#cosplay article

A Chinese website about anime, manga and cosplay made a post about my Mako Mankanshoku cosplay, you can find it HERE

Cosplay in the park - Adorable when I dress up (an academic explanation of why I didn't like this article much at all)

“What are you guys?” the woman wants to know.

“Cosplayers” I say.

“What do you do?” she asks.

“They dress up as their favorite comic-book, cartoon, and video-game characters,” I explain.

“I can see that,” the woman says patiently. “What I meant was, what do they do — besides wear costumes?”

I think a moment, then say, “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Recently the San Diego Reader published the above article, written by their Street Style blogger Siobhan Braun.  It's an ... interesting ... look at cosplay meetups, told from the point of view of an outsider looking in.  After a meandering rundown of the events of the day, the final few paragraphs quoted above concludes the narration with our author's only personal thought on the entire venture: that there was no real conclusion at all.

If you are a cosplay enthusiast and click the link above, prepare to find yourself likely enraged.  My initial reaction to the article was one of disgust and disappointment.  But after reading the largely vitriolic comments at the end I decided to take a step back, calm down, and deconstruct the article to better understand why it bothers me.  After all, the entire article is an ostensibly unbiased narrative about a cosplayer's day. Yet somehow, it doesn't sit right at all.

The article opens with a bitter-sounding salvo: the cosplayer that Siobhan Braun has asked to shadow won't lend out a costume. The reporter narrates that she has 'clearly crossed a line', but nobody will tell her what that line is.  However, Siobhan doggedly determines she will construct her own 'cute' outfit.

Honestly I'm baffled by Mrs. Braun's attempts to wear a costume that will 'fit in'.  The article never attempts to insert itself into the mind of the cosplayer or be immersive; it is straightforward, almost dry, observations, told from the point of view of an outsider looking in.  Why was there a need to dress as anything other than herself?  If she was attempting to experience cosplay, the article shows no sign of it.

We never do get an actual reason why nobody will lend this reporter a costume either, other than a put-upon sigh (She obviously just won't get it, the author concludes from the response).  Before the day has even begun we have a critical problem: the interviewee won't communicate with the interviewer.  At this point if I was the reporter, I would have looked into finding another subject to follow. But after some convincing, Mrs. Braun gets to stay with her uncooperative subject and we get the story we do.

Siobhan seems to write articles with little to no backstory or research, simply providing information with no personal interest shown one way or another. All of the history we get is straight from the mouths of the interviewees, Shannon and Marina.  Both of them are relatively new to the costuming scene (no more than a couple of years into the hobby).  Both girls have a 'main' costume (likely the Kuroshitsuji cosplays shown in the article) and are attending YaoiCon.  Their costumes are purchased - one costume is $175, the other is $250, though Marina alters the outfits and 'has a knack for designing outfits' as well.  Shannon's family is very religious (Siobhan spends a bit of time on this subject; it seems important to her).  Our one observation at this point that is not a direct quote or visual cue is the writer calling Shannon a 'diehard' cosplayer.  These girls will be our ride into the world of the cosplay meetup.

And Mrs. Braun seems to spend the rest of the article focusing on every negative comment, frustrating moment, suggestion of infighting, and observation of their weirdness as possible.  Some choice examples:

“[Our friend] should be here any second with scissors to fix your wig.” Thirty minutes pass with no sign of Sabrina. Both girls are seconds away from tears.

Marina turns to me and says, “Hetalia groups are weird. They’re obsessed with [cosplay]. They’re diehards and they freak me out!”

Aimee straddles a guy on a bench. He’s dressed in all black and wearing women’s ballet flats. The two make out in front of a 14-year-old girl

A woman sitting a few feet away on a picnic blanket watches the anime fans’ activities as if it’s a movie. She looks thoroughly perplexed. A toddler walks past hand-in-hand with her mother. When she sees us, she begins to cry.

A group of mimes has set up near the entrance to the Reuben H. Fleet. They eyeball us. “Freaks,” says a cosplayer in a puffy tutu. “Mimes freak me out.”

“How long will you all be here?” the woman asks a costumed teen. “My fiancé and I are supposed to take our engagement photos here.”

The teen’s response: “All day.”

