Ramblings on cosplay, costume and not being yourself

[jooles34]

 

So, here’s the thing, I am cosplaying for the first time this weekend and I’m properly bricking it. So much so it would appear, that I am even typing in Saaf Ladan speak *headdesk*

Anyhoo, it leads to a rather interesting question for me. Why am I so, SO nervous about cosplaying?

As some of you will know it doesn’t take a lot to convince me to put on a silly costume and act like a prat. In fact, I am incredibly comfortable in costume and even spend a lot of time and effort convincing friends to have fancy dress parties so I can dress up; I enjoy it that much. I find being in a costume fantastically liberating as it allows me to not be myself for a while. But there are different ways of being in costume and of not being yourself.

When I am on stage and performing costume is incredibly important to me. I am one of those irritating actors who will start wearing at least part of their costume as soon as possible during rehearsals, as it’s one of the best ways for me to start to really feel the character. For example, as soon as you strap a gun holster to your hip you start to walk differently, you can’t help it, and this has a knock on effect to everything you do on the stage.

But of course when you are doing a performance like that you are in costume and actually inhabiting a character for two hours. And more than that, someone has helpfully given you a lot of lines for that character to say and all you have to do is make what someone else wrote look good. Costume then is part of the whole and is for the sole purpose of the character.

Dressing up for fun, like fancy dress, is a totally different ball game, but does have some similarities. Depending on the costume, me being me, I still often manage to find a character to go with it. For example, those of you at Hub may remember the bear suit of awesome (sorry, I love it in unnatural ways). With that suit on I felt completely liberated to act out, far more than I can when I’m just lil’ ol’ me. So the dancing bear danced his rocking socks off all night and didn’t even think once about what other people thought. It was a dancing bear FFS.

Dressing up as other people for events such as parties is closer to cosplaying, but still feels very different to me. I dressed in a very shoddy, no attention to details, Captain Jack for my birthday last year. Few of my RL friends are geeks so none of them cared about that, but I had fun and there is no doubt about the fact that I slipped into Jack when I was wearing it. (oh, stop sniggering at the back there, you know what I mean.) I flirted even more than normal and my confidence around strangers was definitely up, because Jack is scared of no-one, and it rubs off. (seriously now, stop it).

(similarly the night I broke up a knife fight dressed and acting like Betty Boop was one of the funniest experiences of my life. Although, while idiotchild here did have the foresight to remove the wig before the police arrived it never occurred to her to hide the garter or adjust the dress to a level that didn’t scream HOOKER)

So, why am I finding the idea of cosplaying so terrifying when I can already do this? This is the best I can come up with.

When you dress as a popular character, if you get it wrong people will notice. And more than that they will care. Because that’s what we do in fandom, we care; we really, really care about our characters. And that’s also why we cosplay. I have put together an (again shoddy) outfit for Connor Temple from Primeval because I adore him. But I’m not the only one who loves him. Lots of people do. There’s lots of people to give a shit when I get it wrong.

Another problem it brings to mind is this: Where does dressing up and becoming a character begin and end? As I said earlier, a large part of costume for me is becoming that character, so if I swan about a con actually drifting into Connor’s character is that going to just be fucking weird? But if will feel weird to me if I don’t. I am also going to be dressing as a fem Ianto on the Saturday and in some ways that will be harder as Ianto is always so close to the surface anyway that it will be hard to keep the distinction once I'm in costume.

I’ve only been outwardly active in fandom for a year and although I’ve thought about venturing into cosplay a couple of times, I’ve never quite made it and I really feel like I am sticking my head above the parapet doing it now.

And. As mentioned, I’m bricking it.

 

Comments

[i-bananas.livejournal.com]

You'll be awesome. I will provide moral support as required :)

My little bro got the performance gene so I'm not into costumes much but may attempt to dress up this weekend, I've given it barely any thought so may fail badly

[neferitiel.livejournal.com]

Don't be nervous :) Cosplaying is cool :)

[thrace-adams.livejournal.com]

I think you'll do just fine, it's always cool to get out of your own skin for a while.

[shamazipan.livejournal.com]

Not everyone who cosplays goes into character. Some people just dress up. Some people pay attention to getting the littlest details right and some are happy as long as it looks close enough for people to tell who they are being. There are no right ways to do it. Just relax and enjoy it and try not to over think it. You'll have a blast.