Cosplay - Defined

For those new around here, I do other things than occasional blog posts about the intersections of myth and pop culture. In fact, I’m working on a rather large research project at the moment which I’ve dubbed the project name as “Playing with My ‘Self’”. At its heart, it’s a deep anthropological analysis of cosplay in the United Kingdom – not only how people feel about it, but it’s interesting intricacies like how it can be subversive, or it’s complicated relationship to capitalism and consumerism.

But I think there’s an interesting conversation to be had with a really basic premise: what exactly is cosplay? And I don’t necessarily mean the history of how the term came to be – the story is easy to find and involves the cross-cultural interactions between the United States and Japan. What I mean is – how is cosplay different from other acts of dressing up?

When I first started to carve out the study here, I figured the differences between things like cosplay to re-enactors would be fairly easy to figure out, but I think that was my “insider” voice talking more than my “scholarly” voice. In anthropology, we have two terms to help to differentiate the different spheres: the emic (which is the understanding from the object of study) and the etic (which is the understanding from outside the object of study). My initial views on cosplay were definitely influenced by own emic voice – which is not always a bad thing, but definitely something to recognise as you begin a study.

But when I allow myself to be confused and complicated by the field – even my own field – I start to see how things can actually get a little weird. When it comes to “costume play” – where cosplay originates – there are actually quite a few different options, from traditional cosplay to historical re-enactors, to Nerdlesque performers, to drag, and even Halloween costumes. So how do I define these terms in my etic voice? How do we define the boundaries of cosplay?

The first way that the boundary seemed to be made was in the importance of place. Cosplay was always associated with fan conventions – the art of dressing as a figure important to that convention in order to show connection to the group dynamic of the fans present. By delineating by place, cosplay is easily separated from other forms of dress play because of its presence at the con. But cosplay has grown far beyond the realms of the convention. Cosplayers make a living taking photos in their cosplays, and sharing these online, rather than only saving their creations for the convention and nowhere else. So if we can’t keep cosplay as specifically for the convention, what else can we do.

Well, let’s look at the actual act of the various dress plays. I guess we could think of cosplay as being the dressing of a fictional character. People take this in a variety of ways. We have cosplays of human characters, as well as non-human characters. So the types of characters can’t help to differentiate. People also often cosplay as original characters, and even as not-fictional characters.

Re-enactors do a similar type of dress play. They dress as not-fictional characters, drawing from history to help to build their costume. In some ways, they also are dressed as their own original characters. Their careful craft means that they construct an identity for the nameless historical figures they come to represent – an idea of what their figure has done in their life, which reflects on their clothes and the way they carry their body.

Similarly, drag is a costumed construction of an original character. The characters may be over-exaggerated versions of socialised gender, but they are still characters that the performers embody. They consider more than just costume construction and life, but also consider the way the characters should move in the world. They think about their characters’ personalities, but also their history and the way they think about themselves, their relationship to society, and their understanding of their own body.

Nerdlesque also complicates things even more. Nerdlesque performances start with costumes that we may readily consider traditional cosplay – fictional characters from popular culture – but with a bit of a sexual tease. The point of the art of Nerdlesque is to tell the story of the character chosen through the movement of the body and the removal of the costume – therefore the story of the character should not be wholly present in just the costume, but must be present in the body and the movements of the body.

There is some similarities between Drag and Genderbending cosplays, to take this conversation even further. Both explore the social construction of gender, and what this means for both the separate characters and the performer themselves. And this can grow to other considerations as well, including the transgender and Nerdlesque. I talked about this briefly in my previous post on cosplay as subversion.

We see lots of lines being crossed in all sorts of ways. It can’t just be fictional characters, nor can it be based purely on location. It can’t be based on firm ideas of exact replication, due to the heavy presence of genderbending cosplays, but then that complicates differences in regards to gender representation, and what that means for the representation of self. And that starts to get us a little further away from the definition of cosplay, and into definitions of gender, sexuality and self that is not really what we’re hoping to talk about here.

So, how do we draw these definitional boundaries? How do scholars like myself, and those following such scholarship like yourself, draw our own understandings of where cosplay exists as apart of or a part from other dress plays?

Well, one thing we can do is look at how other people have drawn these boundaries. I am not the first academic to look at cosplay – there have been others, especially from different fields which may provide different understandings than just looking at anthropologists. This would require us to look at definitions and boundaries drawn by the etic voice – the scholarship which attempts to stand outside the world of cosplay. This is mostly what academics tend to do. In any conversation on a word and a definition done by academics, we start with waxing on and on about what other people have said. How have others defined the field, defined the term, defined the locations and types of study? We focus on these things, and we either choose one, or use these definitions to draw a new definition which will – we hope – become one of those ideas and terms and citations in someone else’s bit of waxing on definitions.

But let me suggest a different way. This is not a way that is inherently new in research in general, but one that may be useful to find and use far more often in research, as well as in our every day life. We let go of etic definitions and instead focus on the emic – focus on what it is that people just living their lives say about themselves.

What this means is that we allow others to define themselves and where they see their own field’s boundaries, and we abide by that. One of the interesting things that happens when we do this is we allow others to show us what they think cosplay is, and in that we also see debates between people on this. Maybe some think that sexy cosplay isn’t “real” cosplay, for example. Or maybe the way one does cosplay – like making your own costumes – is what triumphs the definition, which may rub people, primarily those who purchase their costumes, the wrong way. If we drew our own boundaries first, we may miss some of these different aspects of the field. For example, if I initially drew the boundaries of cosplay as that which is a representation of pop culture characters in as perfect a way as possible, then I would be ignoring the important presence of genderbending cosplays, or those who cosplay as nonfiction characters in popular culture.

But looking at a cosplayer as simply someone who defines themselves as a cosplayer, I allow my own definition to be fluid. Definitions, in my opinion, need to be fluid because things change. They change over time, they change within the field and during research itself, and it also changes as cosplay itself changes. Maybe if I started this research project in the 90s, the importance of place – of doing cosplay at cons – would be found to be paramount. But now, we see how cosplay has shifted to incorporate new locations and new types of cosplay.

So, lets state the question again: how do we define cosplay? Well, I don’t have an answer for you. But I do have something to say: cosplay is what cosplayers tell me it is. A cosplayer is someone who defines themselves as such. So, if you tell me you’re a cosplayer and tell me cosplay is, I’ll listen. And if someone tells me something else a bit different, I’ll listen to that, too.

So that all being said, I’m doing some more actual ethnography this year. Follow me on twitter for up-to-date info, or to DM me if I’m going to a similar con as you. If you are at any of them, let me know what you define cosplay as. I also have a few more cons coming up, so follow me on twitter so you know where I’m going to be and when, and to make sure you know all the info on the Playing With My Self project.