assigned by binary biological essentialism. McGunnigle upholds Lamerichs’ argument “that drag, whether M2F or F2M, and cosplay reconstruct identity: drag through the assumption of codes of another gender, while cosplay uses the character-​signs of a fictional narrative” (2019, 145). He similarly cites Norris and Bainbridge’s arguments that “The drag act is as much about playful engagement with the simulation (or simulacra following

 21

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  21 Jean Baudrillard) itself…. Drag is about identity, not just gender” (2019, 145). In these arguments the subjects of drag and crossplay are necessarily entwined, as both engage in similar constructive and reconstructive acts, allowing participants the agency to build their own identities through material and sartorial play, and freeing them from the assumptions of material bodies. That both drag and cosplay play with and manipulate identity and cultural signs, I agree. Similarly, I agree that both practices can and do interrogate the subject, and fragility, of gender, recognizing the absurdity of sartorial markers, and playing with that absurdity on a carnival-​esque level. However, an important distinction is one identified by the redditors on /​r/​crossplay –​the intentions and motivations of the act of play. Drag is a direct challenge and investigation of gender in its performance and adoption, and relies on binary signs for its successful communication, even if players seek to challenge those lines. Cosplay, on the other hand, does not rely on gender specifically, but characters categorically. The difference between crossplay and crossdress, the redditors demonstrate, is what the person wants –​do they want to resemble a character, or do they want to wear a particular garment? The desire to call crossplay drag is understandable, but the association confuses two distinct cultures and performance sites. Drag and cosplay are both genres of performance art that trade most often on the exceptional; similarly simplistic to the definition of crossplay is the definition of “drag” offered by F. Michael Moore: “Drag [is] the wearing of clothes of the opposite sex, [and it] is as old as theatre itself ” (1994, 1). And drag is comparably plagued with a problematic relationship to concepts of gender, as participants argue the legitimacy of one’s physical body versus their expressed gender, and thus their place in the drag community. Must a person be a cis-​man to be a drag queen? Or a cis-​ woman to be a drag king? Are agender, gender-​neutral, and nonbinary performers excluded from the drag community for their identities, or will the community forcibly categorize such performers according to an external judgement of perceived secondary sex characteristics? I agree with Lamerichs when she writes that “Drag is about identity, not just gender,” and with the intersectionality foregrounded by Norris and Bainbridge when they say, “Therefore for us, drag is about identity, not just gender. Simulation of gender, race and (un)reality, we would argue, are all integral parts of the mimesis and habitus of the drag act and all frequently displayed in cosplay” (2013, par. 22). But that drag is about identity does not necessarily suggest that crossplay is drag. The success of drag requires an understanding of majoritarian notions of gender and performativity, through which their subversion is enacted. Indeed,

 2

22  Man describes not me, nor woman neither in being a performance of not just gender but identities drag is thus differentiated from cosplay, which invests in the specific performance of a single identity. And I come back to the definition supplied by /​r/​ reddit: drag requires the creation of a unique, reflective character, while cosplay and “crossplay” require the manipulation, analysis, or outright adoption of a character that already exists. In adopting any property, a cosplayer is adopting the signs attached to that property, even if those signs may affirm or subvert their identities outside of their cosplay activities. So what, then, should one call a cosplay adopted by a cosplayer whose identification is other than the character they’re representing? Cosplay. Within this umbrella term cosplayers are able to express their complex identities, and researchers are able to still astutely examine the cultural texts which cosplayers produce. To define crossplay in relation to drag –​ and to focus on the “cross” rather than the “play” –​reduces a reading of the performance to those traditional in drag studies. This privileges performances of gender and presumes a reading of cosplayers, potentially misreading both.

On crossplay and identity: asking for answers It is to cosplayers that I look to inform an understanding of cosplay, crossplay, and the performance of personal identities. To collect cosplayer narratives on a neutral platform I conducted two anonymous online surveys, the first a limited collection in 2015, which included 37 participants, and the second a longer survey of experiences in 2019, which yielded 131 individual responses. I refer to this as a “neutral” platform for the express reason that I did not survey or interview participants I met at conventions. Convention spaces are performance spaces, and, as I argue in Chapter 1, cosplayers are inclined to perform in the face of researcher enthusiasm, rather to reflect personally on their own feelings. By administering and circulating surveys anonymously online I hoped to capture cosplayer perspectives uninfluenced by my own categorical identities and fandoms, and to negate my own unconscious prejudices. These two surveys yielded 143 responses to questions of “crossplay.” My 2015 survey asked few questions of demographics, inquiring only after a cosplayer’s gender, sexuality, and the number of crossplays they had developed. The language used in the 2015 survey is clumsy and a bit shameful: I asked participants to identify from a list naming “male, female, bigender, transgender, cis-​ man, cis-​ woman, fluid,” allowing an “other” option in which participants could more specifically

 23

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  23 identify their gender. My identification of sexuality was similarly terse, including “heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual.” In 2019 I asked participants to identify from a list including “gender queer, fluid, trans woman or trans femme, trans man or trans masc, cis woman/​AFAB, cis man/​AMAB, nonbinary” or to select an option stating “the gender spectrum is complex; if the above labels do not accurately describe your identification, please indicate your identity in the box below.” The results show that 56% of participants identify as cis women (assigned female at birth, and identify as female). A further 16.2% of respondents identified themselves as cis men, 2.2% as trans men/​masculine, 1.5% as transgender (2015), and 0.7% as trans women/​feminine. Together, these numbers suggest that approximately 77% of crossplay respondents identify according to binary categorical designations. Were I a data scientist, I may then suggest that researchers are statistically sound in identifying cosplayers according to binary gender identifications. But I am not a data scientist, and, invested in respecting and understanding minority experiences, I argue that the 22.9% of cosplayers in my studies necessarily complicate readings of cosplay, crossplay, and gender, and that the narratives of all are of greater worth than the collection of demographic identification in the absence of these experiences. In Gender Trouble Butler asks “If gender is constructed, could it be constructed differently,” naming the problem of this c­ hapter –​specifically, the problem of defining crossplay as a separate genre of cosplay, and its inability to define complex systems of identity expressed and identified by cosplayers themselves (1990, 7). Those who identify across a spectrum, including nonbinary, demigirl, genderqueer, and genderfluid responses, raise this question of definition: is what they do crossplay? If one identifies as nonbinary, does their adoption of a property that falls within this binary cross? Or, as they’ve identified themselves as crossplayers, do they define their practice as crossplay because the selected materials are identified heteronormatively, and are therefore “crossed” from the player’s own identification? If we respect a spectrum of gender identifications –​which I certainly do –​should our work enforce the binary identification system defined by the umbrella term of crossplay?

What do you have to say? Cosplayers on gender and identity In 2015 I wrote that Respondent 2015*29 haunted me, and I’m inclined to preserve my hyperbole. It is their response that first inspired me to look more closely at the definitions scholars use to describe their objects and to reconsider an approach to reading gender and cosplay.2 From the

 24

24  Man describes not me, nor woman neither first, 2015*29 defined the truth of their survey responses, writing under “gender” that they: Have always felt male but also feel forced to live as female by society/​ conservative family/​career and cannot realistically entertain at this point attempting to live as male, attempting to be as gender neutral as possible. I will answer the rest of your questions assuming that “crossplay” refers to somebody of one body wearing clothes meant for the body of a different physical sex. (ie, even though I don’t necessarily feel comfortable calling myself “female,” I will use the term “crossplay” to refer to what I do since I am wearing male clothing.) In this answer is an understanding of their current space in social spheres within fan communities and without, revealing in their anonymity that they are in truth a closeted trans man. That they use the word “forced” emphasizes the anxiety and trauma of the experience and helps to communicate the importance of cosplay to alleviate their gender dysphoria. In response to question four, asking “What (approximate) percentage of your cosplay activities involve crossplay?”, they again take the opportunity to reiterate that they “cosplay male characters exclusively but whether you consider this crossplay or not depends on your perspective.” They describe their choices as being aesthetically motivated, and when asked for a favorite crossplay, they write that they prefer to cosplay characters with beards. When asked why they prefer their favorite crossplay, they responded “Any of my characters that allow me to pass more fully as male are satisfying experiences, particularly ones that have facial hair since it’s something I don’t have normally.” For Respondent 2015*29, cosplay is a space that allows them a socially acceptable space to perform their gender. Being misread as a drag performance allows the performer social safety. The tone clearly articulates that the practice is not a play at gender, like drag, and that they speak of “passing” as masculine suggests their project is not one of gender exaggeration or caricature. In light of their honest and open responses, I realized that when 2015*29 cosplays masculine characters, their cosplay practice challenges the traditional definition –​they are not “crossing” at all. Considering the sartorial codes assigned to genders, Laurence Senelick observes in The Changing Room that “At the base of these injunctions lurks a primordial belief that gender tokens are magical, and to abuse them will transform and denature the abuser. It confuses signifier and signified” (2000, 1). And Senelick goes on to argue that the “primary social role of clothing … is to render the gender of the

 25

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  25 wearer discernible at a glance” (2). Thus, the social role of fashion is to uphold and represent the gendered stereotypes and expectations of a specific culture, with the assumption that this information is essential to the social movements of an individual. This is how gendered spaces are policed, and the basis of much transphobic legislation. Senelick further writes that Gender assignment which at first looks to be deeply rooted in biological imperatives and social exigencies turns out to be no more essential than table manners. Therefore, most taboos against cross-​dressing, … are related less to “elemental” or “fundamental” concepts of gender than to codes of conduct and social status. (3) The questions of crossplay move beyond the performance art of drag, for its driving designation: the costumed performance of an established intellectual property. As I argue above, unlike drag queens and drag kings, cosplayers are representing material that exists beyond the art of their performance –​they are representing characters who have been developed and scripted and coded by other artists and authors and actors. This appropriation is thus far argued an essential element of cosplay, as the thing that distinguishes cosplay from other forms of costumed performance and play. As understandings of gender and identity grow and develop, the definition of crossplay becomes more complicated. In a sense, characters don’t have static genders because they are not real, living people; instead, they are encoded with signifiers imbued by their creators to reflect ideas, cultures, and attributes of the present time, market, target demographic, and creator sympathies. Characters are not “x,” but rather represent “x” as part of their narrative arc and character development –​and in the case of long-​running media, it can and does change. This is why comics characters are so wonderfully transient and adaptable –​and why characters can appeal to audiences over generations and demographics. In a single issue they can evolve or shift, and with them representation. Representation is something that inspires the cosplays of Respondent 2019*5. In her survey 2019*5 identifies herself as a trans woman, and writes that her favorite “crossplay” is a Silent Hill nurse. Of her experience she writes that she really enjoyed having a mask on with a bloody dress and heels. I was so happy when people came up to me for a picture and thought I was

 26

26  Man describes not me, nor woman neither a girl. New York Comic Con was a fantastic event to showcase this cosplay with my wife’s Pyramid Head cosplay. The attention and administration were euphoric. Similarly, she says that her favorite cosplay is “Princess Samus/​peach mashup. Was able to express my true gender identity while assuming a delicate princess role of one of my favorite characters.” She writes of her choice that “Being a strong and beautiful female protagonist, I’ve idolized [Samus] for decades.” The narratives offered by 2019*5 articulate a number of motivations in adopting cosplays and complicate the traditional definition of “crossplay.” She says of her Princess Samus/​Peach that the character allowed her an opportunity to materially express her gender and her fandom; both video game characters are femme-​bodied figures, but creating a hybrid character allowed 2019*5 a chance to embody the svelte Metroid bounty hunter Samus in “a delicate princess role” more commonly representative of Princess Peach. Thus, they express the complexity of femme representation and identity and play within that end of the gender spectrum to express both self and the admiration of other femmes. But she calls the Nurse “crossplay,” and describes it as a group cosplay with her wife, who played another character from the Silent Hill franchise. 2019*5 does not make a clear distinction between her princess cosplay and her Nurse cosplay, other than to revel in the opportunity to wear a mask (and thus further communicate her gender to audiences who “thought [she] was a girl”), suggesting a fear of being misgendered without her mask. According to standard definitions of crossplay, neither cosplay would qualify for the distinction: the cosplayer identifies as the same gender as all three media subjects. However, the participant suggests that the reading of the audience contributes to her understanding of her experience –​that she has successfully “crossed” when convention attendees appropriately read the gender of her cosplay. Respondent 2019*114 writes of a similar affirmation as a nonbinary individual. They say that their favorite character is the masculine vampire Alucard from the anime and game Castlevania, because “People kept saying I looked great as him; I’m an AFAB nonbinary person so it’s really validating when people think I look as good in a male cosplay/​ ‘crossplay’ as I feel.” This affirmation positively impacts 2019*114’s developing gender identity I’ve been cosplaying since I was 12 (I’m 24 now) and it’s been really critical as an accepting space to figure out my gender. Growing up

 27

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  27 with a hobby where crossdressing is socially acceptable makes it so much easier to find out where on the gender spectrum you’re situated, by trying to be characters who’re all along that spectrum too. Nonbinary butch cosplayer Ty DyKing shares a similar experience of affirmation when they describe their choice to cosplay as Aggie Phinker­ lington from The Custard Protocol. I have been cosplaying from more than a decade. I started cosplaying around the age of 13 (now 25), and before very recently, I usually only crossplayed. As I am afab, this means I usually cosplay men. Recently, however, I have been able to cosplay masculine of center afab characters –​Moira O’Deorain from Overwatch first, and then Aggie from The Custard Protocol series. Cosplaying Aggie was the first time I had ever fully truly felt sexy in cosplay, and the first time I had cosplayed a canonical butch lesbian. I had spent months working out to get muscles that matched hers in the book, and hefting the crossbow I made myself for my photos made me feel powerful. Wearing that cosplay I felt fully myself I had short hair, big muscles, and masculine, comfortable clothing. I wasn’t dysphoric despite cosplaying a woman. I wore her for the first time at Katsucon 2020. Not many people recognized me, but I didn’t care; I felt more amazing in that cosplay that I had ever cosplaying from big name series It was amazing and I can’t wait to cosplay her again once COVID has passed. I also can’t wait to cosplay another butch lesbian, Gideon Nav, from Gideon the Ninth, post-​COVID. Bring on the muscular butch cosplays that I can wear without feeling dysphoric! (Mishou, 2020) This particular cosplay experience allows Ty to express both their deeply felt fandom for an author, property, and character, and to explore gender representation that affirms their identity by playing a character similarly aligned. It’s important to emphasize Ty’s point when they say “I wasn’t dysphoric despite cosplaying a woman”; according to traditional definitions, Ty’s performance could be labeled as crossplay, as they (a nonbinary person) play a woman. In this circumstance, it is the sartorial designing of the cosplay that has a greater impact than the expressed gender of the character –​for Ty, this cosplay felt right.

