Cosplay Skanks and Fake Nerd Girls? Where?

Okay, so recently Shelby answered an "Ask a Nerd" question about Cosplay Girls and gave a very, um, interesting response.  This is actually something that Shelby and I have debated about for a long time.  There are so many things that come into play with this topic and it bleeds over into so many other topics.  That being said, I am going to split this into two parts.


Part One:  Why Cosplay? 

I guess the best place to start would be: Why do people cosplay in the first place?  I'm going to talk about as many of the reasons that I can possibly think of for why someone would want to cosplay both on a conscious and subconscious level.  Let's break it down:

1.) "I love the character/show/movie/book/comic and I wanted to pay tribute!"

Awww!

 Awesome!  That's a really good reason to cosplay and kind of something that sums it up.  It's also one of the main reasons that you hear about why someone chose to portray a specific character.  Simple enough.  Let's move on.


2.) "I look really good as this character or they suit my personality/personal tastes!"

Not too sure on the skirt, but she's workin' it!

Okay, still in normal cosplay territory there.  If you are able to pull it together and you can either relate to that character or you bear a resemblance to that character that is cool.  I know that I have often gone with characters that I know I look like or think I can pull off.  But more on that later!


3.) "I'm competitive and I love winning the cosplay contests!"

I want to be there...

That's cool.  People put in lots of work on their costumes and props and sometimes even more than that to take home a little piece of nerd cred.  People do the same thing for sports and other extracurricular activities.  Why should this be treated any differently?


4.) "I have a rockin' body, I want attention and I get it by showing off my skills and my goods!"

There is a whole lot of ass there, but this is a very well executed cosplay!

A lot of people will hate on these women who go out and dress like these scantily clad characters, but to be perfectly honest, if you can pull off the look and you took the time to go out and make every detail look great and you have the time to go to the gym on the daily and look awesome, go for it!  We shouldn't be judging anyone who took the time to hone their cosplay just because the character they chose is risque.  If you have an issue about that subject, maybe you should be asking why it is that we have so many scantily clad female characters in the first place.  And it isn't like that is just something that is exclusive to female characters.

Yep.

Now if you want to put that person's nerd cred into question, that's a totally separate issue.  But if they were able to come up with an awesomely realistic costume on their own, they have to have at least a little nerd cred.  Case in point: Jessica Nigri.  Do I think she's the end all and be all of nerds?  Hell to the fucking no.  But do I think she likes a few nerd movies and plays a some video games every now and then?  Yeah, probably.  And she does an awesome job on her stuff, so I can at least respect her for that.



5.) "I'm a booth girl and this is what I have to wear to get people to buy the shit I'm repping!"

"Oh my Gawd... I'm pretty sure that freak just took my picture... Ugh... Just calm yourself, Becky... It's almost over..."

Eh, I mean, if they are standing by the booth and getting paid to model, you can't really hold that against them.  I don't have anything against it as long as they are not trying to take advantage of anyone with their looks.  They are just doing what they've gotta do to pay the rent.  If they like being there, that's great and if not, oh well.  Just don't expect to take one of them home that night because you and she had so much in common.  Most likely the only thing that you had in common was that you were both there, but I could be wrong.


6.) "I love making costumes and getting all the details just right!"

This is so awesome I can barely contain myself!

 I totally respect people who make their own stuff.  I make my own stuff when I can, but more often than not it's not a very realistic expectation if you lack the skill or time.  Plus, it's not like there is a shortage of people out there who will pay top dollar to get really good costumes.  Laugh if you will at cosplay, but it's a huge money making industry!


7.) "I just really like dressing up as someone else!"

I love the Paul Dini Harley Quinn way more than the Arkham Asylum one.

 Some people use cosplay as a way to escape their everyday lives.  That can be fun.  What does it matter if you do it at a convention or in the bedroom or in the park with your LARPing buddies?  As long as it isn't grossly offending someone else or breaking any laws, wear whatever the hell you want to wear and people can go fuck themselves.



8.) "All my friends are doing it, so I'm doing it too!"

Hey, at least they tried! :)

A long time ago a much less mature me would have said that people who do something because other people are doing it are just posers, but the way I see it now is that if it takes a group environment to get someone out there to try doing something new, then I'm all for it.  Just getting your foot in the door in something like cosplay can take some courage.  (And yes, I realize it's ironic to say that its courageous to hide behind a costume!)



9.) "I could give a fuck about nerd culture, but I heard nerdy guys usually end up making more money, so I'm here to snag myself one by dressing like a skank!"

