by Poorna Tripathi

Cosplay being a portmanteau of ‘costume’ and ‘play’, refers to an art of dressing up as favourite characters from anime, video, games, comic, and other related products. Cosplay has grown from a joke that Nobuyuki Takahashi created in 1984 to much more than just a subculture of recent. Rather just being a festival to promote art and creativity, it has evolved to be a fan-audience-centred festival.

To be more precise, cosplay is actually one of the most wholesome and delightful subcultures one is likely to encounter. Most cosplayers put a lot of emphasis on making the costumes from scratch; while fine tuning the professional-like prop making, stitching, and makeup. The joy in recreating patterns or drawing individualistic accents on characters provides great pleasure to many individuals. To most of the participants, cosplay is something more than a hobby, it is work they do out of passion, enabling them to exercise talents as well as display their love and appreciation for the fictional realms.

In fact another reason for the popularity of cosplaying revolves around escapism or the act of struggling with social reality, wherein the costumes help people to temporarily detach from the reality for some time. For the same reasons as above, cosplayers become their heroes and sneak into somebody else’s skin with the help of a costume and mimic. This note-of-role-playing experience puts the staple element of the hobby as an empowering work in progress.

The Sense of Community is somewhat at the centre of cosplay conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con, and Anime Expo – popular places for like-minded fans to come together. These are not just mere meetings; these are fangirl and fanboy encounters for camaraderie and for work coordination. To most, cosplay is a natural social group of friends who appreciate characters and stories and enjoy dressing up as them.

What makes cosplay truly inclusive in it’s accessibility is that  anyone, irrespective of size, shape, gender or skill level can cosplay, and thus develop an increased sense of confidence on the main stage. It makes people become open to come out and show the world the real them, and make them empowered. The more the participant employs his or her role, the more the increased self-esteem is accorded which makes cosplay a powerful form of therapy.

However, every bed of roses has its thorns. Whilst being so enjoyable, the cosplay community has several issues which may obscure the benefits of this activity.

 One prominent issue in the cosplay community is that of Cultural appropriation. It is credited as being one of the biggest points of contention in cosplay. More specifically, it has been suggested that certain cosplayers from western origin appropriating elements of Japanese or African or Indigenous cultures, have little grasp of what those nuances mean. For instance, the cosplayers have been indicted of using traditional Japanese gowns famously known as kimonos, or African traditional artistic themes without a hint of their roots. Most of these representations can be conclusively viewed as objectification, which is also prejudice and an inclination towards eradication of the ethnic and cultural aspects. Thus, despite the fact that in form cosplay is a creative way to imagine and individual expression is important, particularly the participants should have respect for the sources of the images used and not take the appropriated cultures lightly.Adding to these cultural sensitivities, a darker, more significant issue prevalent amongst the cosplay community is that of sexual harassment. 

Women have voiced out consistently on their discomfort of being treated inappropriately at conventions and via the internet. Even so, there are many cases when female cosplayers were sexually harassed through comments, inappropriate touching, and even horrifiying attempts of being kissed because of their outfits. It has been  disheartening to find that there are men who think they have the right to violate  female cosplayers due to certain provocative cosplay outfits. Such kind of behaviour has given rise to the popular slogan and a movement called ‘COSPLAY IS NOT CONSENT’.

One exemplary act was in the year 2017 at the New York Comic Con when a man engagedin behaviour that ended up having him arrested after sexually harassing a female Cosplayer. This case is at the heart of harassment of cosplay spaces and renewed conversations about policies and advocacy for safety and reporting at cons. Most of the conventions have since adopted policies in their respective conventions to the effect that harassment of any type would not be allowed, yet the vice continues. Yet, this is not the final extent of controversies that the cosplay community deals with.

 Many controversies in cosplay are due to the issue of intellectual property (IP) and plagiarism. Since cosplayers replicate characters often from copyrighted work, there are issues, legal and otherwise, concerning how free creativity can be without violating the works proprietors’ rights. Sometimes, the cosplayers have been found to reproduce other illustrative designs either to sell merchandise based on those images without the consent of the copyright owners. This is most especially the case, when the cosplayers seek to make profits out of their art designs, some of which may attract litigations.

Case in point, in 2019 the cosplayer who wore Disney princess dresses tried to sell photo prints of her wearing the corresponding costumes. This case raised awareness of the issue concerning the distinction between homage and violation of copyright law within the context of cosplay legal and ethical issues. There are those cosplayers who simply wish to express and share their enthusiasm for particular franchises, and do so legally, whether or not they reflect fandom’s intricate relationship getting in touch with lawful propriety. 

Whilst intellectual property (IP) infringement is a recurring concern in cosplay, as replicating characters from copyrighted works sometimes leads to legal and ethical challenges, particularly when cosplayers attempt to profit from their creations, the issue is further complicated by the rise of online trolling, where cosplayers are frequently criticised or mocked for their interpretations of characters, especially if their work deviates from perceived standards or expectations.Recently with the advancement in social networking sites and more freedom to act on the internet toxic behaviour and harassment, otherwise known as trolling have been prevalent in cosplaying as well. Most cosplayers claim that they receive hate, harassment, and trolling concerning their costumes; it is even worse if the cosplayer is not slender, or if the costume is not perfect or does not fit gender norms. Such negativity not only discourages artistic expression but also exacerbates the pressure to adhere to strict guidelines, often making cosplayers hesitant to share their passion for fear of being targeted by online harassment.

The most famous case was recent, when a plus-sized girl dressed as Sailor Moon (who is slender by any standard) was mocked for it on social media. The bullying resulted in an encouraging hashtag that trended on the internet for #IStandWithSailorMoon, which helped thousands of people to support the cosplayer and say no to body-shaming incidents within the community. This case demonstrated and brought to light the fact that the online community for cosplayers is not entirely safe for the artists and fans, but at the same time, can also be protective of its members from bullying.

Online bullying not only increases the toxicity in cosplay but also brings out a worse side of the  competition and elitism .. Some beginners get pressurised by the new standards set by contest winners which inadvertently leads to stress and burnout. These competitions may cause an unhealthy environment in the community, as many students of the craft will only apply for excessive or highly realistic outfits. This discourages newcomers or individuals of small capital from joining because they feel that their work will not measure up to the standard of the community.On the other hand, online bullying only amplifies elitism by shaming those who don’t conform to high standards, creating a hierarchy where only the most polished or resource-intensive creations are celebrated, further alienating beginners or those with limited means.

These real-life cases of elitism have been manifested in major cosplay competitions where issues concerning costumes; their making and whether results have been greatly influenced by biased judges have arisen. The situation that triggered controversy was during the 2018 Anime Expo Cosplay Contest, where victims accused organisers of bias when setting the contingent’s standards. These occurrences demonstrate the reality of the increasingly evident dichotomy between joy and creative freedom for which cosplay is inherently about and the elements of cutthroat competition and increasingly achievable perfectionism for which the hobby is sometimes criticised.

All in all, I think, cosplay is a form of effective identity, creativity and group affirmation. It lets users become someone else for a while, to experiment and try on something they might have never done otherwise and communicate with like-minded enthusiasts. However, it also experiences serious problems such as cultural appropriation, harassment, different IP rights issues, toxicity, etc. Dealing with those issues and promising respect and fairness to all the members of the cosplay community helps to contribute positively to the improvement of the latter. The community has certainly not been passive in accepting their abuse, and has fought back in colours of different protests and a widespread push for inclusion. As long as the convention celebrates the creativity in their audience, and their fans treat one another with value and respect, cosplay can continue to be a fun and inspiring adventure for everyone on the globe.