 28

28  Man describes not me, nor woman neither Survey respondent 2019*49 offers a different experience and expresses a similar unease with the term “crossplay” as 2019*5: I personally don’t really like the term “crossplay” to be honest. The gender of a character is just part of their character and it’s not necessary to specify a difference between cosplaying characters of your “own” gender and characters of an “opposite” gender (things that don’t really exist for most non-​binary individuals). The use of the term crossplay has made people too quick to assume the gender of the cosplayer. His response recognizes the problematic nature of the term in rectifying a fictional character’s gender and the gender spectrum of cosplayers. Self-​identifying as a trans man, he communicated in his survey response that he “crossplays” 50% of the time, but that “The gender of the character isn’t really something [he] take[s]‌into consideration when picking characters [he] likes.” He writes that his favorite cosplay is “Keith from Voltron: Legendary Defender. The character means so much to me and I always felt like I actually ‘looked’ like the character,” and that he loves the character “very deeply.” His favorite crossplay, he shares, is Jade Harley from Homestuck, a character with long black hair and glasses, who wears a button-​up skirt. “I felt specifically very cute as her and embodied her well,” he writes. Respecting his gender identification means that his election to cosplay both traditionally masculine and feminine characters should not be used as an analytical “cheat code” to subvert his self-​reporting. His response argues that the gender of a character does not impact his decision to cosplay –​he writes of selecting characters for an investment in character traits or aesthetics, and his narratives illustrate the artificial labeling of clothes as belonging to “men” or “women.” The majority of 2015 respondents –​over 64 percent –​indicate that their crossplay is not reliant or informed by their personal identity when asked. Rather, most indicate, as stated by 2015*4, that their decision to crossplay is related to their fandom of an IP for aesthetic statement: “Just love of the character and the character happens to be opposite sex.:)” This majority confirms the theory posited by Lamerichs –​that, though framed as non-​normative in practice, crossplay is often adopted to express interest in or sympathy for an individual character or property, rather than a demonstration of non-​crossplayed non-​normative identity. Their narratives suggest that “crossplaying” does not serve as a challenge to binary identities, and that cosplayers adopt characters out

 29

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  29 of “appreciate[ion for] the intellectual property” regardless of normative standards of gender performance. I never really thought about it that much. I just found a character I really loved, and seeing as how it was just costuming, it never occurred to me it might be strange to dress/​act as a character of another gender. All of my crossplays have been chosen without consciously thinking of them as crossplay. (Respondent 2015*3)

Conclusion When given an anonymous platform to describe their interest and identity, not one of the survey or interview subjects used language that “othered” their crossplay material; overwhelmingly, the language and expression was inclusive and accepting of individual characters, rather than positioning them as outside the crossplayers’ realm of experience. Responses suggest not that crossplayers are exploring an alien experience as defined by a rigid gender dichotomy that artificially constructs an “opposite”; rather, crossplayers’ main motivation as demonstrated in the data collected is a desire for inclusion –​to align oneself with a material that happens to have been assigned another gender, or to indulge in aesthetic choices traditionally denied by strict heteronormative gender performances (such as survey 2015*27). Such is the case for Legend of Zelda fans 2015*9 and 2015*15, who both share that they’ve “loved [Link]” since they were children, listing positive attributes and aesthetics as part of the appeal of the crossplay. Recognizing Link’s nearly androgynous appearance, survey 2015*9 lists Link, her favorite crossplay, as being “an easy first.” The response of 2015*9 recognizes an anxiety of aesthetics when a crossplayer approaches a material, demonstrating the sometimes-​ asked question of whether or not cosplayers should play against type. The language of 2015*9 further suggests, though, that she doesn’t support an adherence to type as a requirement of cosplay by her use of the qualifier “first”; she indicates that the ease of the costume is useful for a novice, and not that an adherence to the gender qualifiers of a character as necessitous to a successful performance. In part, the questions asked here seek to inform an understanding of costumed performative identity and serve as an initial attempt to reconcile the perceptions of crossplay as either acts of manic fandom or subversive expressions of personal identity, when it may be much

 30

30  Man describes not me, nor woman neither simpler: an attraction to aesthetics, or human sympathy for a character. As cosplayer Silver Kitsune says, I do not believe that gender constrains fandom choices, only informs them. Cosplay is a way to express that fanship, but the way I choose to express it is dependent on gender identity, as in: being queer means I don’t have a gender preference of the characters I cosplay. (Mishou, 2020) By challenging signifiers –​and static definitions of performativity, an understanding of crossplay may come to illuminate fluid parameters of personal identification. Surveys and interviews affirm that the binary boundaries understood to police the practice of crossplay are alienating to participants across the gender spectrum. In support of these assertions I suggest there is no real “cross” when one is adopting a fictional character: there is just faithful or interpretive adaptation.

Notes 1 “Man delights not me –​no, nor woman neither” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, 2.2.298-​299). 2 In 2015 I did not ask for pronouns, as I should have. In the absence of such information I will be using gender neutral pronouns, as a sign of respect over assumption.

Bibliography Anderson, K. (2014). Actualized Fantasy at Comic-​Con and the Confessions of a ‘Sad Cosplayer.’ Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at Comic-​ Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. McFarland & Company, 16–​28. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge. https://​doi.org/​10.4324/​9780203824979. Close, S. (2016). Fannish Masculinities in Transition in Anime Music Video Fandom. Transformative Works and Cultures, 22. https://​doi.org/​10.3983/​ twc.2016.0713 Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books. Framke, Caroline. (2018). How RuPaul’s Comments on Trans Women Led to a Drag Race Revolt —​and a Rare Apology. Vox. www.vox.com/​culture/​2018/​ 3/​6/​17085244/​rupaul-​trans-​women-​drag-​queens-​interview-​controversy.

 31

Man describes not me, nor woman neither  31 Gn, J. (2011). Queer Simulation: The Practice, Performance and Pleasure of Cosplay. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 25 (4). https://​ doi.org/​10.1080/​10304312.2011.582937. Halberstam, J. (1995). Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Duke University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1215/​9780822398073. Hollander, A. (1978). Seeing Through Clothes. Viking Press. Jacobs, K. (2013). Impersonating and Performing Queer Sexuality in the Cosplay Zone. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 10 (2). https://​citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/​viewdoc/​download?doi=10.1.1.426.5943&re p=rep1&type=pdf. Karma. [Kinaestheticsz]. (2019). Mod Note: This Is /​ r/​ crossplay, Not /​ r/​ crossdressing. Please Post in Respective Subreddits [Online forum post]. Reddit. www.reddit.com/​r/​crossplay/​comments/​aqivu4/​mod_​note_​this_​is_​ rcrossplay_​not_​rcrossdressing/​ Lamerichs, N. (2011). Stranger Than Fiction: Fan Identity in Cosplay. Transformative Works and Culture, 7. https://​doi.org/​10.3983/​twc.2011.0246. Lamerichs, N. (2018). Productive Fandom. Amsterdam University Press. https://​ doi.org/​10.5117/​9789089649386. Leng, R. H. Y. (2013). Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-​ to-​Female Crossplay. Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard, Harvard Library. McGunnigle, C. (2019). Rule 63: Genderswapping in Female Superhero Cosplay. Goodrum, M., Prescott, T., and Smith, P., eds. Gender and the Superhero Narrative. University Press of Mississippi, 144–​179. DOI:10.14325/​mississippi/​9781496818805.001.0001. Mishou, A. L. (2015). Survey: Crossplay and Identity. Mishou, A. L. (2019). Survey: Cosplay and Identity. Mishou, A. L. (2020). Personal Interviews. Cosplay Photo Submission Form. Moore, F. M. (1994). Drag! Male and Female Impersonators on Stage, Screen and Television. McFarland & Company. Mountfort, P., Peirson-​Smith, A., & Geczy, A. (2019). Planet Cosplay: Costume Play, Identity and Global Fandom. Intellect. DOI: 10.1386/​jepc_​00015_​5. Norris, C., & Bainbridge, J. (2009). Selling Otaku? Mapping the Relationship between Industry and Fandom in the Australian Cosplay Scene. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 20. Norris, C., & Bainbridge, J. (2013). Posthuman Drag: Understanding Cosplay as Social Networking in a Material Culture. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, (32). Senelick, L. (2000). The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre. Routledge. https://​doi.org/​10.4324/​9780203411070. Shakespeare, W. (1997). Hamlet. Greenblatt, S., Cohen, W., Howard, J. E., & Maus, K. E., eds. The Norton Shakespeare. W. W. Norton & Co, 1659–​1759. Shakespeare, W. (1997). Romeo and Juliet. Greenblatt, S., Cohen, W., Howard, J. E., & Maus, K. E., eds. The Norton Shakespeare. W. W. Norton & Co, 865–​941.

 32

32  Man describes not me, nor woman neither Thomas, C. (2014). “Love to Mess with Minds”: En(Gendering) Identities Through Chrossplay. Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at Comic-​ Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. McFarland & Company, 29–​39. Torr, D., & Bottoms, S. (2013). Sex, Drag, and Male Roles: Investigating Gender as Performance. The University of Michigan Press. Winge, T. M. (2019). Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination. Bloomsbury Visual Arts. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.5040/​9781350035935.0007. Zervigon, A. M. (2004). Drag Shows: Drag Queens and Female Impersonators. Summers, C. J., ed. The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance & Musical Theatre. Cleis Press.

 3

3  On bodies and boundaries Regulating fantasy in real spaces

Introduction Chapter 2 built upon the growing wealth of crossplay research to argue for an evolving understanding of cosplayer identity, which can in turn inform the continuing investigation of the intersections of gender and cosplay. In this chapter, I again seek to build on existing research into cosplay spaces to further develop an understanding of how sites of cosplay –​specifically, popular arts conventions (hereafter “cons”)–​ directly impact the practice and performance of cosplay in America. Reading cosplayer bodies and boundaries, I argue that, while at times framed as socially deviant for their sartorial disassociation with majoritarian cultures (Mountfort, Peirson-​ Smith, & Geczy, 2019, 284), cosplayer participation in fan sites requires cosplayers to become agents and enforcers for both cosplay and social rules. In this, cosplayers are themselves held to standards reflecting the mores of the specific convention and made responsible for their own protection in socially and performatively diverse spaces. The primary focus of this chapter is the convention space as an essential site of cosplayer performance and gathering. Though scholars recognize the evolving and growing significance of virtual sites of cosplay performance (Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy, 2019; Winge, 2019; Crawford & Hancock, 2019), it remains unchallenged that the con (in any of its iterations) is a highly significant element of cosplayer experience. Current research suggests an understanding that the con –​be in an anime convention, comic convention, university event, masquerade, or competition –​functions roughly the same as a mundane space, made Other or fantastic by the presence and activities of the fans who temporarily inhabit them (Gunnels, 2009; Norris & Bainbridge, 2009; Gn, 2011; Lamerichs, 2011; Anderson, 2014; Thomas, 2014; Scott 2015; Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy, 2019; Winge, 2019). Winge writes that the “fan convention is positioned as a powerful nexus for creativity,

 34

34  On bodies and boundaries socializing, and performance with significant implications for identity, reflection, and even mental health,” and describes a “symbiotic relationship” between cosplayers, who rely on the convention as a safe site of practice, and conventions, who profit from the marketing and free entertainment provided by cosplayers (2019, 187). Kane Anderson (2014) goes so far as to argue that cosplayers are an essential element of the popular arts conference experience, necessary to “endow both the space and attendees with a sense that their mundane world no longer demands primacy over reality” (19). The presence of cosplayers allows attendees an increased suspension of disbelief, giving attendees the opportunity to address their fandoms in a material world. This is not to suggest that patrons will mistake a cosplayer for the actual Mr. Incredible, but rather that seeing the character made flesh allows the spectator to “escape the rigidly imposed point of view of the frame in films and comics and see with the unmediated certainty of their eyes,” enabling a tactile indulgence in fandom otherwise disallowed in the nonconvention space (Anderson, 2014, 19). Writing of fantasy spaces, Kurt Lancaster and Tom Mikotowicz similarly argue that “Sites of performance are never natural, but the desire to become immersed within them becomes as if natural” (2001, 6), demonstrating the will of the participant in encouraging the site. They assert that “All of these various sites of performance are an attempt to find satisfaction in a life that is lacking fulfillment. Thus, in our postmodern world, people desire to turn to the fantastic, which is ultimately a turn to the transcendent” (Lancaster and Mikotowicz, 2001, 6). This fulfillment is enabled by the cosplayers who materially represent the fantastic in the lived space of the convention patron, providing a bridge between the possible and the fantastic, and an immersible fan experience for even those not cosplaying. Naming this fantastic space, Paul Mountfort, Anne Peirson-​Smith, and Adam Geczy (2019) observe that “cosplayers choose their costumes more or less individually, and then come together collectively to enact their private fantasies publicly among peers, who are simultaneously actors and audience. Thus, they create an alternative, fantastical world of meaning –​the cosphere –​in contrast to the other aspects of their everyday lives” (130), which Anderson’s model establishes is experienced by cosplayers and un-​costumed attendees alike. A survey of cosplay scholarship demonstrates that, though similar, cosplay and convention practices are not universal: cosplay may be a global practice, but it is a practice regulated by regional laws and cultures (Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy, 2019; Lamerichs, 2018; Winge, 2019; Norris & Bainbridge, 2009; Gn, 2011). Planet Cosplay (2019) demonstrates that cosplay in Hong Kong is recognized to be far more

 35

On bodies and boundaries  35 competitive than North American cosplay, for example, and the reception and analysis of cosplay and cosplayers in these spaces reflect the social mores of the site, whether it is anti-​Japanese sentiment in China (155), or racism against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (hereafter BIPOC) cosplayers in the United States. Thus, when the authors note that “cosplay is a rule-​based culture governing its play practices,” it accurately categorizes the universal phenomenon, but, in focusing primarily on Chinese, Japanese, and Hong Kong cosplay, does not specifically address the difference in rules between broad global cultures (Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy, 2019, 131). The goal of the present chapter is to similarly examine the site-​based rules of American cosplay, contributing to an understanding of cosplay as a universal practice regulated by regional social institutions. At their core, cosplayers are real people performing as fictional characters, in material spaces temporarily transformed into fantastic settings –​settings which are nonetheless regulated by the laws, rules, and social codes of mundane society. A cosplay performance at a fan convention is a complex negotiation of media interpretation, personal identity, creative skills, financial investment, majority morals, and cultural pressure from fans, other cosplayers, and convention administration. And, as noted by Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols (2019), “there are often serious consequences for failing to conform to societal norms” (273). The goal of the current chapter is to address some of these differences, supplementing existing research on global cosplay cultures with an examination of the social and institutional limitations placed on American cosplayers.