Now this is one that is kind of a hot button issue.  Some people will tell you that this is an invalid argument and that some nerds are getting upset at it for no reason because it doesn't exist.  But I have personally seen it in action.  I cannot tell you over the years how many times I have heard mothers say to their daughters, "Now honey, you better be nice to that nerdy boy because after college he is going to be smart and rich and he is going to want a beautiful wife to come home to!"  And they've said it right it front of me on several accounts as though it were some totally socially acceptable thing among women!  I am amazed at how many of my peers have taken that advice.  It's pretty stupid that in today's day and age that women are saying that, but it's happening.  It used to be we only had to worry about these girls doing that shit at Halloween, but now with the popularity of conventions and the internet, the ones who are dumb enough to follow through with that bullshit are going to the next level and parading around those arenas too.

If this lady with the reverse tramp stamp is Wonder Woman...

...then this lady is Batman.

. 
10.) "I'm a nerd girl and nerdy guys only want the skanky cosplay girls, so this is what I have to do to get their attention!"

"This is what guys want.  This is what guys want, right?  Oh, God!  Someone love me!  Gah!"

Unfortunately, the side effect of the... Well... Let's just call it the Fake Nerd Skank Boom!  [And I am not trying to say by any means that the lovely Power Girl in the above pic is fake or desperate, she actually has a really awesome costume, but her pose just totally personified the angst I was trying to convey!]  The side effect of that is that then you have real nerd girls (who are genuinely trying to get with guys that they are interested in for reasons other than money or socioeconomic status) trying to compete with it and it just creates this vicious cycle of skankyness that leads to more and more revealing, over-sexualized costumes that give genuine female cosplay enthusiasts a bad name.  Now, I'm not saying that nerd girls are these desperate girls who can only go after nerd guys because they are hideous pariahs that would only want the guys that other girls reject; nor am I saying that nerd girls have to have a relationship to add value to their lives--I am not trying to get the feminists out there pissed at me by any right. 

In fact, the whole thing kind of reminds me of an awesome Bill Maher quote that is about Halloween, but is still somewhat relevant to what I'm talking about here:

"Designers of women's Halloween costumes must admit that they're not even trying. They just choose a random profession, like nurse or referee, and put the word "Sexy" in front of it, thereby perpetuating the idea of Halloween as a day when normally shy women release their inner slut and parade around like vixens and... I just completely forgot what I was complaining about." 

Yeah, what do the guys have to complain about here?  Yes, there are some guys who get upset about the bait and switch that can occur in these situations ("She was dressed like Catwoman, and she said she likes Batman, but she didn't know who Eartha Kitt or Lee Meriwether were!  And I asked her out to lunch and she said she wasn't hungry but then afterwards I saw her with some guy cosplaying as Thor!  He's not even in the same comic universe!  Ugh!"), but there are a lot of guys who just walk around not complaining because they are getting a free show.  And they are judgmental as fuck.  Which is a good segue into the next half of my rant:  Why are we so critical of cosplayers in the first place?


Part Two: Why We Gotta Be Hatin' on Certain Aspects of Cosplay?

So we have talked about why people cosplay, but now let's talk about why people are being such asshats about it.  Here are ten things that I have have heard around the internet that people have been complaining about.  I agree with some of them, but others just show that people online need to grow up.  And yes, I know, "the interwebz is serious buziness."  Breakin' it down again:

1.) "You over-sexualized your costume."

Okay, instead of going into a whole bunch of malarkey on this point, I've created a visual aid that pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:

Maybe too simple, but you get what I'm sayin' here!

2.) "Guys that leer at me in my sexy costume are pigs who just want to use me for fap material."

This one pisses me off because I hear things like this all the time. You can go online and find several blogs about how terrible men are for ogling the girls at the cons (because women never stare at the guys who wear nothing but a loincloth), but most of them don't have a hell of a lot to say.  I did some research for this post and found this chick who almost had me with her talk of just wanting to portray her favorite empowered characters without being treated like a piece of meat and how strong these women were and blah, blah, blah; but then this chick turns around and says: "A man stopped me--he was fat, nervous, sweating profusely. He asked me if he could have a photo with him, and naturally I agreed. I am happy to let men pose with their childhood crush or personal fictional character hero." And she goes on to talk about how he took pictures of her ass in spandex and then says:

"I kept the costume on, refusing to let that one man ruin my day, but the feeling of empowerment was gone. I felt deflated and drained... I felt objectified...Would I be okay with guys taking photos of my butt and then posting the photos online for other creepers to fap to if it had happened to me while I was waiting for the bus? At my day job? Waiting in line for a movie? Several people have tried to make this argument to me: If you didn't want people photographing your butt, you shouldn't wear the costumes that you wear. FUCK. THAT. That's like telling women not to wear short skirts if she doesn't want to be raped."

