It’s Not a Costume, It’s also Communication
This is the second post on cosplay. Read the first here.
So, Leon and I differ on this piece, but I think it has to do with a fundamental disagreement on how fashion works. See, I would argue that what you wear communicates, whether or not you intend for it to do so. The message delivered is heavily context dependent, and requires an eye for it but to dismiss this wavelength refutes a large part of culture (see Noah Brand on this subject).
As an example of how context can amplify these signals, I present the following example: Wear a blue sweater vest, big black glasses, and a brown jacket at a coffee shop in Brooklyn, and you’er a simple hipster. Wear the same outfit to a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and it means something else. Costumes are particularly loaded, since they’re meant to reference the core character and can therefore encourage assumptions about the wearer along with carrying any problems with character design into the 3D world.
Now, before we get any farther, I want to make a few disclaimers:
- I am not encouraging or condoning any untoward behavior on the part of the observer.
- Nor am I saying that it’s the costume wearer’s fault for the assumptions/behaviors being levied at zie. This is not about victim blaming, it’s about the examination of the message.
- I do NOT want to get deeper into the relationship between fashion and kyriarchy. This is an anime blog. That discussion will quickly get away from us.
So, with that out of the way, there are two core issues that come from the translation of a character design into the real world and onto your body. Of the two, I find the complex interaction between recognition and simulacrum more interesting, but as it’s more subtle we’ll leave it for later. Bad or pandering character design also presents problems because it bakes objectification into the costume that you seek to put on. Since this problem is a little more straightforward, it’s easier to talk about and we’ll lead with it.
(Cammy. A blonde woman wearing brown boots, a blue bathing suit, and red boxing gloves poses with her ass out. Background text says: “Hey everybody! Look at my ass!” Picture by Kevin Bolk)
So… Cammy. Sure, she kicks ass and does alright when in the hands of a capable player, but seriously that outfit? It’s designed to leave no curve on her athletic body to the imagination and the result is anyone standing around in it broadcasts the same “look at mah seeexxxyyy!!” message that’s built into the character design. Whether or not your legs are toned and your stomach so firm you could bounce a quarter off of it, you’ve made a declaration that we should look at those things since the artist drew the character in a manner that encouraged players to do just that. The same is true for any school girl costume that uses zettai ryouki. Or Boob windows. Or bikini tops. Thing is, it’s hard for you to claim that you don’t want to be looked at when you put on a costume engineered for maximum oggling.
I would argue that this is slightly more complicated than the traditional arguments of slutwalks. When a woman chooses to dress herself in a particular outfit because she looks good in it, there is no implied meaning. However, when you present as a character who’s outfit was chosen by an artist specifically to entice the male gaze, then I think we have a problem.
These portrayals can fall out-of-joint with characterization, of course, but that’s really at the hands of character creators (there’s a reason why many fans of Lightning found Jonathan Jacques-Bellete’s take on her particularly offensive—the sexualization of her character clashed harshly with her personality and the artist in this case indicated that fuckability was more important than consistency between design and personality). It doesn’t really matter that Tsukiumi is the most badass and independent of Minato’s sekriei, when you dress up as her, people are gonna notice your rack, because, frankly that’s what the outfit she’s wearing is designed to do (there are SO many problems with Sekirei, but we’re going to ignore them for now because I could do a whole post on it).
When I reflect on this, I find that the easiest place to point the finger is bad design. So long as we normalize pandering, pointless outfits for the majority of female characters it will be hard to cosplay them with a straight face, making the statements in the first post all the more important. And all this occurs at a level before we apply a problematic characterization to the mix. But, as this post already got long, I will save that last piece for later.