Peace-​bound: convention rules I have never been to San Diego Comic-​Con (established 1970, now over 167,000 attendees), and I envy Scott (2015), Anderson (2014), and Thomas (2014) the opportunity. But, as a local of the Washington DC area, I find myself wealthy in con attendance opportunities. I am most familiar with fan conventions such as Awesome Con (established 2013, now over 70,000 attendees), Otakon (established 1994, now over 29,000 attendees), Katsucon (established 1995, now over 17,000 attendees), and Baltimore Comic-​Con (established 2000, now over 15,000 attendees). I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak at the Atlanta Comics and Arts Conference the same year I performed at Dragon Con (established 1987, now over 80,000 attendees), in 2014 I took my children to New York Comic Con (established 2006, now over 180,000 attendees), and in 2018 I slipped out of an academic conference to tour the vendor halls and catch the nerdlesque show at Seattle’s Emerald City Comic Con

 36

36  On bodies and boundaries (established 2003, now over 98,000 attendees). I have only once attended a convention in street clothes (New York), and I have more than once left props behind for fear they would be confiscated at the door (my Team Fortress 2 Pyro flamethrower, my steampunk scythe). Each time I’ve purchased tickets for these events I’ve agreed to abide by the cons’ rules and codes of conduct; as a cosplayer I’ve been sure to read them. Convention rules regulating weaponry are among the most common, and logical for events hosting tens of thousands of attendees over a single weekend. Weapons policies are relatively consistent among American popular arts conventions. Recognizing the difficulty in determining real weapons from skillfully produced replicas, most conventions ban all firearms, projectiles (i.e., functional arrows), or realistic facsimiles of such weapons. Under “Cosplay Rules,” New York Comic Con’s sixth and seventh requirements specify that weapons must be nonfunctioning props made of foam or cardboard, and that bows be unstrung; Dragon Con’s tenth attendee policy states that no firearms will be allowed at the convention, including “those attendees who maintain a Georgia Weapons Carry License or a similar permit from another state.” San Diego Comic-​Con states in bold that “No functional props or weapons are allowed at Comic-​Con,” but clarifies that they allow nonfunctioning weapons as props, under the stipulation that “All costume props and weapons must be inspected at one of the Costume Props Desks.” Awesome Con’s third published policy relates their “Cosplay and Costume Weapons,” which states that “Any weapon that could seriously hurt somebody is not allowed,” specifically banning functional and realistic replica firearms, props made out of hard materials, any functional projectile, any bladed weapons, whips, explosives, blunt instruments, and loud props. It is this policy that convinced me to leave my (heavy plastic) flamethrower in the car for fear of confiscation or banned entry. This policy would similarly ban Walking Dead Neegan cosplayers from carrying wooden bats, and any Catwomen with whips at their hips. Any cosplayer who attempts to carry real or prop weapons into a convention can expect to be barred entry, and any attendee who brandishes a weapon purchased from a vendor will presumably be expelled. The enforcement of these policies significantly contributes to the long entry lines at cons, as patrons’ bags are searched, and many conventions employ the use of metal detectors, but, as Winge remarks, “weapon rules focus on safety restrictions that protect everyone attending the convention,” (2019, 177). But while weapons policies logically extend safety to all con participants, the regulation of cosplayers and cosplayer bodies speaks to tension and conflict between costumed and non-​costumed convention

 37

On bodies and boundaries  37 attendees. In the face of rising complaints of cosplayer harassment at conventions (McIsaac, 2012; Backe, 2014; Scott, 2019; Winge, 2019; Crawford & Hancock 2019), some cons have introduced restrictive costuming policies, noticeably targeting costumes that reveal or accentuate cosplayer bodies –​a decision which Winge argues “places responsibility on the victims and situates dress at the epicenter of these continuing discussions and issues” (2019, 177). These restrictions signify the continued gendering of the convention space as one intended for masc participants, and invaded by “fake geek girls” (Scott, 2015, 2019). But writes Emma Backe, “geek culture is not a discrete, separate community. Every culture has porous boundaries, bleeding into different societies and sub-​groups. The sexual harassment experienced by women and girls at events like Comic-​Con is not occurring within a vacuum –​ they are manifestations of a larger society that permits gender-​based violence” and that “Conservative or traditional attitudes about masculinity can promulgate harmful and unhealthy expectations of what it means to be a man within a certain culture” (Backe). That the site of most American cosplay performances is a largely gendered space has been established by Gary Alan Fine (1983) and affirmed by Suzanne Scott (2015, 2019). The gendered spheres of fandom are perfectly illustrated by Fine’s 1983 Shared Fantasy: Role-​ Playing Games as Social World. In considering the limited participation in RPGs by women, Fine quotes a personal interview, in which a masculine player relates that It’s hard for men to play women unless they’re used to it, or, you know, they’ve had experience in it before, and I think it’s probably correspondingly difficult for women to play men. I don’t think it’s impossible with a little practice, at least I’ve seen them do it … the games are set up so [it’s a] man’s world, where the man is dominant and the woman is kind of just there … it’s not that she has any importance, and it’s hard for a woman to get into that. (1983, 65) In this interview, the quoted player recognizes that women are unlikely to show interest in a submissive or inactive role, thus explaining their lack of participation. He does not question that the RPG is “a man’s world,” but he identifies the limitations of traditional gender roles. Fine quotes player Greg as recognizing that there isn’t a whole lot of literature about female warriors. You know, Red Sonja maybe, but that’s just a comic book, I’ve never

 38

38  On bodies and boundaries seen any books on that. … I think maybe it’s just a matter of them needing something to identify with. (1983, 66) But finding such a character with which to identify challenges the framework of the “man’s world, where the man is dominant,” and thus the presence of a femme with agency disrupts the ease of this fan narrative. “All communities of practice involve, and are shaped by, social power relations, both externally and internally,” observes Crawford (2019, 189), and Suzanne Scott’s research demonstrates that the fragility of the homosocial sphere of Fine’s RPGs. Scott’s 2019 Fake Geek Girls offers a thorough analysis of the sexisms of fandom, and the contested identity of femme fans in previously homosocial fan spaces. She writes that “Fan conventions are a prime ‘battleground’ in which digital discourses around ‘authentic’ fandom and ‘fake geek girls’ are mobilized and enacted, as the anti-​Twilight protests at San Diego Comic-​Con 2009 suggest” (106). Writing of gender spheres and the practices of drag kings emulating masculine cultures, Torr and Bottoms argue that “In patriarchal cultures, as a general rule, masculinity is given precedence. To ‘act like a man’ is thus to assume a certain authority and control, and to ‘be womanly’ is to submit to a certain passivity,” but “for women to ‘upgrade’ themselves to the status of men, and to do so plausibly, is to imply that the authority traditionally held by men is a matter of posture and theatricality (bluff) more than divine or biological right” (2013, 4, 10). For Torr, this “upgrading” would be the successful drag king performance, but in fan spheres this would be the femme fan similarly claiming space as an active participant rather than a passive observer. Although cosplay is not a strictly gendered activity, and cosplayers self-​identify across the gender spectrum, research has established that cosplay participants are predominantly female. Galbraith (2009, p. 52) estimates that in Japan in 2007 there were approximately 200,000 cosplayers, ninety per cent of whom were female. From our own observations, we would suggest that it also seems to be the case that the majority of cosplayers at most science fiction and fantasy conventions and meet-​ups in the UK are female. Lamerichs (2013) suggests that cosplayers at conventions in Japan tend to be predominantly female, similarly, for della Valle et al. (2015) women made up over sixty-​seven per cent of the respondents to their survey of nearly 300 cosplayers at three conventions in Italy. In Lotecki’s (2012) online

 39

On bodies and boundaries  39 survey of over 500 (mostly American) cosplayers over seventy-​six per cent of respondents were women, and similarly, Rosenberg and Letamendi’s (2013) online survey, of again primarily American cosplayers, had sixty-​five per cent female respondents. (Crawford & Hancock, 2019, 90–​91) My own research reflects similarly disproportionate participation, as eighty-​ one identified as cis-​or trans women/​ femmes, thirty-​ two indicated other gender non-​ conforming identities, and only sixteen participants out of 129 responses self-​identified as cis or trans men/​ masc (Mishou, 2019).1 Thus, some commentators categorize cosplaying as a feminine activity and aggressively criticize the practice as such. Reflecting on the work of Fine and Scott, I argue that the harassment of femme cosplayers by masc patrons is an enforcement of the gendered spheres of the convention space –​a social boundary policed and maintained through purposeful objectification of cosplayers and intrusion into their performances through catcalling, groping, and objectifying media (photographs), which purposefully “separate[s]‌a person’s body, body parts, or sexual functions from his or her person, reducing them to the status of mere instruments, or regarding them as if they were capable of representing him or her (Bartky, 1990)” (Aubrey, 2006, 367). Fake Geek Girls recalls Tony Harris, a comic writer and artist, as an illustrative example of the social discourse around cosplay and “fake geek girls.” In a 2012 social media post “Harris goes on to frame female cosplayers as ‘more pathetic than the REAL nerds’ as they pander for sexual attention and ‘prey’ on virginal fanboys.” Scott asserts that “the impact of these sorts of remarks on female cosplayers resonates with Doreen Massey’s assertion that the ‘gendering of space and place both reflects and has effects back on the ways in which gender is constructed and understood in the societies in which we live,’ ” informing both social and critical responses to women in fan spaces Scott (2019, 106). This impact is similarly recognized by Backe, who writes in 2016 that “Despite the common refrain that cosplay is for everyone and that cosplay spaces should be free of judgment, several female cosplayers mentioned experiencing ‘downtalking’ and casual sexism at cons.” In “Rule 63: Genderswapping in Female Superhero Cosplay,” Christopher McGunnigle is similarly critical of femme cosplayers, as he frames genderswapping as a primarily competitive and socially tactical decision. McGunnigle consistently reviews the practice less as an act of fandom than performances methodically developed in order to maximize potential audience attention, in competition with other cosplayers. McGunnigle’s chapter is illustrative of the aggression “fake geek girls”

 40

40  On bodies and boundaries confront, as examined by Scott, as femmes’s motivations are considered inherently competitive and assertive rather than self-​reflective.

Regulating the cosplayer body Anderson (2014) likens the experience of cosplaying at San Diego Comic-​Con to a kind of celebrity, describing the social separation between cosplayers and non-​costumed attendees, the frequent flash of cameras for both solicited and unsolicited photographs, and even being stopped for autographs. Though convention merchants and vendors are known to complain about cosplayers distracting patrons and blocking aisles, photographs of cosplayers posing with non-​costumed attendees are used by conventions to advertise their events, proving cosplayer marketability to the convention industry (Winge, 2019, 176). Anderson’s description of momentary celebrity is apt, but it suggests a glamor that may not be everyone cosplayer’s experience. Encouraging the suspension of disbelief and fan indulgence, conventions become not unlike amusement parks, where children and adult patrons may see, speak with, and pose with their favorite fictional characters. But unlike theme parks, the cosplayers they approach are themselves fan attendees: just like the non-​ costumed patrons, cosplayers pay to attend events, are not compensated for the time they spend interacting with other attendees, and volunteer the time spent for each photograph or fan interaction. Respondent 2019*17 laments that patrons consistently fail to acknowledge that, “Cosplayers are not the characters they’re dressed as. I find this is a hard concept for many non-​ cosplayers to grasp. We’re human beings. People always drop the human decency for some reason.” This is a “consistent refrain” Frankie Wallace acknowledges is associated with both rudeness and aggressive behavior, as “Certain people are incapable of understanding that just because someone is dressed as a character, no matter how provocatively, they are still an individual with rights; they’re not an embodied sexual fantasy that can be touched or groped without consent” (2019). 2019*17’s remark speaks to a general social expectation that cosplayers perform at the behest of non-​costumed patrons and may suffer mistreatment when they refuse. Other cosplayers, such as respondent 2019*4, describe aggressive attempts to sexualize cosplayers, such as “older men” who “would ask us [two femme-​presenting cosplayers] to kiss for pictures,” making the cosplayers uncomfortable by the demands. Though anecdotal on their own, reports illustrate the breadth of the problem of cosplay and harassment.

 41

On bodies and boundaries  41 In her feminist call for self-​actualized sexual agency, Joanna Frueh argues that “A risky body, such as [the female bodybuilder in her 40s], a risk-​taking soul-​and-​mind-​inseparable-​from-​body, inspires hatred and disgust as well as stimulating erotic and aesthetic pleasure” (2001, 59). The performatively femme cosplayer is just such a risky body, visually and physically claiming space and identity within a continually gendered site of fan performance. Frueh’s arguments can be used to frame the harassment of femme cosplayers by non-​costumed masc patrons who catcall, grope, insult, bully, and objectify cosplayers through surreptitious photography (i.e., upskirting photographs (Mishou, 2019), filming cosplayers from behind without consent (McIsaac, 2012)). While cosplayer narratives, such as those shared by survey respondents and published by cosplayers such as Molly McIsaac (2012), consistently relate feelings of power and agency in portraying femme properties, they likewise articulate the social conflicts they face while cosplaying. Respondent 2019*81 writes of her favorite cosplay that she “loves playing as Seras,” but immediately follows with a narrative of “this one dude who yelled that I should hold his head between my boobs.” Significantly, the cosplayer remembers that she “was near a con staffer who did nothing.” In this moment, 2019*81 embodies the agency of the cosplayer, as well as the objectifying and aggressive response of the masc patron who sought to control her cosplay narrative through his assertion of sexualized dominance. In 2014 Janelle Asselin “conducted a survey on sexual harassment in comics, receiving 3,600 responses from people that varied from fans to professionals,” and whose respondents self-​reported that “55 percent of respondents were female, 39 percent were male, and six percent were non-​binary.” Over half of the survey participants indicated they believed sexual harassment in the comics industry was a problem, and 25 percent reported their own harassment: while in the workplace or at work events, respondents were more likely to suffer disparaging comments about their gender, sexual orientation, or race. At conventions, respondents were more likely to be photographed against their wishes. Thirteen percent reported having unwanted comments of a sexual nature made about them at conventions –​and eight percent of people of all genders reported they had been groped, assaulted, or raped at a comic convention.

 42

42  On bodies and boundaries These percentages indicate a significant problem, but Asselin’s perspective drives home the problem: To put these percentages into perspective, if 13 percent of San Diego Comic-​Con attendees have unwanted comments of a sexual nature made about them this week, that would be around 17,000 people. And if eight percent of SDCC attendees are groped, assaulted, or raped, that’s over 10,000 attendees suffering harassment. Asselin addresses the harassment experienced by cosplayers specifically when she writes Unfortunately for many fans, their cosplay results in creeps following them around, trying to take up-​skirt or ass photos, and thinking they can generally harass them, especially if they wear a costume that seems sexy. Plus, unfortunately there is still a small contingent of geek men who want to make women feel unwelcome at conventions so they will harass, berate, and belittle them. (Asselin, 2014) As patrons, and not contracted entertainers, cosplayers are not offered the same protections as employees, who would be protected under anti-​ harassment laws. Interim Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and lawyer Jeff Trexler explains that, like models, who have few legal protections as independent contractors, cosplayers who are not attending a convention in the course of employment are not protected by sexual harassment laws: “Although we often use the phrase ‘sexual harassment’ when speaking of unwanted advances to cosplayers and fashion models alike, from a legal perspective the term typically refers to sexually inappropriate behavior in certain employment contexts” and thus “regardless of how egregiously inappropriate the behavior may be, it technically is not a violation of sexual harassment law” (Trexler, 2014). Instead, cosplayers are bound by attendance policies, and “protected” by anti-​harassment policies that place the onus of enforcement on the abused rather than convention staff. The harassment cosplayers face is real, and cosplayers and cosplay scholars alike call for convention organizers to offer support and protection for cosplayer patrons targeted for their performances as feminine and hyperfeminine characters. As Trexler laments, it’s all too common to run across men who view what women wear as a sign of sexual availability, as opposed to a form of stylized

 43

On bodies and boundaries  43 expression that for many women in modeling, marketing, retail and design is an integral part of their professional identity. (Trexler, 2014) Similarly, Crawford writes in 2019: It is also important to recognise that the negative aspects of cosplay can at times extend beyond simple criticism, and Lome (2016, 4.2) suggests that “more stories are beginning to surface about harassment at conventions,” and this is often particularly targeted at women. Campaigns such as Cosplay is NOT Consent and Geeks of CONsent, as well as our interviews with cosplayers highlight that many female cosplayers have been subjected to abuse, sexual objectification, and misogynistic attitudes and behaviour, both online and at conventions. (191) This echoes the research and experiences of Winge (2019), Scott (2019), Cocoa (2017), Backe (2014), and McIsaac (2012). Though cosplay-​ restrictive con policies purportedly developed as a response to growing concerns over instances of cosplayer harassment, the policies themselves are often regarded as punitive for cosplayers, and ineffective in managing attendee behaviors. Winge argues that “conventions’ rules intended to make the space safer and family friendly tend to specifically target female Cosplayers to modify their costumes and roleplaying behaviors” and that “Female Cosplayers, in particular, are under scrutiny for being women, for their character choices, or how they choose to visually represent a character” (2019, 177, 180). Cosplay policies vary widely between conventions; neither San Diego Comic-​Con nor New York Comic Con publish policies regulating cosplayer bodies, while Dragon Con liberally reminds attendees that “no costume is NO costume, and there are public nudity laws in Georgia. Please wear appropriate (or at least enough) clothing in the common areas.” Otakon offers tips for effective convention cosplaying, emphasizing the importance of hydration, while CONvergence in Minneapolis (established 1999, now over 5,500 attendees) specifically requires the covering of all genitals and pubic areas, intergluteal clefts, and nipples and areolas “of all members, regardless of gender presentation.” Other conventions target specific cosplayers more pointedly. Causeacon in Beckley West Virginia publishes cosplay requirements according to binary gender identities, telling “Women” that they “must cover, at minimum, as much as a modest bathing suit. Breasts need to be

