Cosplay is a combination of the words costume and play (Winge, 2006, p.65). Cosplay involves people transforming themselves into fictional characters by creating and wearing costumes (Okabe, 2012, p. 226). Often cosplay involves learning the mannerisms of the selected character or dialogue and attending conventions and events acting as that character (Okabe, 2012, P.225). The term “cosplay” wasn’t coined until 1984 by a Japanese anime director named Takahashi Nobuyuki (Kelts, 2006, p.287). After seeing people dressed as sicence fiction characters at World Con Los Angeles, Nobuyuki used the term to describe the scene and encouraged Japanese fans to use costumes in the same way (Winge, 2006, p. 66). Cosplay started to become increasingly popular …show more content…
56). Despite the origin of the word cosplay, cosplay is largely thought of as directly inspired by Japanese popular culture (Okabe, 2012). Many of the conventions that these cosplayers attend, also known as ‘Cons’ for short, began popping up in many cities in the United States in the 1990s (Pollak, 2006). Currently, conventions are held in around 30 states in the United States (Leng, 2013, p.90). As popularity for these conventions grow, more and more people have started to participate in the act of cosplay (Leng, 2013, p.90). With the emergence of cosplay trends such as gender-bending, cross-playing, and mashups it is interesting to look into how traditional expressions of gender roles and identity are undermined in the cosplay community. In this paper, I plan to investigate the relationship between gender roles, gender identity and gender expression through participation in …show more content…
The SyFy Channel’s reality television show Heroes of Cosplay follows a predominately female cast of cosplayers as they participate in several competitions on the fan convention circuit (Brady et al, 2013). Suzanne Scott notes that, in the show, men are shown as the “invisible laborers” whose work is confined to domestic spaces, while their partners, the female cosplayers, move freely through and work in the “public sphere” by participating in conventions (Scott, 2015, p. 152). This can be seen as a direct gender role reversal from traditional gender roles. Traditional gender roles say that women should be mothers and place family over potential careers (). While men should, according to traditional gender roles, be the worker in the outside world and be “bread winners”(). Additionally, traditional gender roles leave the work women do in the home under appreciated whereas in the show it is seen that the women take the bulk of the acknowledgement regardless of the male participation in constructing the costumes (Scott, 2015, p. 152). Heroes of Cosplay has been criticized in some instances for verifying what Suzanne Scott says is the “inherent masculinity of material fan labor” (Scott, 2015, p.153). The show has also been criticized for downplaying the women’s work on their costumes implying that the men actually do the bulk of the work while the women are just objects whose purpose is to display these works (Scott,
In a future class, the question “what is a woman?” should be addressed with a study of the musical film Hedwig and the Angry Inch because Hedwig reveals how a façade can lead to authenticity. Many women today are under the impression that they must fit a certain gender binary mold in order to live up to the definition of their gender. Women plaster on makeup and create personas centered around societal beliefs and not personal beliefs. Hedwig and the Angry Inch highlights how the gender binary mold lead individuals to choose a gender and within that set gender mold, express themselves to a limited extent. In other words, makeup and playing into the gender binary isn’t terrible. However, it leads to a constricted form of self-expression that
Throughout the year hotels, convention centers, and other high capacity venues are transformed into a social haven and meeting ground for fellow Otakus and cosplay fans or cosplayers for short. The act of cosplay, the abbreviated form of “costume play”, is defined by Oxford Dictionary as “the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga and anime”. However, there is much more to a cosplayer than this simple definition leads one to believe. To its most dedicated patrons, cosplay is an art form incorporating unlimited mediums, such as textile fabrication, woodworking, clay sculpting, resin casting, and even theatrical makeup. Some enthusiasts take cosplay far more seriously than a weekend social hobby. While some would be content with purchasing a commissioned piece or mass produced costume for their convention adventures others are not satisfied until they have handcrafted a masterpiece with 100% accuracy. These cosplayers will spend week or months and hundreds of dollars insure their costume is a perfect adaption of their selected character. Yet for some that is still not enough. There are those who will not be content until they have become the living embodiment of their chosen character. They become the method actors of cosplay, memorizing the characters personality, walk, quirks, and vocalics. Going even deeper into the realm of cosplay, there are still those who are so obsessed with becoming a character they will paint their skin, whether it be pink, grey, green, or any color in between. This is where a sensitive debate explodes. Coloring yourself grey or pink for your Marceline or Princess Bubblegum adventure time cosplays will ...
