Cosplaying crossing gender and race
- Black Women in Comedy Festival
- Oct 27
- 10 min read
Cosplaying crossing gender and race
Part A: Observation Protocol
Date: October 5th & 6th
Observer: Cosplayers and Participants at LA Comic Con.
Location: LA Convention Center.
Archival #:
Start Time: Oct 5-6th 2024 1240pm
End Time: October 6th at 3 pm
This year I observed participants at LAComic Con. Who were they? Cosplayers, exhibitors, industry. I was labeled industry based on my badge. The La Convention is where it took place and it turned into a living comic book. As years go by with each comic con, the cosplayer gets more intricate in design. And the corporate interest heightens as well. I was invited to perform at this year’s convention and as a result, I had access to all three days of the event for free.
Dressed as a white male character Saturday Frank Castle. I hoped to receive positive feedback from all of the people there. However, we are in America. So the same amount of discrimination discovered in the world met itself in this nerdy massive market. The same kind of sexism existed. As a more voluptuous Frank Castle, I thought I would get more whistling. I thought people would take more pictures with a Black Woman: Frank Castle.
I knew I wanted to focus particularly on the walkers. Those walking around and taking photos with cosplayers. Those engaging with cosplayers. Those that people watched from afar cosplayers. I wanted to see if there was more celebration of my body as Frank Castle or as Sailor Chibi Moon. People engaged less with me alone as Frank Castle. People engaged with me at a higher rate with me and my daughter on October 6th as Sailor Chibi Moon and with my daughter as Sailor Moon.
Part B: Observation
Completed.
Part C: Journal
I Cosplayed as Frank Castle - Italian American White guy.
October 5th, 2024 1240 pm
Homelander and Starlight passed by me and glared at me in silence. Starlight rolled her eyes at me.
October 5th, 2024 1 pm
A neurodivergent person clocked my punisher. As we cross paths, they make less eye contact. As they passed by me, they blurted out in fast and accelerated speech, “Awesome Frank Castle.”
October 5th, 2024 120pm
I just spotted muscle Dora. Everyone is giving him a high five and taking pictures with him.
240pm spotted muscle Dora again in a different area. People are screaming, “We love you, Dora!”
Dora is a hit.
Dora winked at me. Dora has got spunk and is fully committed to the character.
Dora strikes a bodybuilder pose. Amazing.
October 5th, 2024 140pm
Yass! A group of us just embraced me. They took pictures. One woman said, “Girl I’m so glad that you did this!!! I’m going to do this next year. I’ve been wanting to do this! Now I’m going to.”
October 6th 140pm
You two are too cute.
Can I take a picture?
Amina has gotten so many stickers as Sailor Moon.
People keep giving me two thumbs up.
I was patted on the back by Santa. He said he would bring us both gifts for having such a creative out.
I am overwhelmed by how much positive feedback this outfit yields. Is it because I present as a magic female? Ewwww.
Introduction
The notion of the magical negro in fictional characters has been utilized to codify the mass media. So much so that the real black person, me, I cannot just simply exist. As I navigate this event space, this adult playground, racism still rears its ugly head. The Latina security guard protecting the sea of white and white adjacent faces prepared to embark on play moved with a joyful bliss. But I had to be reminded, do you belong here at least 5 times before beginning to play? The security guard asked in a shriek of a scream, you can’t enter. Yet softly redirects a group of white presenting folks in the direction I was sent. At the badge pickup area, the sea of faces wanted to tell me to turn away. Are you in the right place? I am asked four times. The question baffles me. They reinvent questions for me. Because microaggressions come so quickly, I think I am only now recognizing it. The only thing they ever needed from me was at minimum a name and an ID. I was asked to show email etc. I was already tired before even starting. Burke (2023) Dorothy Roberts touches on this ideology as well. She states: “The social order established by powerful white men was founded on two inseparable ingredients: the dehumanization of Africans based on race and the control of women’s sexuality” (p. 43). They did it. In a space where fun was supposed to happen, it was still layered with human racism. I think this is why in hospitality or events, black women might be better served by robots.