 4

44  On bodies and boundaries 70% covered and buttocks must be completely covered. If your costume calls for a thong, pasties or other below-​minimum-​coverage elements, please wear a bodysuit beneath it” and “Men,” “must cover, at minimum, as much as a typical pair of swimming trunks. If your costume calls for a Speedo-​cut brief or other below-​minimum-​coverage elements, please wear pants or a body suit beneath it. Morph suits and other skin tight unitard-​type outfits require appropriate undergarments and should not be worn with nothing underneath! Genitalia and/​or nipples must not be visible through the costume.” The specificity of Causeacon’s policies speak to the anxiety over bodily display and the expectation that cosplayers will violate conservative expectations of modesty if left unpoliced. In addition to these gendered policies, Causeacon refers to “decency” and nudity for five of their twelve cosplay regulations, which otherwise require cosplayers to pass “smear” tests and “tickle” tests if asked. While the “bathing suit” rules employed by many conventions may seem both reasonable and easily definable, Causeacon’s policies suggest that one person’s swimwear may be another’s inappropriate intergluteal cleft, and that concepts of public decency are dependent on site rather than universally applicable expectations of bodily autonomy. Though legal in some states and counties in the United States, Louisiana’s Geek’d Con (established in 2015, now over 15,000 attendees) specifically bans the use of pasties, or decorative nipple covers, and while attendees could presumably wear swimsuits with impunity at the hotel pool, Northeast Comic Con in Massachusetts (established 2014, now over 10,000 attendees) specifically bans their wearing “in place of clothing.” A similarly ill-​defined cosplay restriction is the concept of “family friendly” entertainment. Conventions such as Another Anime Con, Four State Con, Emerald City Comic Con, and Northeast Comic Con each identify their programming as “family friendly,” and explicitly ban cosplays that are determined to be in violation of the family friendly dress code “as determined by the judges [convention] Team in their sole discretion” (Emerald City Comic Con). Without further explicit definition, this framework utilizes an American cultural assumption that frames the femme figure, and thus femme cosplayers, as indecent –​a phenomenon at the center of debates on the regulation of social media and the widespread impact of SESTA-​FOSTA regulation that is actively used to censor media representing femme bodies (Mishou, 2021). The strawman of this cultural debate is the concept of “the child [which] has all too often served as a justification for the most wretched forms of social and political conservatism in the United States” (Halberstam,

 45

On bodies and boundaries  45 2012, xx). In Gaga Feminism, gender theorist J. Halberstam argues that the concept of protection children from media is a “ruse that religious Americans have used to censor all kinds of materials that feature any kind of open discussion of sexuality,” condemning a system that “still controls girls and girl sexualities within a rigid system of blocks, taboos, and prohibitions” and expects “boys to punish each other into ‘normal’ forms of masculinity” (2012, 9). By shifting the focus to the abstract child by whom the family is defined, conventions legitimize their sartorial censorship, projecting conversative distaste inspired the symbol of American wholesomeness. The reach of this critical censorship goes beyond convention attendance and is echoed within some cosplay communities themselves. Winge responds critically to the continuing influence of the vilification of sexuality and cosplayer bodies when she writes that “Cosplayers who portray hypersexualized characters are susceptible” to harsh criticism from even their peers, citing the example of professional cosplayer Yaya Han, who “was heavily criticized for possibly having breast implants” (180). She astutely notes that “Female Cosplayers, in particular, are under scrutiny for being women, for their character choices, or how they choose to visually represent a character” (180). This criticism may be learned behavior as cosplayers internalize the objectification of Han (Aubrey, 2006) and project frustration with cosplay policies (Winge, 2019, 176) onto an illustrative example of presumed femme sexuality. The growing awareness of harassment at conventions has led to an increasing number of fan conventions publishing anti-​harassment policies as part of their codes of conduct, and The Cosplayer Survivor Support Network, or CSSN, has collected data on anti-​harassment policies at cosplay sites across America. Though their list is not exhaustive, their efforts frame the awareness and demands of cosplayers seeking support from conventions. In generating their report cards, CSSN looks at convention policies to see if they meet the following criteria: does the convention publish an anti-​harassment policy, is the policy easy to find, does the policy define “harassment,” does the policy establish consequences for harassers, do they provide instructions for those facing harassment from convention staff, and does the policy explicitly publish contact information for support and resolution staff (CSSN). According to their criteria, only 23 of the 245 surveyed American conventions were able to meet all criteria (including CONvergence). Of the conventions without restrictive cosplay regulations named in this chapter, New York Comic Con meets all criteria relating to attendees (but not staff harassment) and enables harassment reporting through an app; Baltimore

 46

46  On bodies and boundaries Comic-​Con and Katsucon are similarly rated. Neither Dragon Con nor San Diego Comic-​Con are listed. Anime Boston, which bans “offensive and/​or revealing attire” does not define harassment in their statement, nor address harassment from staff. Another Anime Con, which explicitly defines how much of a cosplayer’s posterior may be exposed, fails across the CSSN board. Strong harassment policies are those that name specific behaviors as inappropriate (“groping, stalking, and inappropriate photography”, Awesome Con2), specify that, though perhaps without legal ramifications (Trexler), “Gender-​based harassment doesn’t have to happen in the workplace to be unacceptable,” (Awesome Con) and define harassment specifically, which includes, but is not limited to, verbal comments that reinforce social structures of domination related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion; deliberate intimidation; stalking; following; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other events; inappropriate physical contact; and unwelcome sexual attention. (Awesome Con) The limitations of these policies, however, lie in their enforcement, and the reliance on cosplayers themselves to function as enforcers of social regulation for both cosplay and social rules. Though Dragon Con informs patrons that 2,000 staff members in green shirts are available to assist, no other convention in my research has provided the means through which cosplayers can even find staff to whom to report. In addressing and regulating the costumes of one demographic and the actions of another, convention policies on appropriate dress and harassment identify femme cosplayers as the subjects and masc patrons as the actors of harassment. But both policies –​costume restrictions and anti-​harassment statements –​lay the burden of acceptable social interactions on the cosplayer, coaching them not to entice and forcing them to act for their own protection. Like weapons policies, cosplay policies are enforceable by convention staff at the door, as conventions giving gate-​workers the authority to “make final judgment calls on what is ‘decent’ ” (Causeacon). These policies do not give cosplayers an avenue for appeal and require cosplayers to comply with all requests from all employees to cover their bodies, even when policies are unevenly applied, as experienced by gender queer Respondent 2019*7: “I’ve had challenges with policy in venues; selective enforcement of covering

 47

On bodies and boundaries  47 standards without specific guidance to refer to [w]‌hat would keep one masc-​presenting cosplayer from being topless while another is held to a different standard. That’s always frustrating.” The harassment policies intended to protect cosplayers and other patrons are left to self-​ policing in the absence of convention representatives in the throng of con patrons. Anecdotally, for all of my con visits I cannot remember seeing visibly recognizable conventions security away from the front gates. The sheer crush of people can make this at times difficult, and the stealthy and surreptitious behavior of patrons can make their detection and apprehension nearly impossible. The result of these policies is that cosplayers may face regulation before entering a convention hall, but the patrons who breach bounds of acceptability and touch, insult, photograph, intimidate, or otherwise harass cosplayers may not. Consequently, both policies regulate cosplay performances, as cosplayers must negotiate both convention policies and evaluate the social risks of performing their fandoms through costumed play. The limitation of costumes as a means to dissuade molestation and harassment is an active condemnation of sartorial styling rather than a condemnation of the behavior of harassers and molesters, bureaucratically signaling the blame for this behavior lies with the cosplayers whose costumes attract unwanted sexual attention rather than the individuals who breach social and legal boundaries of personal space and bodily autonomy. Backe argues: When we lay the onus of blame upon women for wearing certain clothes, or acting a certain way, we remain complicit in a system that refuses to address the cycles of violence, oppression and misdirection that enculturates us to believe that violence against women is normal and acceptable. (2014) The consequences of this behavior are illustrated in the responses of survey respondents. Though respondent 2019*28 writes that she “can’t recall a truly negative [experience]”, she goes on to relate that she has “had a couple creeper moments and inappropriate comments/​attention, but not approaching harassment I don’t think.” Striking in this account is the final phrase, “I don’t think,” a searching phrase that may suggest that her hesitancy to define her discomfort and receipt of “inappropriate … attention” as “negative” is concern for greater narratives of abuse and harassment of cons.

 48

48  On bodies and boundaries

A defense of “sexy” cosplays Rather than defining femme bodies and “sexy” cosplays as inappropriate for public performance, I believe as Julia Serano (2016), who argues that Instead of attempting to empower those born female by encouraging them to move further away from femininity, we should instead learn to empower femininity itself. We must stop dismissing it as “artificial” or as a “performance,” and instead recognize that certain aspects of femininity (and masculinity as well) transcend both socialization and biological sex. (18) To counter the narratives of censorship and respectability politics represented by convention policies, I will conclude this chapter with cosplayer narratives as they reflect on their performances, reading their affective responses through the lens of Maria Elena Buszek’s concept of awarishness, agency, and sexuality. Drawing from Frueh’s concept of the monster/​beauty, an extravagant and empowered femme indult in her own sexuality and sensuality in defiance of cultural regulation (2001), Buszek writes in Pin-​Up Grrrls (2006) of the agency of awarishness. Lamenting that “The most obvious problem with representing sexuality is the fact that sexualized representations of women have –​like female sexuality itself –​historically been used to limit women’s growth and opportunities as nonsexual beings,” (2006, 13), Buszek looks to the example of nineteenth-​century leg-​show performers who began circulating their photographs as both advertisements and souvenirs of their risqué performances. At a time when any woman in public was looked upon with suspicion, these burlesque performers recognized the profitability of the sensationalism of their public challenges to decency. They “were unsettling not simply because they were on stage, but also because of their conscious contemporaneity and sexual self-​awareness. Worse yet was the fact of their willingness to exploit both to advance their careers” (Buszek, 2006, 42). Their awarishness was built on an understanding of their sexuality and their potential objectification and the agency they found in controlling their performative narratives. Awarishness is a performance and a product –​a construction of self that reflects idealization and autonomy, sold as advertisements, artifacts, and cultural influence. Like these performers, I argue that cosplayers who adopt “sexy” cosplays are not operating from a place of obliviousness –​as Cocca argues, “Comics audiences are not merely passive consumers. They can decide how they will receive and analyze objectified images, and they can decide how

 49

On bodies and boundaries  49 they will accede to or reinvent or protest those images” (2017, 16). Rather, cosplayer narratives demonstrate that cosplayers who define their cosplays as sexy do so from a place of agency, associating confidence and power with their sartorial performances. Although not named as a potential motivation in the survey questions, survey responses suggest that feeling “sexy” is one of the positive drives of cosplay choices, as 13 respondents shared narratives describing their enjoyment of their “sexy” cosplays. When asked why a particular cosplay remains a favorite, respondent 2019*52 shared that “Velma [of Scoobey Doo] was a fun character and I legit felt sexy,” 2019*40 “felt really sexy as a petite femme Han Solo,” and 2019*6 feels “powerful and sexy” in her Silent Hill Lady Pyramid head cosplay. Each of these cosplayers indicate that these cosplays are among their favorites, and cite their feelings of sexiness as affectively contributing to their enjoyment. Though 2019*15 did not expect to be recognized as the lesser-​known Rayne from BloodRayne, she writes that she “love[s]‌ the deadly sexiness of the character,” choosing a more obscure figure for its appeal to her as a cosplayer rather than the cultural value of recognizability. Respondent 2019*78’s response considered the correlation between sex and power in femme cosplays and her choice to cosplay Catwoman and Wonder Woman more conservatively. She writes that I am a feminist and older (50), and I appreciate their beauty and sex appeal, but I do not wear the form-​fitting things I sometimes see other women wear at the cons. I do not judge the choices of those cosplayers. It is just not my choice to do it that way. I love seeing all kinds of people dress up in all kinds of ways, and for me that is part of the joy of seeing people do cosplay. 2019*78 is quick to recognize that the actresses who play the original roles are “beautiful and sexy,” and she is equally quick to acknowledge that their sartorial styling is less comfortable for her to imitate –​and that the difference does not inhibit her cosplays. In this narrative is an awareness and acceptance of a spectrum of sexy cosplays, recognizing the choice to adopt these sartorial stylings as an individual performance of both fandom and comfort, one that she prefers to witness than personally embody.

Conclusion Historian and literary scholar Jennie Batchelor argues that “As a symbol that can variously connote wealth, social status, sexuality and moral probity, dress is, as it always has been and probably always will be, a

 50

50  On bodies and boundaries site on which multiple and often competing anxieties are simultaneously focused” (2005, 11). Cosplay is a creative and social practice that must navigate internal and external rules. Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, and Geczy (2019) identify cosplay as a global “rule-​based culture,” which regulates and, as I’ll argue in the next chapter, gatekeeps the creative fan practice. Winge (2019) writes that “the fandom encourages supportive and compassionate relationships among Cosplayers” and that a guiding principle within the practice is simply “Have fun don’t be a dick” (178). External, material, and social pressures more directly restrict cosplay practices in a multitude of ways, as cosplayers face practical concerns such as convention expenses, and social anxieties over gender, bodies, sexuality, and individual agency. Thus, cosplays at cons are a reflection of both fan and social institutions, communicating fandoms and maker practices, and the values and identities cosplayers are allowed to present.

Notes 1 My 2015 survey Crossplay and Identity interestingly contradicts this trend, albeit in a very small sample. Of 33 responses, 17 self-​identified as male or masculine crossplayers (Mishou, 2015). With the additional data from the 2019 cosplayer survey, the majority remains with femme cosplayers at 96 to 29 masculine cosplayers and 39 gender nonconforming cosplayers (self-​ identified as agender, queergender, nonbinary, demigirl, genderfluid, or bigender). 2 Awesome Con is not rated by CSSN.

Bibliography Anderson, K. (2014). Actualized Fantasy at Comic-​Con and the Confessions of a ‘Sad Cosplayer.’ Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at Comic-​ Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon, McFarland & Company, 16–​28. Another Anime Con. (n.d.). Cosplayers. Convention Rules. www. anotheranimecon.com/​index.php/​info/​policies/​convention-​rules-​policies. Asselin, J. (2014). How Big of a Problem Is Harassment at Comic Conventions? Very Big. Bitch Media. www.bitchmedia.org/​post/​how-​big-​a-​problem-​is-​ harassment- ​ at- ​ c omic-​ c onventions-​ very-​ b ig-​ s urvey- ​ s dcc- ​ e merald- ​ c ity-​ cosplay-​consent. Aubrey, J. S. (2006). Effects of Sexually Objectifying Media on Self-​ Objectification and Body Surveillance in Undergraduates: Results of a 2-​ Year Panel Study. Journal of Communication, 56. 366–​386. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1111/​j.1460-​2466.2006.00024.x. Awesome Con. (n.d.). Policies. https://​awesome-​con.com/​policies/​.