The woman walks away in a huff.

Not a word of her language is specifically negative, but Mrs. Braun juxtaposes some observations to shed a negative light on the proceedings.  A cosplayer in a 'fluffy tutu' thinks that mimes are freaks.  Two people make out in front of a '14-year-old girl'.  The distaste of the Black Butler cosplayers for the Hetalia cosplayers and the older male participants is highlighted.  More than a few of the scenes are objectively negative: twice she specifically mentions the (negative) reactions of small children, and the callous teen not helping the lady with the engagement shoot is rude if nothing else.  Most of these observations come one after another on page 3 of the article.  If anything good is observed, we don't hear about it, not even if the participants in the meetup are enjoying themselves.  In fact, what is going on at the meetup other than making out in front of underage participants? We don't know, and Siobhan never feels the need to tell us.

Things lighten up a bit when the Black Butler meetup goes to join the Hetalia meetup.  We meet a Hetalia cosplayer, who finally gives a bit of context to the article by finally detailing what is done at a usual meetup - the kind of explanation we never get from Marina or Shannon.  The author narrows her focus down to the actions of the cosplayers themselves rather than observations of the reactions to the cosplayers, but it's too little, too late.  Page 4 of a 4-page article is not where we should get the setting fully together.  And just as we finally see what's going on with the participants themselves, the author concludes that there isn't really much at all going on, and we will never know what cosplayers do besides 'wear costumes'.

The (lack of) conclusion is immensely bothersome.  Not only does it leave the entire article feeling incomplete, it also betrays the reader.  You followed around these two young ladies for four pages only to come to the conclusion that ... there is no conclusion?

If there is a conclusion, the one painted in the article is faulty.  The final lines quoted at the beginning of this critique suggest that there is no point to the entire hobby of cosplay - but she is given several reasons by Marina, Shannon, the Hetalia cosplayer, and others for cosplaying.  The entire article is a testament, albeit a negative one, to what cosplayers 'do' other than wear costumes.  Perhaps she is confused about the point of the meetups themselves, but I will summarize it with one word: socializing. People who enjoy dressing up in costumes to express their love for a series, game, or clothing style get together and hang out while using the costumes to express that love.  The entire article is a lengthy observation of such socialization.

Need there be something more cosplayers do? Siobhan seems to think so, but this is the only personal thought we get from her in the entire article, resulting in the entire thing reading as a giant shrug of her shoulders.  The article could be summed up with the confused bird GIF: We Just Don't Know.

--

The impression the article leaves behind is one of confusion over the purpose of both the article and the hobby of cosplaying combined with a lingering distaste for the behavior of the cosplayers, who are portrayed as close-minded at best and exclusive/catty at the worst.  As a cosplayer myself I feel misrepresented - the people in this article do not really reflect my own cosplay experience, after all.  The article lacks balance, which seems uncharacteristic for the author (after perusing other articles of hers).  What happened here?  Did the initial snub of not being allowed to borrow a costume and then almost denied the interview cause bad blood to develop? Did Marina and Shannon refuse to answer questions that would have clarified events, or did Siobhan not ask enough/the right questions?

The main problem with 'Cosplay in the Park' seems to be a lack of focus.  Judging from the article and a comment left by Shannon, nobody seemed to have even the slightest idea what to expect.  Siobhan might have been better served to have clarified her expectations with Marina and Shannon, or explained how she planned to conduct herself and the observations process during the meetup.  Although the author seems to prefer the un-researched type of story, she might have been better served to do at least a little research on the hobby so that she could have a goal or expectation in mind beforehand.

Because the author knows so little about the cosplay community, she seems to conclude that Marina and Shannon are representative of all cosplayers, which is a hefty burden to place on their shoulders when no clear path for the interaction was laid out.  Between that and the negative outlook of the middle of the article, it's clear why the cosplay community has left so many scathing responses.

On a final note, Mrs. Braun responded to the first comment on the article:

"... it is pretty cool to see the handiwork in cosplay. Shannon and Marina had really amazing costumes. Marina makes them and she is extremely talented. The coolest aspect of this group of cosplayers is their acceptance of everyone, even those with less than stellar attire."

The response to this comment?  "Too bad you didn't write a bout [sic] that."