In “Is It Now Slutoween for 7-Year-Olds? Really?” Emily Shire addresses the question of whether or not to wear gender-prescription Halloween costume for girls. Published on September 29, 2015, this is one of the many articles that Shire has contributed to thedailybeast.com, most of which covers popular culture, women’s issues, health and sex and date. There appear to be no Kairos event. However, Shire against little girl to wear costumes that are provocative. The target audiences of thedailybeast.com is women. Shire is a reporter and cheat sheeter for The Daily Beast. Her work has appeared in The Week, The Atlantic, Salon, Slate, and The Forward. She is a writer
Erik Kain discusses the blatant sexism involved with superhero franchise merchandise. He points out how sexism within the superhero franchise extends outside of their home medium. For example, one of the toys from Marvel’s the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie replaced the only female member of the Avengers with Captain America. The scene from the movie, upon which this toy is based, depicts the heroine, Black Widow, being launched from the quinjet (the Avengers primary mode of transportation) on a motorcycle. The irony of this is that Black Widow rescued Captain America by returning his shield to him in time to fight off the titular villain (Kain). In addition, no Black Widow action figures were created which tied into the movie at all. There was absolutely no reason to exclude Black Widow from production, except maybe gender bias and the stereotype that boys
Raymond, Diane. "POPULAR CULTURE AND QUEER REPRESENTATION." n.d., n. pag. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. . (A Critical Perspective)
Gender roles have always been present in society, especially when it comes to women. Traditionally, women were expected to stay at home to clean, cook, and care for the children while men were expected to play the role of breadwinner. Though women in the 1970’s attempted to branch off from the norm, television media forced the illusion of a continued anticipated gender role society by portraying women in the old fashioned housewife role. An issue arose with media powers when someone had something to say. In 1981, Legos made a controversial statement when they released the ad of a young girl in overalls playing with Legos. In this time period, girls were expected to wear pink and play with dolls; boys played with Legos. Legos moved a nation by deceiving the expected roles of men and women.
Many video games portray women as objectified beings, purely used for sex appeal and to attract the larger male gamer population. We also see men idealised in a similar way as well – the males in video games are portrayed as muscly, brawny men. However, we rarely see a scantily clad man in a game, but there is a vast abundance of games which feature women wearing ‘sexy armour’, or a noticeable lack of substantial amount of clothing. This isn’t female-friendly as these games are made for men, causing women to feel alienated and uncomfortable.
Even though I found solace in the female video game characters of my childhood as these icons of Amazonian womanhood, with age I have come to realize that many of these female characters often rely on dated stereotypes. So much so, that many of these female characters become walking tropes, displaying only the most basic of female stereotypes: a love for shopping, makeup, and shoes. Anita Sarkesian, a feminist blogger who critiques anti-woman tropes in video games, created the name of this particular trope, the 'Ms. Male ' character. The 'Ms. Male ' character is defined as a female character with little-to-no personality or defining traits outside of traditionallly regressive “female” characteristics. This allows a game designer to take
(2002). Shirts vs. Skins: Clothing as an Indicator of Gender Role Stereotyping in Video Games. Mass Communication & Society, 279-293
In our society most men are likely to obtain higher paying jobs and are able to continue working even after becoming parents, whereas, majority of women obtain lower paying jobs and having to choose between being a parent and having a career. After reading the plays of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill and Hosanna by Michael Tremblay, I discovered that gender played a major role in how men and women are treated in society. The characters in these two plays challenges the gender norms, and therefore, I will argue that women are not treated equally in the workplace; that people who are of the queer community are considered to be inferior and less worthy of being accepted within the public sphere.
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
Introduction Historically, multiple styles of dressing have been created during the last several decades, which played an important role in modern fashion in the UK. Everyone has a different and unique dressing style in their everyday life. Some styles are influenced by vintage styles which are attributing to the deep effects of old vogue, and another group of dressing styles are inclined into the fresh element. Despite those different styles, some of them have even evolved into the milestones in fashion history. To start this essay, it will introduce the evaluation of the first significant revolution of dressing style in the 1960s.
Cosplay, a portmanteau that joins the words “costume” and “play,” is a hobby in which participants called cosplayers dress up for costumes from the characters which are from comics books, games and cartoons of the US - to anime and manga - comics and cartoons of Japan, that they love. This is a new subculture that came from Japan then became widely popular to the world, but not all people understand what it really means. They still have some negative thought about it. As for myself, cosplay is much more than a hobby. It is “the art of costume play,” which also has its difficult and challenging, and can consider as a job.
...get less attention than male’s. “On boys’ favorite TV shows, male characters are frequently portrayed at work, while the occupations of nearly half of female characters are unidentified.” This is damaging because boys will begin to think that either women are lazy and can’t find work, or their work is not important enough to be seen as something to regard.
Masculinity and femininity are two terms, which have been interpreted differently throughout history. Both the males and the females have responsibilities and duties but these duties differ based on one’s gender. Gender has played a prodigious role in the economy, politics, and the society. Everyone starts making interpretations of the strengths and weaknesses based on one’s gender. These interpretations are not always based on his or her ability but is usually based on his or her gender. Males tend to be judged as extremely strong and unfashionable in terms of appearance. Whereas, females are judged as expensive and very fashionable. Males and females both differ in their abilities and their enjoyments. Fashion, entertainment, and strength are three topics, which are used to define masculinity and femininity in the 21st century.