 51

On bodies and boundaries  51 Backe, E. L. (2016). Consumption, Performance and Identity in Cosplay. The Geek Anthropologist. https://​thegeekanthropologist.com/​2016/​06/​16/​ consumption-​performance-​and-​identity-​in-​cosplay/​. Backe, E. L. (2014). Violence and Victimization: Misogyny in Geek Culture (And Everywhere Else). The Geek Anthropologist. https://​thegeekanthropologist. com/​2014/​09/​09/​violence-​and-​victimization-​misogyny-​in-​geek-​culture-​and-​ everywhere-​else/​. Batchelor, J. (2005). Dress, Distress, and Desire. Palgrave. DOI: 10.1057/​ 9780230508200. Buszek, M. E. (2006). Pin-​Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture. Duke University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1215/​9780822387565. Causeacon. (n.d.). Cosplay Costumes. Cosplay Rules & Policies. www. causeacon.com/​cosplay-​rules-​policies/​. Cocca, C. (2017). Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation. Bloomsbury. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.5040/​9781501316609.0005. Comic-​Con International: San Diego. (n.d.) Convention Policies. www.comic-​ con.org/​cci/​convention-​policies. CONvergence. (n.d.). Costuming. www.convergence-​con.org/​get-​involved/​costuming/​. Cosplayer Survivor Support Network. (n.d.) Convention Harassment Policies. https://​cosplayer-​ssn.org/​policies.php#LA. Crawford, G., & Hancock, D. (2019). Cosplay and the Art of Play: Exploring Sub-​Culture Through Art. Palgrave MacMillan. Dragon Con. (n.d.). Dragon Con Policies. www.dragoncon.org/​about/​dragon-​ con-​policies/​. Fine, G. A. (1983). Shared Fantasy: Role-​Playing Games as Social Worlds (2nd ed). The University of Chicago Press. DOI:10.2307/​539941. Frueh, J. (2001). Monster/​Beauty: Building the Body of Love/​Beauty: Building the Body of Love. University of California Press. Geek’d Con. (2019). Cosplay Rules. https://​geekdcon.com/​cosplay-​rules/​. Gn, J. (2011). Queer Simulation: The Practice, Performance and Pleasure of Cosplay. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 25 (4). https://​doi. org/​10.1080/​10304312.2011.582937. Gunnels, J. (2009). “A Jedi Like My Father Before Me”: Social Identity and the New York Comic Con. Transformative Works and Culture, 3. https://​doi.org/​ 10.3983/​twc.2009.0161. Halberstam, J. (2012). Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal. Beacon Press. Lamerichs, N. (2011). Stranger Than Fiction: Fan Identity in Cosplay. Transformative Works and Culture, 7. https://​doi.org/​10.3983/​twc.2011.0246. Lamerichs, N. (2018). Productive Fandom. Amsterdam University Press. https://​ doi.org/​10.5117/​9789089649386. Lancaster, K., & Mikotowicz, T. (2001). Introduction: Popular Entertainment and the Desire for Transcendence: Immersion into Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Performances. Performing the Force: Essays on Immersion into

 52

52  On bodies and boundaries Science-​Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Environments, McFarland & Company, 1–​6. https://​doi.org/​10.5555/​558304. Leng, R. H. Y. (2013). Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-​ to-​Female Crossplay. The Pheonix Papers, 1. 89–​110. McGunnigle, C. (2019). Rule 63: Genderswapping in Female Superhero Cosplay. Goodrum, M., Prescott, T., and Smith, P., eds. Gender and the Superhero Narrative. University Press of Mississippi, 144–​179. DOI:10.14325/​mississippi/​9781496818805.001.0001. McIsaac, M. (2012). Cosplay is Not a Permission Slip: A Rant. The Geeky Peacock. http://​thegeekypeacock.blogspot.com/​2012/​10/​cosplay-​is-​not-​ permission-​slip-​rant.html. Mishou, A. L. (2015). Survey: Crossplay and Identity. Mishou, A. L. (2019). Survey: Cosplay and Identity. Mishou, A. L. (2021). On the Fringes and Tassels of Respectability: Catwoman and Censoring the Femme Form. Cox, S., ed. Intersectional Feminist Readings of Comics: Interpreting Gender in Graphic Narratives. Routledge. Mountfort, P., Peirson-​Smith, A., & Geczy, A. (2019). Planet Cosplay: Costume Play, Identity and Global Fandom. Intellect. DOI: 10.1386/​jepc_​00015_​5 New York Comic Con. The Theater at Madison Square Garden: Cosplay Rules. www.newyorkcomiccon.com/​RNA/​RNA_​NewYorkComicCon_​V2/​2017/​ docs/​NYCC17-​Theater-​At-​MSG-​Cosplay-​Rules.pdf. Nichols, E. G. (2019). Playing with Identity: Gender, Performance, and Feminine Agency in Cosplay. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 33 (2). 270–​282. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​10304312.2019.1569410. Norris, C., & Bainbridge, J. (2009). Selling Otaku? Mapping the Relationship between Industry and Fandom in the Australian Cosplay Scene. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 20. Norris, C., & Bainbridge, J. (2013). Posthuman Drag: Understanding Cosplay as Social Networking in a Material Culture. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, (32). Northeast Comic Con. (n.d.). Props, Costumes, & Weapons Rules. https://​ necomiccons.com/​attractions/​cosplay/​cosplay-​rules/​#:~:text=Attendees%20 wearing%20costumes%20that%20are,any%20point%20during%20the%20 convention. Otakon. (n.d.). Cosplay and Safety. General Policies. www.otakon.com/​info/​ general-​policies/​. Scott, S. (2015). “Cosplay Is Serious Business”: Gendering Material Fan Labor on Heroes of Cosplay. Cinema Journal, 54 (3). 146–​154. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1353/​cj.2015.0029. Scott, S. (2019). Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. New York University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​jpcu.12933. Serano, J. (2016). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Seal Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1527-​ 2001.2009.01052_​1.x. Thomas, C. (2014). “Love to Mess with Minds”: (En)gendering Identities Through Crossplay. Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at

 53

On bodies and boundaries  53 Comic-​Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon, McFarland & Company, 29–​39. Torr, D., & Bottoms, S. (2013). Sex, Drag, and Male Roles: Investigating Gender as Performance. The University of Michigan Press. DOI: 10.3998/​ mpub.236704. Trexler, J. (2014) SDCC ’14: Fashioning a Response to Cosplay Harassment. The Beat: The Blog of Comics Culture. www.comicsbeat.com/​sdcc-​14-​a-​model-​ response-​to-​harassment/​. Wallace, F. (2019). Why Bullying and Sexual Assault Are Still Common in the World of Cosplay. Talk Nerdy With Us. https://​talknerdywithus.com/​ 2019/​07/​why-​bullying-​and-​sexual-​assault-​are-​still-​common-​in-​the-​world-​of-​ cosplay/​. Winge, T. M. (2019). Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination. Bloomsbury Visual Arts. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.5040/​9781350035935.0007.

 54

4  Manning the gates Minority identities and gatekeeping in cosplay

Introduction Chapter 3 focuses on the gendered boundaries of sites of cosplay in order to develop an understanding of cosplay as a contested cultural practice inspired by fantasy and fandom, yet beholden to sartorial policing and respectability politics. Reading the harassment of femme cosplays, I argue that conventions place the burden of self-​defense and autonomy on cosplayers through the implementation of dress codes that define bodies and fashions as shameful, and publication of anti-​harassment policies that require the subject of harassment –​ cosplayers themselves –​act as active agents of policy enforcement. There I write of the conflict over the gendered sphere of the American fan convention, and the literal gatekeeping of door-​enforced policies. The present chapter will further nuance these notions of gates and spaces, moving into intersectional identities and how gatekeeping practices of majoritarian fans and cosplayers alike attempt to restrict minority cosplayers, denying them literal and figurative space in the performative fandom. The driving focus of this chapter is the concept of intersectionality, introduced by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw to address judicial discrepancies that saw the erasure of Black women in the US judicial system. In a 2016 interview Crenshaw speaks of the courts determining that Black women could neither represent all women nor all African Americans, but whose interests must be represented by white women (per their gender) or Black men (for their race). In 1989 Crenshaw coined the phrase “intersectionality” to express the complexity of lived experiences that resist such broad reductions, conceiving of intersectional identity “as a repudiation of such either/​or thinking” –​either women or Black Americans (Bello & Macini, 2016). Taking from Crenshaw an understanding that identities are complex and resist strict distillation,

 5

Manning the gates  55 I here work to further existing analysis of cosplayer identities, looking for the intersections of cosplayer, gender, race, and body to think about how the experiences of cosplayers who represent diversity in their fan communities productively complicate existing understanding of cosplayer narratives and experiences. The importance of this discourse is related to the concept of “type,” as is widely cited throughout cosplay research. Lamerichs remarks in 2018 that “Practical choices may involve characters’ age, skin color, and even gender. Some cosplayers have strong gender preferences and enjoy crossplaying, whereas others look at the physical characteristics of specific men and women (220), suggesting that some cosplayers prefer to “play to type” –​that is, work with their natural physical features in order to reflect canon representations of characters. “Type” is not necessary in the adoption of a cosplay property, though, as Mountfort, Peirson-​ Smith, and Geczy observe in 2019 that cosplayers appear “to make their choices based on the alignment of personal qualities between themselves and a selected character, rather than on the basis of age, ethnicity or gender” (278). Existing cosplay scholarship recognizes the diversity of a global community (Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy, 2019; Crawford & Hancock 2019; Winge 2019) but does not yet specifically address the elements, nuances, and challenges of that diversity. Referring to the community as “moderately diverse,” Crawford and Hancock confirm that “In terms of ethnicity, our observations of cosplayers in the UK would seem to suggest that the majority of cosplayers are white, though also with a large number of East Asian participants” (2019, 92). They go on to cite the cosplay research of American-​based psychologists Rosenberg and Letamendi, whose cosplay “survey had sixty-​ eight per cent ‘Caucasian’ and twelve per cent ‘Asian,’ and Lotecki’s (2012) survey similarly suggests over seventy-​two per cent of the cos-​ players she surveyed were ‘White’ ” (Crawford & Hancock, 2019, 92). Curiously, although 93.4 percent of their 198 participants were identified as residents of the United States, the demographic information gathered does not recognize Black Americans or Pacific Islanders, listing ethnicities as “Caucasian,” “Asian,” “Latino/​Hispanic,” “Native American,” “Mixed,” and “Other” (Rosenberg & Letamendi, 2013, 11). The oversight seems incredibly significant, especially in light of the absence of critical discussions of race in studies of fandom. “It’s not as though Black cosplayers don’t exist —​we’re just less likely to be featured on the major cosplay pages and sites,” cosplayer Seun Here laments. “This exclusion can be damaging to young prospective cosplayers because when the only examples of great cosplays are being

 56

56  Manning the gates done by white people, prospective Black cosplayers may begin to feel as though the cosplay community isn’t a space for them” (Mitchell 2020). In the conclusion of Fake Geek Girls, Scott (2019) calls for a conversation on intersectional identities and fandoms, lamenting, as Fiske, a “lack of ‘scholarly studies on non-​white fandom’ ” (225). Winge observes that “Cosplay fandom attempts to be inclusive of differing races, ethnicities, ages, abilities, sexualities, and genders because this inclusivity mindset brings in a wider array of source characters,” further asserting that “demographics and inclusivity are commonly not topics of discussion within the fandom” but lauds the fan practice for its “welcoming social structure,” which “encourages explorations of self and character not commonly available in other settings” (2019, 154). Survey respondents largely echo these sentiments, writing of their experiences positively, and speaking to the social liberation of cosplay as a constructive site for the expression of identities. However, the claim that cosplayers do not discuss demographics conflicts with published cosplayer accounts of racism, sexism, and ableism. I suggest that the perceived silence of cosplayers on the subject of diversity may be the systemic result of minority repudiation. Tai Gooden’s 2016 article “We Need to Talk About Racism and Sexism in the Cosplay Community” attempts to challenge this silence, drawing attention to experiences contrary to popular geek-​Uptonian narratives. She writes that cosplay is “an exciting world, and for many, a personally fulfilling one,” but recognizes that for women, and particularly women of color, it can also be hostile and even threatening. As the geek scene gains prominence under a mainstream lens, harmful behavior is becoming more visible. Body shaming and other forms of discrimination continue to cast a dark cloud over an experience that is supposed to be an escape from reality –​but can instead make the realities of racism and sexism more visible than ever. (Gooden, 2016) Citing experiences from “Kayla, a geek and Afro-​Latina who loves to cosplay,” and “Black Cat, a model for a kink cosplay website and an erotic novelist,” Gooden’s article directly demonstrates the gatekeeping of predominantly “white men, who feel like different elements of geek culture belong to them, and its impact on women of color.” Kayla is particularly distraught when one con attendee debased her Sucker Punch cosplay, loudly saying “Why would you wear that?! You’re not small!” when Kayla walked by. Black Cat faced similar gatekeeping when she started cosplaying and “was told she was ‘too thick and black’

 57

Manning the gates  57 to cosplay by several men on the Internet” (Gooden). Cosplayer Kendra James argues that Cosplaying in and of itself can be stressful enough (I’ve definitely had Convention days when I did not feel confident enough for tight spandex) but for non-​white cosplayers the additional pressure felt when not playing a character of the same ethnicity can add another, untalked about layer of anxiety to the experience. …what happens to the kid who isn’t encouraged to participate because the “default to white” policy removes the impetus from the start? These experiences are not unique to James, Kayla, and Black Cat. While just ten survey respondents identified as cosplayers of color, thirty-​ nine identified as fat cosplayers, and another two wrote in that they are “a bit overweight” (Respondent 2019* 22) or “on the bigger side” (Respondent 2019*42). These personal identifications directly impact their cosplays, as media continues to underrepresent diverse body types. When cosplayers thus cosplay “against type” –​that is, cosplaying a character with a physique different from their own –​they run the risk of facing harassment not just at conventions, but perpetually online. Writes Samantha Close in 2016, “Female cosplayers do, in fact, have a great deal of trouble. … those without idealized thin bodies are frequently shamed and their images appropriated for hateful memes” (6.6). This is a hurtful experience to which Respondent 2019*10 can personally attest, as she recalls when her “Suicide Squad Harley Quinn cosplay was very publicly and very widely shared and ridiculed online because of my weight. This happened a few years ago and still pops up online sometimes. It was all over the world.” Demonstrating that fat-​shaming is not restricted to the criticism of femme bodies, Kane Anderson confronts criticism of playing against type when he writes of Geoff Boucher’s 2008 LA Times article “Comic-​Con is bursting at the seams.” Anderson analyzes Boucher’s disparagement of “a Captain America cosplayer in an ill-​fitting costume,” and his warning of the “freaks” and “wannabees who indulge in cosplay and dressup.” As Anderson writes, “The obvious implication of his statement concerns that only those cosplayers who conform to a constructed norm of behavior deserve to escape the denigration of others” (2014, 25). As a participant researcher, Anderson unexpectedly found himself the focus of similar critical attention, when Jason Avant published stealthily taken photos of Anderson “mid-​ sentence, hunched over” with the caption “Mr. Incredible searches for something –​hope, perhaps –​in his Incredi-​manpurse” (Anderson, 2014, 24). “Not truly failures in their inability to reproduce the impossible,

 58

58  Manning the gates cosplayers ultimately fashion their new bodies from the intersections of their materialism and their celebration of bodies that cannot, perhaps should not, exist in our phenomenological plane” (Anderson, 2014, 26). Driving this chapter is the understanding that the experiences of a White cosplayer are not universal and cannot represent the experiences of a Black cosplayer, who navigates poor representation and majority white-​coded media. The same can, and needs, be said about representation and disabled cosplayers, fat cosplayers, chronically ill cosplayers, neurologically divergent cosplayers, and more. Intersectionality teaches that multiple points of identification impact a person’s experiences moving through society, including the navigation of fan cultures and fan practices. In this chapter I want to draw attention to the voices that are already speaking, allowing cosplayers themselves to take part in the discourse on cosplayer identity. In the absence of survey participant narratives, I turn to disability theory, critical race theory, gender theory, and published accounts by cosplayers, to demonstrate the gatekeeping American cosplayers continue to face.

