My Reaction to Heroes of Cosplay - or why I think the show was horribly misnamed

I finally got to watch Syfy's much-anticipated and highly controversial show Heroes of Cosplay last night. I'll admit, watching the show was actually kind of fun, in that the show did feature names I recognized and was about cosplay and conventions - a huge part of my life.

For a while I'd been wishing for a reality show that profiled people with geeky hobbies, and followed them as they prepared for various conventions or tournaments, because we are pretty damn interesting if I do say so myself, and many of us do put a good bit of work and dedication into our hobbies, so it would be cool to have that recognized. But while most of us work hard, or as hard as we're able, very few of us are as obsessed as the people on Heroes of Cosplay.

The show ought to be called "The Dark Side of Cosplay." Or "Obsessed with Cosplay."

Not that I'm shocked a reality show would highlight the worst of the worst in any scene. I'm sure not all pageant moms are as nuts as the ones on Toddlers and Tiaras, nor are all coaches of competitive dance teams as craycray as Abby Lee Miller - although I have heard both worlds are fairly toxic. Or maybe we all just think they're toxic because of TV. Either way, the lifestyles of the people on Heroes of Cosplay seem toxic as all getout, and I don't want this show to normalize that.

Of course I have some criticisms from a social justice/feminist standpoint. I didn't like the way Becky was so focused on her body type. I know it's not uncommon, I myself have wanted to be in better shape for this cosplay or that, but again, it was shown from a Heroes of Cosplay angle, not a "this is the dark side of cosplay, this is what women sadly have to deal with" angle; the latter is a realistic criticism, the former goes in the dangerous direction of normalizing the obsession. Of course, all of the people on the show were slender, attractive, white people. And one guy.

It is interesting that cosplay seems so female dominated, because so much of it is considered feminine. Sewing is a traditionally female task and hobby, and dressing up (especially for attention or for a competition) is primarily associated with women. Typically, when you think of men making cosplays, you think of men making cosplays. They construct suits of armor, craft mascot suits, and forge weapons - y'know, man stuff. That may have something to do with the fact that many male characters involve that kind of craftsmanship.

But while men's manly forging abilities may be up for criticism, female cosplayers and feminine costumes are subject to a high level of scrutiny. God forbid you not have the body type to portray the character you wish to dress as (despite the fact that these characters are usually drawn with unrealistic proportions), then people will comment on your waist being too big or your boobs being too small. Wear a revealing cosplay and you're asking for sexual harassment, but choose to be more conservative and you're a prude - not to mention the majority of female characters wear revealing costumes, and any changes to make them more conservative may be criticized. Women can cosplay as male characters and it'll be seen as empowering, but if a man dresses as a women, it's rarely well received - think "Aaaah, my eyes!" or "It's a trap!" or "Is that a guy??"

Men will rarely be accused of "just wearing that for attention," whereas female cosplayers are constantly assumed to be doing just that: wearing sexy costumes and showing off for the sexual attention of their male peers. And yeah, some of us do that - the attention one gets while in cosplay can be glorious (when it's not sketch b'getch) - but it's certainly not the sole reason why most of us cosplay.

How about a show where people trying to overcome sexism, racism, and transphobia to do what they love in a space that isn't as "equal" as we've been led to believe? I'd watch that.

A Girl Worth Saving: What Anita Sarkeesian Failed to Mention

So first of all, I like Anita Sarkeesian. I don't love her, but I like her. I didn't like her commentary on Sucker Punch, but I did enjoy her original Tropes vs. Women series because it touched on tropes people either didn't know about or hadn't thought of; she briefly summarized the trope and gave what I thought were compelling arguments why they were problematic. I think her video game project is worthwhile, but three videos on a row on the same trope? It's been months since the first video came out and all we've heard of are damsels in distress; I want to hear her talk about other tropes - any other trope will do. Just please, god please, stop talking about the damsels in distress.

But I am going to add to the conversation on them. Because for all of her talk on sexism, her three friggin' videos have been completely devoid of intersectionality. None. At all. Anita, you're better than this, I know you talked about race . . . once. You talked about it once. Which when you consider all the videos you've made one might expect more, but okay, you did it once, so I know you know race is an important component to the representation issue . . . right?

It is, and it's worth mentioning that here's very little diversity in the damsel role.

With a few exceptions (I assume), damsels are all created to be girls the player will deem worth saving. The damsel is pretty, she's young, she's thin, she's pure - conservatively dressed, wearing white, and/or stated to be pure of heart (like in Kingdom Hearts). Most notably, she's always white. Have there been any damsels of color? Er, no really I don't know maybe there has been one or two somewhere in gaming history. But all the damsels I've seen have been white. Let's face it, we may have a black president, but the gaming industry knows that their audience - or at least their mythical audience made up of only white teenage boys - and they know that some guys won't want to save a black princess, and they certainly wouldn't want to lose that audience.

EDIT: one of the Princesses of Heart in Kingdom Hearts was Jasmine, who's not white. One exception!

Remember, all the Disney princesses that had to be rescued in some way were white. The one black princess they had was independent, which was great, I don't mean we should be reducing black girls to damsels with no power or agency. Perhaps we've actually spared them the damsel role, which is certainly one way to look at it. But let's face it, we're not relegating white girls to damsel roles because we hate them or think they're worthless. Our world values girls who are worth fighting for, and there may be some cruelty in telling girls that only some of them are worthy of being rescued.

Girl Univited from Supehero Party, Because Comics Are For Boys

A woman recently wrote to the New York Times Social Q column about her daughter being uninvited from a boy's birthday party. According to her letter, which you can find here, the girl was initially invited, but the parents decided to uninvite the girls because they determined the party's superhero theme was too masculine, and planned a separate party for the girls.

Now I see there are a couple issues, the first is the parents being overly concerned with making sure everyone has a good time. My mom did this too, but in the much more reasonable form of making sure there was a good variety of games and party favors so there was something for everyone, and yes sometimes this meant the girls would get one thing and the boys would get another. Parents do this all the time, but to have two different parties because you assume girls wouldn't like the original party is dumb, and sends a message to the kids that boys and girls are so different they need separate parties to have fun. Nope.

Look, themed parties are fun, but at the end of the day the theme is little more than decoration, a way for the birthday kid to express his or herself, not please the guests. Whatever the theme is, at the end of the day the kids really only care about playing together and eating cake.

In this case we have parents probably making the insulting assumption that girls don't like comics and superheroes. Well, some might not, but how do you know if you never even encourage them to check 'em out? If you purposefully keep girls away from things like comics and video games, you tell them "these aren't for you, you won't like them, and you're not supposed to like them."

And no, this is not the same thing as girls-only princess parties. I honestly don't care who gets invited to those (although personally I'm not a fan of them in general), but saying that having a boys-only thing is okay because some girls have girls-only princess parties is a false equivalency. Comics have both male and female superheroes; it's not inherently a boys-only genre, so why do we keep acting like it is? And why are we passing that "comics are for boys" attitude down to our kids at such an early age?

What I will say is this: if I have kids, they will be exposed to video games and comics regardless of gender. If they like it, great, we'll dress 'em up and take 'em to comic conventions. If they don't, that's fine too, but I'm not going to assume my son would like comics and my daughter will only like princesses and ponies.

PS: it's rude as hell to uninvite someone from a party without a good reason why they're no longer welcome. If you don't want someone there, y'all better think of that before sending out the invites.

PPS: I know the parents can plan the party however the hell they want, what they did isn't illegal, just awful.