A Worthy Cause
So, I attended a panel on “Con Creepers” at AnimeUSA. It was a pretty enlightening look into how cosplayers themselves feel about the unwanted attention and the environment of being at a convention.
The panel itself was about taxonomy, and served as a kind of PSA about the types of unwanted attention cosplayers could get at or around conventions. While most of the information wasn’t terribly new to me or caused any revelations, there were some interesting bits in the edges.
For me, particularly, it was the sense of inevitability and lack of confrontation that accompany the bad behavior that was particularly surprising. I need to ask some further questions, but I find the passive attitude of cosplayers toward harassment disturbing especially in light of the fact that security doesn’t seem to care to take action against offenders.
In addition, judgement seemed quick against underage participants who chose costumes perceived to be overly sexual. If our goal is to reach cosplay-as-hat (described in the first post about cosplay) we should be working against poor character design on the whole. See, you can’t claim that a pandering cosplay isn’t pandering on you and then claim it is on a 14 year old.
What I think it means is that conventions might be yet another good space for a Slutwalk movement. The goal would be divorcing the sexualized nature of the costumes from the act of cosplay because, sadly some of the most fun and interesting characters end up in fetish costumes…
Not sure if there’s anything to this, just an idle thought. To come: More about actual anime shows. I promise. ;)