Cosplaying while Black In “Selling Hot Pussy: Representations of Black Female Sexuality in the Cultural Marketplace” bell hooks tells a story of simultaneous visibility and invisibility. As we walk past a group of white men standing in the entry way to the place, we overhear them talking about us, saying that my companions, who are all white, must be liberals from the college, not regular “townies,” to be hanging out with a “nigger.” Everyone in my group acts as though they did not hear a word of this conversation. Even when I call attention to the comments, no one responds. It’s like I am not only not talking, but suddenly, to them, I am not there. I am invisible. For my colleagues, racism expressed in everyday encounters –​this is our second such experience together –​is only an unpleasantness to be avoided, not something to be confronted or challenged. (hooks, 1998, 112) Aggressively othered by the racist jeers of White men, hooks looked to her companions for support, calling attention to the vile exchange only to find herself ignored as her colleagues likewise ignored the language of the men. hooks describes being “invisible” as those with the privilege

 59

Manning the gates  59 to ignore the remarks treat them as “unpleasantness to be avoided.” Though she speaks, she is unheard, as hearing her voice would require a confrontation with the racism and the assumptions of white supremacy. The silencing of the experiences of Black Americans generally, and Black women specifically, is at the core of intersectionality and the critical race theory of scholars such as Toni Morrison. In “Women, Race, and Memory,” Morrison recalls historical moments of Black American support for liberation causes, only for a racial divide to develop, suppressing their voices. She writes that the “abolitionist movement yielded suffragettes” just as the “the mid-​twentieth-​century civil Right movements yielded Woman’s Liberation,” but marks that both movements for social reform “abandoned black civil rights and regarded the shift away from the race problem as an inevitable and necessary development –​an opportunity to concentrate on exclusively sexist issues” (2019, 93, 87). Morrison demonstrates the connection between systems of oppression of women and minorities and argues that the movement away from civil rights to divisive identities “heralded a future of splinter groups and self-​sabotage” in movements for equality (87). The othering of Morrison’s argument further identifies the motivation of the silence faced by hooks and suggests that the perceived silence of minorities in other social groups –​here, cosplayers –​is a symptom of the unwillingness to confront the inequities present in American culture. In this volume I’ve focused on subjects relating to gender and performativity, and Critical Race Theory recognizes the active oppression in the racial framing of gender, identifying the inherent othering utilized to establish social boundaries. Theorists argue that the intersection of race and gender identification is a product of nineteenth-​century anxieties and a drive toward a system of classification that privileges white heteronormative patriarchy and imperialist actions (trained as a Victorianist, I agree). In Queering the Color Line, Siobhan B. Somerville interrogates the development of interdependent identities in the nineteenth-​century, reflecting on “how negotiations of the color line … shaped and were shaped by the emergence of notions of sexual identity” (2000, 3). She writes that the segregation enforced by Plessy v. Ferguson invokes the distinctions between being enslaved and being free, “but reconfigured this binary by articulating it in exclusively racial terms, the imagined division between ‘black’ and ‘white’ bodies” (1). Siobhan argues that “only in the late nineteenth century did a new understanding of sexuality emerge, in which sexual acts and desires became constitutive of identity” and that “the simultaneous efforts to shore up and bifurcate categories of race and sexuality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were deeply intertwined”

 60

60  Manning the gates (3). Framing the historical moment of divisive definition, Marlon B. Ross writes that “Jim Crow is as much a regime of sexual classification as it is a form of racial imposition” (2004, 2), and observes that “an internal color/​gender line” is established to quell competition between “white founders and directors” and “black men and women” (2). Ross’ work spotlights the constant interplay between, on the one hand, race as a contested gender line of demarcation bifurcating the category “man” into superior versus inferior males and, on the other hand, gender as a racially contested line of demarcation diving the category of “race” into manly versus unmanly groups of men. (5) The fragility of White American masculinity has been examined by scholars such as John F. Kasson (2002), who writes that the bodies of African American and Native American men had been frequently displayed, even fetishized, while their dignity and worth were denied. …It is as if white American men sought to seize the “primitive” strength, freedom, wildness, and eroticism that they ascribed to these darker bodies to arm themselves for modern life. (10) Kasson’s reading illustrates the centrality of race in American definitions of manhood: on a White body these characteristics perform authority, strength, and desirability, while on a Black or Indigenous body these same characteristics are used to dehumanize subjects as uncivilized. In his conclusion Kasson recognizes that the exemplary bodies of Harry Houdini, nineteenth-​ century strongman Sandow, and the fictional Tarzan, “easily fortified images of white male superiority that were used to dominate women, people of color, and less technologically advanced societies,” and that “By stressing the centrality of the unclad white male body, each in effect reasserted that gender and racial divisions were fundamentally based on innate and natural differences” (2002, 223). Kasson’s analysis of nineteenth-​ century American media and the building of the “perfect” male figure, together with the readings of white American masculinities in the theories of Michael Kimmel (1998) build the history of the supermen who will come to dominate American comics by the mid-​century. These models of manhood retain their whiteness in contemporary culture and continue to feed fictions of superior white masculinity. When a cosplayer of color adopts a canonically white character –​particularly

 61

Manning the gates  61 a symbol of white masculinity, such as Batman –​their performance challenges the fragile definitions by which white masculinity defines the inferior “other,” and the results are often aggressive. But while scholars such as Kasson and Kimmel write historically and theoretically, Black cosplayers are forced to confront institutional racism in the media they consume and perform (Greenspan, 2020; Mitchell 2020). Cosplayer Talynn Kel locates the racism of comics representation in the Comics Code of 1954, which controlled the representation of criminal behavior when Black Americans could –​and were –​arrested for using “white” water fountains and protesting for their rights (2017). These cultural conflicts continue, as Kel writes that Sixty-​three years later [after the Comics Code], and Black people are still fighting for civil rights and representation in media. And, as part of this same racist ecosystem, we have racist fans fighting to keep their fandoms as white and male as possible. Speaking as a cosplayer, Kel argues that Quite simply, racism is built into cosplay because cosplay is rooted in racist intellectual properties. Everything from the lack of Black women characters to the criticisms and outright rejection Black people experience while trying to participate in fandom illuminates this issue. These criticisms and rejections manifest in direct conflicts at sites of performance both online and in person. As reported by Villarreal, “cosplay fan Kayal Swaminathan … says that cosplayers of color often face harassment, physical violence and racial epithets when they play white characters –​types of harassment that white cosplayers rarely face for playing characters of color” (2020). Darcel Rockett echoes this truism, writing for the Chicago Tribune in 2019 People of color (POC) cosplayers are often subjected to racial slurs and/​or rude comments when cosplaying or just automatically being put into a POC-​only box. For Brent Watkins, he gets comments about his big stature … and the same goes for David Etheridge, who said he got feedback about being too thick to cosplay Spider-​Man. And when Javon Jackson of Decatur took off his mask … at a recent convention, he recalled two white girls

 62

62  Manning the gates walking by saying: “I didn’t know Mordecai was black? And according to cosplayers, that is not okay” (Rockett). The racism faced by Black femme cosplayers is likewise rooted in the dehumanization of Black women. bell hooks reminds us that Years ago, when much fuss was made about the reluctance of fashion magazines to include images of black women, it was assumed that the presence of such representations would in and of themselves challenge racist stereotypes that imply black women are not beautiful. (hooks, 1998, 119) It is representation without the work, and without the discourse. Similarly, boosting the visibility of Black cosplayers is not enough to address the harassment these cosplayers face from that very visibility –​ cosplay and fan communities need to engage in critical, and affirming, discourse. This discourse has been initiated by cosplayers. Los Angeles nerdlesque performer Caramel Knowledge shares that As a black woman, there are so few strong characters to play. Even when I dress as Nick Fury I am often reminded that he was originally a white man. When I dress or perform as Nicki Fury, there is no question who I am to my fans. People refer to me as Director, and it’s so amazing. I’ve been dressing and performing as Nicki for several years, and even when I think people are tired of it, they aren’t. (personal interview, 2020) Knowledge’s performances directly reflect the policing of gender and racial signifiers of fictional characters: when she adopts a White male character, audiences intercede to correct her interpretation, projecting their “authority” over her performance. When she performs the same character as a woman, audiences are more willing to accept her cosplay and nerdlesque performances as creative interpretation. This divided response suggests that what is most dangerous in her performances is the challenge to White masculinity; when she adopts different gender signals her cosplay becomes less threatening. Cosplayer Talynn Kel similarly expresses the limitations of cosplaying according to her intersectional identity. She writes that “As a fat, Black cosplayer, I’m very much aware of the lack of characters who resemble me… Even when strides are ostensibly made, I am left out” (2017). Choosing not to be left out –​that is, cosplaying according to preference as opposed to externally projected limitations –​exposes cosplayers to harassment, as noted

 63

Manning the gates  63 by Tai Gooden, who asserts that “Cosplay discrimination toward women of color tends to be fueled by those who have dominated fandom —​a group of people, usually men and particularly white men, who feel like different elements of geek culture belong to them” (2016). Cosplayer Chaka Cumberbatch was confronted with such discrimination when her Sailor Venus cosplayer went viral, and she “inadvertently started a cosplay race war on Tumblr” (Cumberbatch, 2013). “For a black cosplayer (not to be racist) she did an amazing job!” exclaims one Tumblr user in response to a photo of Chaka Cumberbatch posting as Sailor Venus (Cumberbatch, 2013). Both the blatantly racist statement and the “hell [that breaks] loose” following the publication of her cosplay photograph astonish Cumberbatch. Beginning as a joyous expression of fandom for a young woman dressed as her “favorite character from [her] favorite anime” (Cumberbatch) becomes an exemplary critical discourse of identity, creativity, and politics in a sublet of science fiction and fantasy fandom. Social media users will go on to anonymously harass Cumberbatch, referring to her photo as “Nigger Venus” and “Sailor Venus Williams.” This verbal violence is an act of gatekeeping which, the cosplayer laments, keeps other racial minorities from cosplaying their favorite characters. In response to the arguments that she should only play characters “in [her] range,” Cumberbatch cites the literally otherworldly proportions and characteristics of various comics properties, and argues “Let’s be real, here –​we are grown men and women pouring all of our disposable income into dressing up as cartoon characters on the weekend. It is not that serious.” Yet the debate present in social media outlets confirms that, for audiences and cosplayers alike, “it” is serious –​that the balance of fandom and continuity is something that must be considered, and the debate over “range” and “type” is tireless in critiques of creative cosplay interpretations. In his article “Playing with Race/​Authenticating Alterity,” John Russell observes that “[a]‌s a source of identity and component of selfhood, concepts of ‘race’ and their manipulation through stereotyped representation exert a powerful influence on constructions of Self and Other” (2012, 42). But Kathryn Bond Stockton warns that “Material meant to decorate, seen as aesthetic enrichment for the body, can visit debasement upon the wearer, even as the wearer may think she’s being praised,” which I here suggest is the problem of labeling Black cosplayers as figures of alternative representation (2006, 64). As Chaka Cumberbatch’s Sailor Venus experience demonstrates, to refer to a cosplayer first by their race is to reframe the cosplayer as second, lesser, or necessarily Other. It is a linguistic and cultural gatekeeping that communicates that cosplayer, and others like her, could never be the “real” figure.

 64

64  Manning the gates

Othered narratives Just as the narratives of Black cosplayers have been consigned to silence, so too have the narratives of other intersectional identities. As a scholar, I recognize that there are gaps in my theoretical knowledge that still need to be addressed, and in researching for this project I sought sources that directly treat my subjects. In an academic library I searched for “fat AND cosplay,” and the results returned dieting tips and nutritional guides from peer-​reviewed sources. Even at this level the statement is clear: “fat” is not seen or accepted as an identity or a lived experience, but a problem to be solved. When I searched for “disability AND cosplay” my results were only marginally better, returning sources which suggested a growing awareness of the need for interdisciplinary research between disability studies and fan studies. These cosplayer identities are as underrepresented in scholarship as they are in popular media. Kathryn Allan and Ria Cheyne (2020) point out that “disability representation and the role of disabled people in cultural endeavours is not only marginalized in SF [Science Fiction] but across our culture’s creative productions” (389). In their call for intersectionality in the reading of science fiction, which they name a “porous” genre that allows cross between “social media and blogs between fans and authors,” Allan and Cheyne cite Clare Barker and Stuart Murray, who argue that intersectional criticism helps recenter disability narratives not as marginal discourses, but as core concerns. Disability narratives never stand alone, but interweave around and through other codes and contexts for writing. […] Intersectional criticism not only highlights such connections; by doing so it continues the process by which disability in literature is brought in from the critical margins and shows the ways in which disability representation is central to many of the core concerns of writing. (cited below) Barker argues (Allan and Cheyne, 2020, 391). Writing from the position of “a gay woman with cerebral palsy,” Chelsea Fay Baumgartner’s work reflects contemporary disability theory that “personal narrative provides a way to access the subjective as well as the theoretical” (2018, 223). Baumgartner reasons that “Disability is a culturally constructed identity that fits into a matrix of other constructed identities that form societal continuums of normalcy and deviance. These interlocking hierarchies support many different forms of oppression” (2018, 224).