Really?  You're comparing people taking pictures of you in a costume that you knew was going to warrant mass amounts of attention (and that you've apparently been letting everyone pose with you in already) to rape?  Seriously?  And she mentions more than once in the article that the man that she got so upset about was overweight.  So if a hot guy did all of that then that would be okay?  Come on now.  If you're gonna dress like that, you're going to have to expect some attention of some sort.  It's kind of like when I had a customer at work complain that one of my male staff members looked at her chest when she had a huge chest and was wearing a v-neck.  If I wear a v-neck, people are gonna stare at my chi-chis too.  It's just how it is. I could go outside wearing a burlap sack and there might be a dude out there that had a real fetish for burlap sacks.  You are not ever going to be able to stop someone from thinking about you; you can only go out into the world the way that you'd like to see yourself portrayed and be happy with it.

3.) "I can't look like that, so you shouldn't be walking around like that either."

Okay, so I've never actually heard anyone say that, but you know that there is someone out there thinking it on some level and they are jealous.  I know that I think that sometimes when I'm feeling particularly bitchy.

If I could rock this, I totally would. In fact maybe that will be my next cosplay :P

4.) "You are only contributing to the objectification of women by doing that."


I think I kind of already drove that into the ground with number two, but I guess it all depends how you are going to portray the character that you're cosplaying as.  If you're going to be a kick-ass super hero who fights crime in her skivvies, just be damn confident in what you're doing and I have no problem with that.  But if you're going to be striking poses that make you look skanky or submissive, or you're going to go around with a red and blue bra and thong and call yourself "sexy Spiderman" go back inside and put your clothes back on. Cool.

Love it!

5.) "Fat people shouldn't cosplay, but if they do they should only cosplay as fat characters."

This is one that hits very close to home for me. I, myself, am a plus-sized princess and I could give a fuck if you think that I'm too fat to be cosplaying a particular character.  At least that is what I'd like to say.  I totally give a fuck.  Everyone does to some extent and if they say they don't they are a stronger person than me.  That being said, I don't think that plus-size people should have to limit themselves to only cosplaying bigger characters; however, as a rule of thumb, for cosplay and life in general, you should cover your chunk!  If you feel confident enough to have it hanging out, good for you!  But I don't need to see it and either does anyone else.  This picture is all over the place as a bad example of cosplay:

And while I think it's kinda fucked up to show this bigger girl next to this hella toothpick thin girl, I do agree that there might be stuff showing that should probably not be showing.  Both girls obviously put a lot into their costumes, but it's obvious that one is more aesthetically pleasing than the other.  Sorry big sista. But on the other hand... Well, here, I made this to illustrate my frustrations:

I want to cuddle that guy so badly!

And just so no one can call me a hypocrite, here are some of my fun cosplay adventures over the last few years!

6.) "Cosplay should always look exactly like the character, so if you're a certain race you should only cosplay characters of that race."

That is absolute bullshit.  But people are still having to deal with that bullshit.  This article is a damn good example of that and there was also a video that another nerd website released a few days ago about cosplay needing to be more colorblind than it is right now.  Totally agree. Here is a site that had some awesome cosplaying that shows just how much people underestimate the black cosplay community.

This was one of my faves.  I LOVE this show and they nailed the costume! :)

7.) "If you're a girl you can cosplay as a guy, but a guy can't cosplay as a girl unless it's funny."

Yeah, I'm pretty sure these hotties say otherwise!

I get irritated to no end when I see people talking shit about fem guys dressing up as lovely ladies!  A lot of them look just as good, if not better than some of the females trying to portray the character!


8.) "If you're a girl who's gonna cosplay as a guy character, the character needs to be made more feminine."

This one is just as irritating as number seven.  If you wanna crossplay, then crossplay!  You don't have to make your cosplay look all fem to play a male character.  If I see another female Joker I'm gonna punch a baby.

This made my heart happy though! :)

9.) "Your costume looks like crap.  Learn to make better stuff or spend the money."

Dude.  You can have fun doing all kinds of cosplay.  If you can afford the expensive stuff, good for you.  If you can't afford it, then try your best and have fun.

So very cool...

10.) "Cosplay is a waste of time.  You could be out playing football or something productive like that."

Ha

Alright, well that is my rant on cosplay and cosplay girls and fake nerd girls and all that other crap.  This ended up being a hell of a lot longer than I had intended on it being.  Sorry if I rambled on some things and then glossed over others and then contradicted myself a whole bunch of times.  If I ran a site that only focused on cosplay I'm sure each topic could be its own post, but I have way too many other interests to worry about.  And if nothing else, you got to see some cool pictures from all around the interwebz that I put together in one post just for you guys.  Yay!