The mini traumas keep us from playing and enjoying interactive play. Because coupled with the fun are the socially constructed microaggressions. Jensen (2019) For Tiana, a Black woman who dressed in elaborate cosplays, her participation was a response to the negative experiences she had as a non-conforming geek in her teens. She described always wanting to cosplay but being afraid that people would make fun of her and then one day deciding “to speak up as much as possible because I would have loved to have someone speak up that much when I was entering the field when I was 18.” She spoke of wanting to let people know that she knew what it was like to feel like you’re “the only one (p. 42). Tiana had to stop caring to jump into play. She had to block out the noise. The hate.
The thing that pisses me off about the idea of play is that like freedom, play should belong to everyone. But it doesn’t. Burke (2023) Collins identifies four central controlling images for Black women, which are the mammy, the matriarch, the welfare mother, and the jezebel. She states that “the dominant ideology of the slave era fostered the creation of four interrelated, socially constructed controlling images of Black womanhood, each reflecting the dominant group’s interest in maintaining Black women’s subordination”(p. 37). So to participate in the collective play, we have to play the appropriate part. Otherwise, one will be ostracized. Our funding was cut. Our voices were silenced. Those who choose to go on the road less traveled when attempting to create humanized black characters, find hurdles that are not there for another group of people. Burke (2023) When black actors are constantly cast as angels, spirits, Gods, and Other incarnate supernatural forces, they displace the realities of history into more viewer-friendly narratives. That is, the various filmmakers create scenes of trouble-free and uncomplicated black/white reconciliation. (p. 44). No one wants to do the work when their life is unbothered. Or like my white male coworkers say, we all have problems. But your problem doesn’t keep you sick, imprisoned, murdered, redlined, or kept out of work. Your problems can live as problems not coupled with your race and gender. Burke (2023) Let that sink in for a moment. According to the stats in this study, the absence of Black voices and narratives within genre fiction is, for lack of a better word, intentional. In other words, white people love white people. They love to create stories about themselves. They love to read and imagine themselves as the heroes in stories about themselves. They, no doubt, love themselves. The problem, though, is that it comes at the expense of other writers, and the stories that those writers are not allowed to tell. (p. 55).
Research Questions
What were my findings?
Who did I cosplay as?
Why did I cosplay?
Who did I observe?
How did the participants react to my gender and race bending in cosplay?
Who were the caretakers of the events?
Who embraced my cosplay in a positive light?
Who embraced my cosplay in a negative light?
Who was neutral?
What cosplayers were embraced in a positive light?
How were they embraced in a positive light?
Which were ignored?
Research Participant
The LA Convention Center is massive, never-ending, and expensive. Parking and food are expensive. This is important to note because financial barriers keep people out. Although there are elevators. I have a lot of accessibility questions. Family access. The price of admission certainly pushes people out of this opportunity to play and learn in immersive Transmedia play.
LA Comic Con Attendees
Findings/ Researcher Reflections
As a comedian, I presented a show at LA Comic Con. What made this experience different from other LA Comic Con experiences? It was my choice to also participate as a cosplayer. I’ve always loved cosplay. I cosplay at any possibility of dressing up. Fandom is demarcated as “increased specialization of interest, social organization of interest, and material productivity,” (Hills, 2002). To define it in simpler terms, fandom is the state or attitude of being a fan. (P. 5) Presenting as the punisher aka Frank Castle, I embarked on finding my fans. What are some things that I found out right away? I knew that I was going to wear an outfit that didn’t represent my gender or my race. I decided to cosplay as Frank Castle. Frank Castle is a Marvel character, also known as the Punisher, The punisher presents as a white man. His backstory is a dark one. It is a simple case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is an Italian white man who has lost his family due to mob violence. He takes revenge on said mob and continues to take revenge on all organizations or criminal elements that choose to partake in mob violence.
One of the things I wanted to observe was the participants at Comic-Con as they reacted to me walking through as a said person. Here are my results. Who embraced my cosplay? What I found was that people who looked like me were often black and women or black people in general embraced my cosplay. They took pictures with me. They reached out and audibly responded in ways of solitude. “Ok, girl!” “We see you.” “I’mma do this next time.” “Yasssssss Frank Castle.” Yang (2022) Given the importance of authenticity, studying gender play in cosplay requires an interactionist lens that captures not only how one performs gender, but how one does so collectively and reflexively with an anticipation of how their performance might be evaluated (p. 4). I had to cosplay to play. To participate meant an invitation into the realm of cosplayers.