 65

Manning the gates  65 She significantly argues for the intersection of fandom and the “wider issues of ableism, racism, and sexism” of both lived experience and cultural products, but importantly asserts that “fandom is able to reject a creator’s total control,” speaking for the fan’s ability to engage with a text and reassert its cultural significance (225). In her “Comment from the Field,” independent scholar Sue Smith considers the intersection of cosplay, disability, and problematic Hollywood representation when she asks, “What is Disability Studies to Make of Fetal Amputee and Cosplayer Laura Vaughn and Her Emulation of Female Warrior, Imperator Furiosa of Mad Max: Fury Road?” (2020). Laura Vaughn, Smith relates, is a cosplayer and fetal amputee, who published an article titled “My Reaction to Mad Max: Fury Road and the Utter Perfection That is Imperator Furiosa” in The Mary Road in 2016. Smith’s question comes from an understanding that the casting of able-​bodied actors, such as Charlize Theron, to play disabled characters is symptomatic of a problematic trend in Hollywood, and thus interrogates Vaughn’s fandom. “[A]‌s a woman embodying a disability identity should Vaughn not be more critical about who and what she chooses to cosplay?” Smith asks (488). The question itself is potentially problematic, as it holds Vaughn to a higher critical standard than majoritarian cosplayers, asking Vaughn to uphold a different narrative. But according to Baumgartner (2018), scholar Rosemary Garland Thomson argues that “disabled people should be authors of their own narratives rather than nondisabled writers structuring the disabled bodily experience” (222). Vaughn herself has provided just such a narrative in the article cited by Smith. As Vaughn argues through her cosplay performance, disability does not necessarily need to be couched in terms of tragedy or pity but instead it is a celebration of difference as generative that can forge new coalitions that are centered round disability. (Smith, 2020, 491) Significantly for Vaughn, and arguably for cosplayers as a social group, “In her performance, Vaughn, like the fandom community that she is part of, is drawn to the qualities of the character of Furiosa not the actor who plays the character” (2020, 490). Ultimately, Smith’s answer is that, while complicated, “Vaughn’s cosplay highlights how performing disability in the guise of a character that she admires for their capabilities and values is an empowering and pleasurable act,” as cosplay scholars have often said for cosplayers of other identities (2020, 491). She says that “Vaughn argues through her cosplay performance,

 6

66  Manning the gates disability does not necessarily need to be couched in terms of tragedy or pity,” (2020, 491) and Vaughn herself writes, “I have NEVER seen a physically disabled, kickass, female lead character in a Hollywood movie EVER—​not once, until yesterday.” More significant to Vaughn as a fan and cosplayer, “NO. ONE. EVER. FEELS. SORRY. FOR. HER. BECAUSE. OF. HER. DISABILITY.”—​nor is “Her body […] a plot point. It is simply allowed to be” (2020, 488). Here is the true significance of representation –​not just that an identity be represented, and thus made available to cosplayers, but that the character performs agency and characteristics of affective value to the representative people. As a cosplayer, Vaughn is then similarly empowered, her cosplay communicating positive agency and badassery. But, as cosplayer Laura Cannata writes, “there aren’t enough [disabled characters] to go around,” and disabled cosplayers should not be expected to play to type (2016). The gatekeeping faced by disabled cosplayers reflects the regulation of both media portrayal (as in Smith) and cosplayer bodies, as cosplay audiences and convention attendees prioritize their interpretations of both characters and disability. Cannata recounts a disabled cosplayer being told “It’s okay to be Gandalf with a cane, but not Castiel” and argues that if “Cosplay lets us be anyone we want to be, so why should disabled people be limited to characters who share their disability?” As a cosplayer with dwarfism who utilizes a wheelchair, Cannata faces cosplay challenges that able-​ bodied cosplayers do not, such as finding and altering costumes: “I have to either get things custom made for the best fit (and lots of money) or buy something premade and cut half of it off. And that is frustrating.” This is a practical challenge, not unlike the concern of cosplayers who must navigate mobility devices in overly crowded convention halls, or convention attendees interfering with service animals, which would benefit from greater recognition of cosplayer diversity, and therefore market needs. But significant to the present examination of gatekeeping and the reading of cosplayed bodies is the projection of ableist readings onto disabled cosplayers. Cannata discusses the specific discrimination of “the infantilization and asexualization of disabled individuals” in audience responses to her cosplays. Cannata agrees that being called “cute” when cosplayed as a hobbit is “perfectly acceptable. Hobbits are adorable.” However, when I’m Harley Quinn, childlike cuteness isn’t what ’m going for. If you would call an able-​bodied Harley Quinn “sexy” (said with a flirty wink) but me “adorable” (said like you’d say it to a little

 67

Manning the gates  67 kid), even if we’re wearing the exact same outfit, then you should think about why you’re treating me differently. No one likes being catcalled, but no likes being invisible either. (Cannata 2016) Like the aggressive labeling of cosplayers by their race (i.e., “Black Superman”), this language challenges the agency and identity of disabled cosplayers, asserting the experience of the able-​ bodied cosplayer as exemplary while othering the performance of the disabled cosplayer subjacent.

Internal memos: gatekeeping within the cosplay community Gatekeeping is not a critical response occurring strictly outside of the cosplay community. As cosplay participation truly does represent a diverse global community, it likewise includes participants whose personal views and prejudices are purposefully exclusive. Survey Respondent 2019*6 worries that “cosplay is becoming a sexy pretty people only fandom,” and Respondent 2019*4 describes a community that has “gotten really toxic. It is obsessed with perfection and people being ‘first’ and nasty to people who aren’t perfectly like the character.” Respondent 2019*56 shares that “I hate the fetishizing of female cosplayers, and I hate the internal policing of what counts as cosplay because I think it should simply be about random and self-​ expression, not artistic skill and arbitrary standards of accuracy and authenticity.” Though survey participants express a love of the art, they reveal a complicated community with the power to alienate as much as it elevates fans and fandom. Catherine Thomas’s “ ‘Love to Mess with Minds’: En(Gendering) Identities Through Crossplay” is an important chapter for its demonstration of the understanding of cosplay-​ outsiders –​even from well-​intentioned researchers. Thomas indicates her “positionality as an ‘outsider’ and as someone who was trained elsewhere colors my understanding of a particular culture” (2014, 31). “As an Indian woman and a first timer at Comic-​Con International,” Thomas’s perspective is not dissimilar to that of the general populace who may be familiar with conventions and cosplay through mainstream media, but who have never (or rarely) experienced these fan spaces for themselves. As this self-​ identified “outsider,” Thomas’s reading of crossplay practices functions similarly to gatekeeping within the community, wherein certain bodies or certain cosplay portrayals are determined to be less serious or less successful for the choices of the cosplayer. She gives the example of

 68

68  Manning the gates “a man who dressed as slave Princess Leia” who “refused to inscribe his body with particularities of feminine signs,” as well as Buzzfeed journalist Gavon Laessig, who “donned the [Catwoman] costume without feeling the need to look feminine.” Thomas concludes from these examples that “Most male crossplayers, therefore, seemed to be crossplaying for shock value or as part of a publicity gimmick,” echoing majoritarian assumptions that drag done “poorly” is a heteronormative joke, while drag done “well” (i.e., adopting strictly feminine signs) asserts deviant gender and sexual identities (37). Writing in 2020 of cosplayer Leo Bane, who “lost” fans when he posted photos of his Sailor Neptune cosplay, Daniel Villarreal remarks that “Although it’s getting better, traditionally there has been lots of gatekeeping from fans who think there’s only one way to ‘correctly’ cosplay their favorite characters.” By way of example, Villarreal cites the Sailor Moon cosplayer-​ turned-​ meme “Sailor Bubba,” whom Villarreal describes as “a large-​bodied bearded man who, in 1999, crossplayed as Sailor Moon at the Anime Central convention.” According to the article, audience reception to Sailor Bubba was, and remains, split: “While some people loved how awesome he looked, other fans got angry at him for ‘mocking,’ ‘trolling,’ or ‘screwing up’ their favorite character, claiming he was too fat, male and hairy to play her” (Villarreal). The illustrative example of Sailor Bubba is frequently cited in cosplay and crossplay research, both affirmatively (Close, 2016) and critically (Leng, 2013). In “Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-​to-​Female Crossplay” Leng asserts that At the technical level, M2F crossplayers also need to shave body hair, wear corsets to enhance their waistline, put on breast prostheses or deploy other cosmetic methods to enhance cleavage, and “tuck” (Ohanesian, 2012; Kevin, 2011). Makeup is also vital for the transformation, where serious M2F crossplayers will go as far as to shape their eyebrows, hide facial hair with concealer, and put on false eyelashes. (95) The language of this description necessarily and purposefully frames the work of M2F cosplay through the context adopting signals and imitating secondary sex characteristics of the feminine character: they “need” to shave and imitate a specific silhouette, and understand that cosmetics are “vital.” Thus, Leng’s analysis argues that the hyperfemininity of the

 69

Manning the gates  69 fictional character is essential for an appropriate cosplay performance. Leng’s analysis is supported by the remarks of cosplayer FoxKaiya, who says I think it’s awesome when guys do crossplay, except I’d prefer them to do it properly. While Man Faye is equal parts hilarity and disturbing, it really bothers me when a guy is in a skirt with incredibly hairy legs, and does not even make an effort to try and suit the original character. I don’t think it even counts as crossplay –​or cosplay, for that matter. (Leng 2013, 103) FoxKaiya strictly defines what is proper by naming what they view as “improper” –​“guys” who wear skirts “with incredibly hairy legs,” which FoxKaiya reads as not making an effort, which they go so far as to define as not cosplay. Their statement goes on to suggest that such performances are stigmatizing for other cosplayers and that they “find poor cosplay behaviors – especially bad crossplay attempts –​quite disrespectful to other cosplayers…I wish people would stop pulling stunts like that. I wouldn’t do it if I were a male-​to-​female crossplayer…I don’t see why anyone would (FoxKaiya, Otakupride.com, 2012)” (Leng, 2013, 103). Both Leng and the cosplayer suggest that there is one way to cosplay, and that Sailor Bubba has done it wrong, rather than that he has engaged in the practice to the social limits afforded to him and with respect to his own identity. There is the suggestion in their response that cosplayers must disappear into their characters, rather than wearing their characters as a partial reflection of self. This argument is reminiscent of Anne Hollander’s analysis of theatrical versus dramatic costumes, where the first “is an expansion of the performer’s own self,” and the second necessarily “transforms him completely into a character” (1978, 250). Rather than asserting cosplayers must necessarily disappear into the character, the concept of the theatrical costume makes space for the character and fan to coexist in one performative moment. I suggest that the “rightness” asserted by Leng and FoxKaiya is a product of anxiety over audience readings and misreadings –​anxiety legitimized by Close’s (2016) who reads the infantilizing of fans and argues that “The gaze from outside fandom is particularly significant here. Fans are often strongly aggressive toward ‘other fans who they believe are ‘doing it wrong’ ” citing fears that those ‘doing it wrong’ will make outsiders look upon fandom poorly” (Zubernis & Larsen 2012, 125” (Close, 2016, 7.3).

 70

70  Manning the gates A 2011 blog post from Isaac Sher similarly reflects these fears. Claiming to be a personal friend of the Sailor Bubba cosplayer, Sher writes Now before you start making snap judgements, rude comments, or jabber about reaching for the brain bleach, I am here to tell you that Sailor Bubba is Good People. He’s an awesome guy, one of the nicest and most cherrful [sic] folk you will ever meet, and for many years was an important part of Anime Central’s security staff. Isaac Sher is quick to defend Sailor Bubba’s normative masculinity, and says What the folks who scream about Bubba never get is that he doesn’t wear the suit because he get some perverted jollies off of it. He likes Sailor Moon, sure, but he’s not obsessed with it. He dresses up because IT’S FUNNY. It’s absurd, it’s random, it’s almost Monty Python-​esque in its brilliance, and he doesn’t take it seriously for a second. Besides, you’ve got to be pretty damn secure with your own masculinity to go out like that in public, and Bubba’s got nothing to prove to anyone. His con-​security colleague, however, exudes confidence in his performance, bringing his cosplay to several different cons, and even using it to deescalate when a con attendee began aggressively approaching other attendees with handcuffs; Sailor Bubba walks up to Handcuff Creep as if they were the best of friends. “Hey wow, you’ve got cuffs! I’ve got the sex toy! Let’s make this happen!” The target quickly fled, and “Bubba just kept on walking, smiling and making sure everyone at the con was having a great time.” (Sher, 2011) As Close writes, Arguing that Sailor Bubba or Man Faye are ironic, joking, and being funny downplays the transgressive nature of their visual depictions of feminine men—​even better, defenders argue that these fans are so hypermasculine that they can take on these performative identities to discipline other men, like the con creeper, whose sexuality is out of bounds and threatens the convention community. (2016, par. 7.5)

 71

Manning the gates  71 By these definitions both Sailor Bubba and Leo Bane “fail,” as neither performer chooses to mask their secondary sex characteristics, or wear cosmetics. Both of these cosplayers choose instead to adopt theatrical cosplays, preserving their identities as they sartorially perform their fandom. Unfortunately, as Close writes, “Many fannish discourses around Sailor Bubba and Man Faye are remarkably cruel,” (2016, 7.1) and the visible harassment such cosplayers receive may, as James worries, keep others from participating in cosplay at all.

Conclusion: cosplay and identity After gathering self-​ identified demographic information such as gender, sexuality, and pronouns, question four of my 2019 survey asked respondents to “Please indicate any other aspects of your identity you wish to share, related to your cosplay experiences. Select all that apply.” Each given answer began with the statement “I am a” and included “cosplayer of color, trans cosplayer, disabled cosplayer, chronically ill cosplayer, fat cosplayer, hijab-​wearing cosplayer, queer cosplayer, neurologically atypical cosplayer” and an open essay “Other” option. Under “Other” participants disclosed mental illness, body dysmorphia, older age, body types (rejecting the label of “fat”), and the use of eyeglasses. The language of question four is informed by the self-​identification of burlesque and nerdlesque casting calls seeking to cast diverse performers in inclusive shows. Forty-​one of the 133 respondents skipped the question, and 92 respondents answered, selecting a total of 168 intersecting identities. Some cosplayers selected one or two identifications, while others selected up to five. Narrative survey disclosures throughout the survey reflected self-​consciousness from cosplayers and their place in the community, particularly when the cosplayer identified their age or body type as points of identification relevant to their cosplay experiences. Cosplayers worried that they were too old, or expressed statements of imposter syndrome related to their skills as makers. Some lamented the gatekeeping they had seen, as quoted above, while others actively criticized cosplay choices –​particularly “sexy” cosplays. As expected, responses to cosplay are as diverse as the participants, and the cosplay community reflects the same anxieties, -​isms, and phobias of majority American culture. Just as BIPOC, women, LGBTQ+, neuro divergent, and disability scholarship works to support understandings of diverse people, so too is there need for further attention to the intersectionality between these identities, and between these identities and fan cultures. Community members have begun the conversations,

 72

72  Manning the gates and scholarly attention will increase both understanding and diversity within the cosplay community.

Bibliography Allan, K., & Cheyne, R. (2020). Science Fiction, Disability, Disability Studies: A Conversation. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 14 (4). 387–​ 401. https://​doi.org/​10.3828/​jlcds.2020.26. Anderson, K. (2014). Actualized Fantasy at Comic-​Con and the Confessions of a ‘Sad Cosplayer.’ Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at Comic-​ Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. McFarland & Company, 16–​28. Baumgartner, C. F. (2018). Bodies of Knowledge: Politics of Archive, Disability, and Fandom. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 7 (3). 221-​246. https://​ doi.org/​10.15353/​cjds.v8i2.499. Bello, B. G., & Mancini, L. (2016). Talking about Intersectionality: Interview with Kimberlé W. Crenshaw. Sociologia del Diritto, 43 (2). 11–​ 21. DOI: 10.3280/​SD2016-​002002. Cannata, L. (2016). Cosplaying While Disabled Is Both Wonderful and Frustrating. Twin Cities Geek. https://​twincitiesgeek.com/​2016/​11/​when-​it-​ comes-​to-​options-​for-​disabled-​cosplayers-​oracle-​isnt-​enough/​. Close, S. (2016). Fannish Masculinities in Transition in Anime Music Video Fandom. Transformative Works and Cultures, 22. DOI: https://​doi.org/​ 10.3983/​twc.2016.0713. Crawford, G., & Hancock, D. (2019). Cosplay and the Art of Play: Exploring Sub-​Culture Through Art. Palgrave MacMillan. Cumberbatch, C. (2013). I’m a Black Cosplayer and Some People Hate It. XOJane. https://​web.archive.org/​web/​20130205165728/​http://​www.xojane. com/​issues/​mad-​back-​cosplayer-​chaka-​cumberbatch. Gooden, T. (2016). We Need To Talk About Racism And Sexism In The Cosplay Community. The Establishment. https://​medium.com/​the-​establishment/​ unmasking- ​ t he-​ c osplay-​ c ommunitys-​ s exism- ​ a nd- ​ r acism- ​ p roblem-​ 3ca9431f58c0. Greenspan, R.E., & Haasch, P. (2020). A Black Model Who Received Racist Criticism for Her Anime Cosplay Said It Won’t Stop Her from Doing What She Loves. Insider. www.insider.com/​black-​model-​racist-​ comments-​anime-​cosplay-​2020-​7. Hollander, A. (1978). Seeing Through Clothes. Viking Press. hooks, b. (1998). Selling Hot Pussy: Representations of Black Female Sexuality in the Cultural Marketplace. In. R. Weitz, ed., The Politics of Women’s Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior (112–​122). Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1080/​09612020000200489. James, K. (2016). When Defaulting to White Isn’t an Option. Medium. https://​medium.com/​@KendraJames_​/​when-​defaulting-​to-​white-​isnt-​an-​ option-​fdda3ba7dcc4.

