Avatar, Halloween

[glockgal]

RACEBENDING.COM - promo shirts!
Thanks to Mike and Dariane for setting this up - we have new OFFICIAL racebending.com t-shirts for sale at Blacklava! Our Zazzle store will still remain up to sell bumper stickers and postcards. But all t-shirts are now through Blacklava

Comments

[furiosity]

No, I know she wasn't calling anyone out for cosplay, but I am just curious about what she thinks about cosplay. I have the same view of it as you do, generally speaking, because the cosplay idea is that dressing up as a character is done out of admiration for that character, to emulate/pay homage rather than to use a stereotype to gain attention when you're already in a position of privilege.

But there are cosplayers who do it, uh, "professionally" so to speak, where they cosplay primarily to show off their craft skills rather than to pay fannish homage. The line can be very blurry -- a lot of cosplayers take pride in the work they do but they also genuinely admire the characters they cosplay. OTOH, at anime cons, it's not unusual to see people dressed up as a generic "Japanese school girl" or "Geisha"; I am not sure that that is any different from what Glock is talking about, but if you suggested to the person that the idea behind their outfit may be offensive, they'll just be like, "it's cosplay!".

I have also seen cosplayers in blackface, and it makes me very uncomfortable.