Of those who displayed neutrality and negative reactions to my cross-gender and race cosplaying, I thought that in this environment, white men would be my biggest adversary. We all participate in a sort of patriarchal hazing. Jensen (2019) The mass media raised us, socialized us, entertained us, comforted us, deceived us, disciplined us, told us what we could do and told us what we couldn't” (p. 33 )
I was an equal opportunity offender to all who did not want to see the body I was wearing in a Frank Castle Cosplay. I spent an hour roaming the exhibits for this 3 day weekend’s event. I felt like a Black girl nerd in a candy store. And black comics, celebrating Black playing and being creative was my candy of choice. In this hour of walking around, I found that white men presented positive responses to the punisher outfit. “Great outfit.” “Looks great.” 50% on the other side was neutral as in, they didn’t respond or they just had puzzled looks on their faces.
What is my takeaway? When one is presented in a space of Transmedia-infused live interactive play, all adults are allowed to be in a space where play is invited and we’re all able to participate in one way shape, or form. Who is allowed to play? Who are the caretakers of this adult interactive playground? Lamond (2020) the root connection is to an engagement at the level of a leisure practice (p. 6). These environments have an opportunity to be spaces where one does promote togetherness. Yet the security protecting the play from homelessness right outside of the LA convention center is overwhelmingly Black. So as small as the black population is here in Los Angeles, somehow we all find employment always in mass, protecting white adjacent folks at play.
For adults in the comic con environments, we still meet societal deficits at play. We still have a long way to go. A lot of women presented characters that were typically women characters and men presented characters that are typically male characters. Let’s talk about Dora for a moment. Fans favorite overall was Muscle Dora. Dora presented as a man. He wore the typical purple and orange getup of the popular kid character of the early 2000s Dora the Explorer. He brought uniqueness. He presented as a bodybuilder. Doing bodybuilder poses as he took pictures with adoring fans. Most people celebrated muscle man Dora the Explorer. He wore it with confidence and pride.
So much on gender politics started to swarm my head as I reflected further on Muscle Man Dora the Explorer vs me as Frank Castle aka The Punisher. I have more questions than answers. Do we celebrate outright masculine energy imposed on any character? Burke (2023) If Storm is silent and seemingly less powerful in her movie representation than she is in the comic books, Berger’s commentary tells us, it is because she chooses to fight for humanity and support her mutant counterparts, thus allowing commentators, critics, and academics to ignore the fact that this is a reconstructed image whose creators may not want to highlight that one of the most powerful mutants within the universe is an oppressed Black woman. (p. 52).
Do we tend to minimize or reject feminized versions of a once masculine character? If as a cross-race gender cosplayer, I imagine neutral is not a place that will garner much celebration. One has to be either overly sexy or masculine. Here is another example with Jessica Rabbit. Jessica Rabbit’s Cosplayer was stunning. She was very sexy and voluptuous. What she presented as a man in drag. Trying to fit the mold and present as a Transwoman. I think she would have gotten pushback.
Conclusion
Gender and race lay at the guarded gates of participatory fun. I think playing gets to be a political act of resistance for Black women particularly. I think it gets to be added to the toolbox of ways healing occurs. Experiential made by us and for us are always a good idea. But we know we are underfunded. And so naturally people from all walks of life want nice things. No one wants to watch a B movie when they can watch an Oscar-worthy film. But what if I said we have to support and support D, E, F, and G-rated persons of color-created events until it gets to A-rated? Comic-Con is great because of the community and corporate support. But in enjoying a more commercial experiential form of play, know that gender and racial politics will meet one there as well.
Citation
Burke, C. (2023). Hero me not. The containment of the most powerful Black, female superhero.
Rutgers University Press.
Jenson, D. E. (2019). Space at the Con: Conversations About Representation in Popular Culture at
Comic Conventions. Popular Culture Review, 30(2), 29–55. https://doi.org/10.18278/pcr.30.2.3
Lamond, I (2020) Narrating absence: Fan Con events and the commodification of leisure. Journal of
Fandom Studies, 8 (1). pp. 33-46. ISSN 2046-6692 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jfs_00008_1
Williams, S. S., Jewell, J. O., Gatson, S. N., & Texas A & M University. (2013). Nerds of Colors
Assemble : the Role of Race and Ethnicity in Fandom [Dissertation, [Texas A & M University]. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/148312
Yang, Y. (2022). The art worlds of gender performance: cosplay, embodiment, and the collective
accomplishment of gender. The Journal of Chinese Sociology, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40711-022-00168-z
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