 73

Manning the gates  73 Kasson, J. F. (2002). Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America. Hill & Wang. Kel, T. (2017). Your Fandom Is Racist and So Are You. The Establishment. https://​ theestablishment.co/​your-​fandom-​is-​racist-​and-​so-​are-​you-​638c5200b15b/​. Kimmel, Michael. (1998). Manhood in America. Oxford University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​01614576.1998.11074224. Lamerichs, N. (2018). Productive Fandom. Amsterdam University Press. https://​ doi.org/​10.2307/​j.ctv65svxz. Leng, R. H. Y. (2013) Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-​ to-​Female Crossplay. Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard, Harvard Library. Mitchell, A. (2020). How One Black Cosplayer Is Using Custom Wigs to Make the Scene More Inclusive. Allure. www.allure.com/​story/​seun-​here-​black-​ cosplayer-​textured-​wigs. Mountfort, P., Peirson-​Smith, A., & Geczy, A. (2019). Planet Cosplay: Costume Play, Identity and Global Fandom. Intellect. DOI: 10.1386/​jepc_​00015_​5. Rockett, D. (2019). Racial Slurs and ‘Black’ Superman: How Cosplayers of Color Navigate a World of Mostly White Characters. Chicago Tribune. www. chicagotribune.com/​entertainment/​ct-​ent-​black-​cosplayers-​ttd-​20190822-​ 20190822-​seybrucxfzgd3ls4efrzhvuit4-​story.html. Rosenberg, R. S., & Letamendi, A. M. (2013). Expressions of Fandom: Findings from a Psychological Survey of Cosplay and Costume Wear. Intensities: The Journal of Cult Fandom, 5. https://​intensitiescultmedia.files. wordpress.com/​ 2013/​07/​expressions-​of-​fandom-​findings-​from-​a-​psycholog-​ical-​survey-​of-​ cosplay-​and-​costume-​wear-​robin-​s-​rosenberg-​and-​andrea-​m-​letamendi.pdf. Ross, M. B. (2004). Manning the Race: Reforming Black Men in the Jim Crow Era. New York University Press. Russell, J. G. (2012). Playing with Race/​Authenticating Alterity: Authenticity, Mimesis, and Racial Performance in the Transcultural Diaspora. CR: The New Centennial Review, 12 (1). 41–​92. Sailor Bubba. (2020). KnowYourMeme.com, Retrieved November 23, 2020, from, https://​knowyourmeme.com/​memes/​people/​sailor-​bubba. Scott, S. (2019). Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. New York University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​jpcu.12933. Sher, I. (2011). Confessions of a Con Staffer #1: Enter SAILOR BUBBA!. Threat or Menace. https://​web.archive.org/​web/​20130121154921/​http://​ threatormenace.com/​2011/​ 08/​11/​con-​staffer-​1-​sailor-​bubba/​. Smith, S. (2020). Comment from the Field: What Is Disability Studies to Make of Fetal Amputee and Cosplayer Laura Vaughn and Her Emulation of Female Warrior, Imperator Furiosa of Mad Max: Fury Road? Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 14 (4), 487–​491. https://​doi.org/​ 10.3828/​jlcds.2020.36. Somerville, S. B. (2000). Queering the Color Line Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture. Duke University Press. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1215/​9780822378761.

 74

74  Manning the gates Stockton, K. B. (2006) Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer.” Duke University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1215/​9780822387985. Thomas, C. (2014). “Love to Mess with Minds”: En(Gendering) Identities Through Chrossplay. Bolling, B. & Smith, M., eds. It Happens at Comic-​ Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. McFarland & Company, 29–​39. Villarreal, D. (2020). This ‘Sailor Moon’ Fan Doesn’t Care He Loses Followers by Posting His Drag Cosplay. Hornet. https://​hornet.com/​stories/​leo-​bane-​ crossplay-​sailor-​moon/​. Winge, T. M. (2019). Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination. Bloomsbury Visual Arts. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.5040/​9781350035935.0007.

 75

5  The cosplay’s the thing

The tone of this volume has been predominantly somber. I open with a survey of the field and a call for the development of additional methodologies for the study of cosplayers as individual and diverse people. I then dive into an argument for a reconsideration of the language of an existing subgenre of cosplay, asserting that continuing to use the term “crossplay” affirms and upholds artificial binaries even as cosplayers themselves represent a spectrum of gender identities. Building on the immersive work of Therèsa Winge, I critique popular arts and fan conventions as a gendered and body-​policing site of cosplay performance and argue that the selective enforcement of policies punishes cosplayers and protects no one. Then I attempt to answer the call for intersectionality issued by Suzanne Scott, addressing some of the anxieties over diversity within cosplay, and giving space to cosplayer voices addressing underrepresented intersectional demographics. The work of Cosplayers has been to challenge the fantasy of cosplaying as an isolated creative practice, arguing for the importance of recognizing social, political, and economic institutions in the study of cosplay and cosplayers. As this text demonstrates, cosplay is neither created nor performed in a social vacuum, and the identities of cosplayers are far more complex than their participation in a performative artform and fan practice. Cosplays are regulated by broad social institutions such as racism, sexism, homophobia, fatphobia, transphobia, and ableism, and the specific practical and social policing of individual conventions. Demographics of cosplay research are impacted by socioeconomic factors limiting convention attendance, minority voices remain underrepresented, and conventions themselves limit the performance potential of cosplayers. Cosplayer voices demonstrate that cosplay is a reflection of both the cosplayer’s individual choices, and the complexities of the time and place in which a cosplay is performed.

 76

76  The cosplay’s the thing I believe in the work that I’ve done here, and I believe it is important to consider and build upon an understanding of intersectional identities as the field continues to grow. But I also believe, as I began the first chapter, that cosplay is fun –​that it can be whimsical and meaningful, and sometimes it is just one or the other. It has been an incredible joy to read the stories and experiences cosplayers have shared with me through my anonymous 2015 and 2019 surveys, and I wish to conclude by sharing their stories more broadly. My favorites stories are those of affirmation –​when participants would share how their favorite cosplays affirmed their identities in a host of ways. Respondent 2019*9 shared that their “favorite cosplay was Link from Breath of the Wild (the Barbarian Armor version). It was the first cosplay after my top surgery where I was able to go topless, so it was special to me.” The character of Link is special to him, as he harbors “an entirely unsupported headcannon that the Link from Breath of the Wild is a trans man.” He recalls playing the game through a depressive episode as he struggled with his gender identity, and valuing the “beautiful escape into a character that [he] could identify with.” Tony Stark was the favorite cosplay of Respondent 2019*73, who says that cosplay brought validation to my gender identity –​as a kid I would always dress as males for Halloween, but hadn’t transitioned physically in any way so wasn’t taken “seriously” as a male character. Bringing characters to life through cosplay and fully comfortable in my gender and most of my appearance is always very empowering. Respondent 2019*117 loved cosplaying Naoto Shiro, “because I felt like myself, and people by and large ignored the gender expression part of it or were actively welcoming of it.” Respondent 2019*42 chose both Anna from Frozen and a couples’ Sailor Moon cosplay (she as Sailor Neptune and her partner as Sailor Uranus) as her favorites because because they speak to me, Anna in terms of my personality, and Neptune as someone to aspire to be like especially as my first exposure to queer identities. It was very gratifying to have girls run around yelling that they’d met a REAL princess, while as Neptune it gives me a great deal of visibility as a femme lesbian that I rarely experience in my day-​to-​day life. A number of respondents wrote of their partners, either of cosplays they had done together, or the skills they admired. 2019*5 said that “New York Comic Con was a fantastic event to showcase this cosplay

 7

The cosplay’s the thing  77 with my wife’s Pyramid Head cosplay. The attention and admiration were euphoric.” Respondent 2019*45 bragged that his “wife is a Beast and puts me to shame.” I inadvertently discovered that two respondents were married when they each wrote of their favorite partnered cosplay, one of whom wrote that “I’ve been lucky enough to find a life partner who wants to do this stuff with me, and that ultimately it doesn’t matter how many people want our picture. It’s about the planning and crafting together” (Respondent 2019*91). Respondent 2019*6 wrote that “My wife once identified as my husband, so cosplay is a powerful way for her to embrace her new gender identity and I love sharing that with her.” Other cosplayers wrote of the sense of community. Respondent 2019*12 wrote that, as an engineer, they enjoyed their Team Fortress 2 Engineer cosplay, and had a ton of fun cosplaying TF2 characters with a large group of my close friends. The combination of having fun with my friends, the accomplishment of finishing my first remote-​controlled prop, the camaraderie we shared with other TF2 cosplayers, and the attention from fans made the whole experience very enjoyable. Respondent 2019*55 enjoys wearing the same recognizable cosplay as a way to reconnect with convention friends, and 2019*57 said that they met a lot of friends through cosplaying “Merrill –​Dragon Age.” Respondent 2019*69 said that their favorite cosplayers have been “the ones I’ve put very little effort into and only done for fun with friends.” Respondent 2019*11 says that Cosplay to me is my true calling. Dressing up and bringing life to these characters we see on screen or in comics. The thrill I get when I see young kids stare up at me in awe that, that character is right in front of me. This community is supportive of each other and despite there be bullying and harassment, we stand up together. Cosplay to me is family. Of her inspiration to cosplay, Respondent 2019*86 writes “It’s an easy way to identify myself to others with similar interests, and maybe make friends…?” A positive memory shared by 2019*119 was the time they “cosplayed a character from My Little Pony (don’t judge me, I was 12). In that cosplay, I received a drawing of my character and a free cookie from a table just because they ‘liked my cosplay,’ ” and I hope she’s discovered

 78

78  The cosplay’s the thing Bronies, a community of adults who maintain their love for the My Little Pony television show. My 2015 survey on crossplay practices, though I now dislike the term, yielded narratives of cosplay joy. When heterosexual male Respondent 2015*11 was asked why Anna Kushina was his favorite crossplay, he replied simply “I like cute things.” Of his Hatsune Miku cosplay, Respondent 2015*16 said “I’ve been a hardcore Vocaloid for some time, and had even done more Vocaloid cosplays previously. It was a great experience because it was in a setting that made it comfortable.” Respondent 2015*19, who self-​identified as a heterosexual man, wrote that he enjoys crossplay to be “A bubbly and cutesy character. Very unlike the ‘me’ I am when I’m at work” and that It’s fun to not only wear clothing that is considered socially different, but also to act differently than you usually are. And I absolutely love being photographed. I work hard on the costume AND look that I want to show it off. I’m usually very modest. Similarly, Respondent 2015*32, who self-​identified as a demigirl, enjoys playing a character whose personality differs from theirs, writing that their favorite crossplay is Lucifer from Supernatural because His behavior and mannerisms are incredibly different from my own, so it was kind of fun being an evil creep when in character. He was also a challenge makeup wise and got me trying new things (I still think I suck at makeup in comparison to other people, but I am incredibly proud of what I have accomplished since I first cosplayed him). Finishing this manuscript in the midst of a global pandemic, I find myself reading these responses and really, really missing cosplaying. For our 2021 family photos my oldest child has asked if we could do a group cosplay as characters from Aliens. He reasoned that I could be the Queen Xenomorph (on stilts), he and his siblings could be a Xeno Warrior (on stilts), Xeno Praetorian (on stilts), and Xeno Drone (on stilts), and that my wife, his other mother, would make a perfect Ripley (she would). I’ve never seen the film, but I’ve already agreed, because they look fantastic. We hope to wear the cosplays to a post-​ pandemic convention or two, but we’ll be sure to check the cosplay policies first.

 79

The cosplay’s the thing  79

Bibliography Mishou, A. L. (2015). Survey: Crossplay and Identity. Mishou, A. L. (2019). Survey: Cosplay and Identity. Scott, S. (2019). Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. New York University Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​jpcu.12933. Winge, T. M. (2019). Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination. Bloomsbury Visual Arts. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.5040/​9781350035935.0007.

 80

Index

ableism 2, 4, 11, 56, 65 Anderson, K. 2, 4, 16, 34, 40, 57 BIPOC cosplayers (see also cosplayers of color) 35, 71 Buszek, M. E. 48 Butler, J. 10, 16, 23 censorship 45, 48 codes of conduct 20, 25, 35, 36, 45 Comics Code 10, 61 conventions, cons 2, 33–​50, 56, 70; AwesomeCon 2, 9, 35, 36, 46; Baltimore Comic Con 2, 35; 45–​6; Comic-​Con, San Diego Comic-​ Con 16, 35–​8, 40, 42, 46, 57; Dragon Con 5, 35, 46; Emerald City Comic Con 35; Katsucon 46; New York Comic Con 5, 26, 35, 76 cosplayers: cosplayers of color 4, 1, 35, 56–​63; disabled cosplayers 11, 58, 64–​7, 7; fat cosplayers 11, 57–​8, 62, 64, 68, 71; nonbinary cosplayers 10, 21, 23, 26, 27; trans cosplayers 10, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 39, 71, 76; and type 17, 25, 29, 55, 57, 61, 63, 66 costuming 16, 17, 29, 37 Crawford and Hancock 2, 4, 12, 38–​9, 43, 55 Crenshaw, K. W. 54 critical race theory 59–​62

crossdressing 19, 27 crossplay 3, 7–​8, 10, 15, 18–​30, 55, 67–​72, 78 disability 46, 58, 64–​7, 71 drag 15–​6, 18–​22, 24–​5, 38, 68 fat-​shaming 4, 11, 56, 57 femme, feminine, femininity 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 20, 23, 24, 26, 28, 37–​50, 57, 62, 66, 67–​71, 76 gatekeeping 4, 11, 54–​72 gender dysphoria 7, 24, 27 gender identity 15–​16, 26, 30, 46, 76–​7 Gn, J. 3, 17–​18, 20 Gunnels, J. 2, 5–​6 Halberstam, J. 16, 44–​5 harassment 11, 12, 37, 40–​1, 43, 45–​7, 57, 61–​2, 71, 77; and anti-​ harassment policies 42–​3, 45; and the Cosplayer Survivor Support Network (CSSN) 45–​6; sexual harassment 37, 39, 41, 42, 45 heteronormative, heteronormativity 9–​10, 15, 23, 29, 59, 68 hooks, b. 58–​9, 62 intersectional identities, intersectionality 1, 2, 3, 11, 21, 54–​67, 71–​2, 76

 81

Index  81 Lamerichs, N. 2, 4, 6, 15, 17, 20–​1, 28, 55 law 34, 35, 42–​3 masc, masculine, masculinity 5, 10, 15, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 37–​8, 39, 41, 45–​7, 48, 60–​2, 70–​1 mobility device 5, 66 Mountfort, Peirson-​Smith, & Geczy 2, 4, 12, 17, 34, 55 Muñoz, J. E. 8–​9

performative, performativity 1, 3, 7, 10, 11, 16–​21, 41, 48, 59, 69–​70 privilege 4, 5, 58–​9 race 54–​63 racism 2, 4, 11, 35, 56–​63, 65 reddit 7, 18–​22 respectability politics 11, 48, 54

nonbinary (see cosplayers: nonbinary cosplayers) nonparticipant observer 4–​6 normativity 9, 11, 12, 16, 18, 20, 28–​9, 64, 70 Norris and Bainbridge 3, 20–​1

Sailor Bubba 68–​71 Scott, S. 3, 37–​40, 56 Senelick, L. 24–​5 Serano, J. 10, 48 SESTA-​FOSTA 11, 44 sexism 2, 4, 39, 56, 65 sexy cosplay 10, 27, 42, 48–​9, 66, 67, 71

objectification 39, 41, 43, 45, 48 observational studies 9, 10, 12, 18, 20, 55

weapons 36, 46 Winge, T. 2, 12, 33–​4, 36–​7, 43, 45, 50, 56, 75

 82