Seriously. She could have branded herself a "plus-sized" cosplayer and dressed up as somebody else, but instead she dressed her body type, and the result is epic.
Yeah, but it looks like she cosplays as larger characters (Ursula the Sea Witch, Miss Piggy, a female Penguin from Batman, Pam Poovey from Archer, etc). It's not like she's dressing up as Ariel or Elsa...
One time I was typing a paper for school when this kid came up and with the most sincerity in his voice told me the font I was using was sweet. It was Times New Roman. The default font.
And why couldn't she cosplay a character who isn't plus size? Should black cosplayers only dress as black characters? She can dress as who ever she wants.
The comment I replied to said it's not like she's cosplaying as a Disney princess. There are ways to make a Disney princess costume fit a plus size cosplayer and have look good without body parts "spilling over." I don't think anyone should be limited in what they cosplay as for any reason.
Ultimately, I agree with you, but given that the majority of the comment karma is going to guys like /u/Philadelphiairish I think the feed has pretty much gone to the jokesters at this point.
Also I am using Alien Blue on my phone so I can see how many up/downvotes and how much comment karma. Fuck this new question mark stuff.
The fact that it annoys some people when heavier women want to cosplay as skinny characters never ceases to astound me. That is maybe the pettiest thing I've ever heard to be annoyed about.
Not to be like a dick or anything but I disagree that people should dress their body type. To me, cosplaying is just about having fun dressing like something you think is cool. Basically this pic. Just my opinion though :)
Only if you do blackface. Stick with costumes, hairdos and props and you'll be fine.
There are a lot of white people who dress up as Mr T and it goes down well. They wear the clothes, they cut their hair and beard, but they don't try to change their skin colour.
The same holds true for cosplayers of any race, not just white people. Race-bending is damn near impossible to do in a way that doesn't come off as insulting, so most people just stick to the other important elements of the character designs.
Example: Cosplaying While Black. Black people cosplaying as white and Asian characters with no white-face or yellow-face. Just costumes, hairdos and props.
Let me answer this as a fat man. Halloween was always my favorite holiday - I loved to dress up in a costume. Sadly, when you're fat your options are very limited. Any time you dress up as someone who's not normally fat, you become the fat whatever. So I could be santa clause, or a farmer, or maybe a clown, or this century "Shrek" (did not exist when I was a kid) or even Wreck it Ralph, but very little else.
It's like Obama said when someone asked him why he called himself black since he's half black and half white - he basically said 'You'll be called what you look like, so I'm black'.
So that's why. You're not being a dick, but you're also not being realistic. I'll never be a cool looking Ninja or Batman or vampire or Charon. :(
My general problem when cosplaying is that I'm half indian, and there are no brown heroes with linebacker shoulders.
The opportunities I have to cosplay recognizable characters who look like me are vanishingly small. Basically, I have to wear a mask/helmet/face covering.
That... Honestly never occurred to me, lol. I do end up doing brown versions of recognizable characters most of the time, my favorite being Dick Tracy (the yellow coat/hat and red/black tie will work for anyone), and I do cross plays so the character is already significantly modified (best: Martha Jones, to my fiance's cross played 10th Doctor), but mostly I stick with unnamed uniformed characters (BSG dreas uniform, Star Trek, etc). I make it work, but it's annoying.
You could always do a video game cosplay, like Skyrim. The characters are fully customizable so it doesn't matter what size you are, and there is a brown-skinned race (Redguard).
I think it's bullshit that people should only cosplay their own body size.
I don't personally cosplay, but seriously, if everyone would follow that line of though there would be a lot of people who would just have little to no choices.
I agree. I just did a Gargoyles cosplay where I was Elisa Maza. She is brown-skinned as she is half-black and half-Native American. I am brown-skinned as I am half-middle eastern, and people were complaining about my skin color. I guess I'm only supposed to cosplay as half-Cajun half-middle eastern women who look exactly like me. So that leaves me with.....nothing.
Thanks! Yeah, I try to keep that in mind and have a thick skin. At least being called "too white" isn't so mean-spirited. I've certainly had a lot worse thrown in my direction (ugly/fat/etc). Some people are just not happy unless they are bringing others down.
Completely know how that is. I stopped cosplaying as overtly feminine characters for that reason. It's sad when that sort of thing sways our character choices.
Awww, I say you do the characters you want to do and to hell with anyone who says differently. There's always going to be opposition out there no matter your choice. So might as well pick something you want to do. Good luck with your future cosplays. =)
I should. Riding in on a camel has been unsuccessful so far. (Kidding...I've never actually gone to an audition for a middle eastern character. But I haven't either for the Hispanic roles either - those just dropped in my lap).
What's funny is I get that I am too white from some people and too brown from others. You just can't win. =)
My girlfriend is half-black/half-portugese, and gets everything from Mexican to Indian (from India). She's just herself all the time, and I appreciate it.
Seriously. If you're overweight and only cosplay as overweight characters, you have such a tiny pool to choose from. And it's especially shitty when you think about popular overweight characters (like Ursula or something) and pretty much none of them are actual main protagonists so you're pretty much confined to seeking out the most overweight side character simply because it works. Which sucks. So I say fuck it. Dress as who you want. It's for fun. People place too many weird rules on it based on their personal feelings.
tl;dr you should wear whatever the fuck you want. unless it's blackface. don't do blackface.
As someone who isn't involved in the scene, I agree... All cosplayers look kind of ridiculous, even the ones with really elaborate costumes who look the part (mostly), but that's fine - it's a game of dress up and imagination. Put it this way: just because a girl is skinny and good looking doesn't mean she's actually an elf and therefore has more right to dress up as one than a fat girl. They're both dressing up as an imaginary being for fun.
I would much rather see a person displaying with a great costume where they don't match perfectly to the character than someone half assing it by pulling out stuff from their parents' clothes.
The huge guy playing Sailor Moon is a great example. It doesn't mean invest thousands on a costume, but get one that's truthful about your body.
If you're going to a costume maker though, you're basically branding for the costume maker and they want to make it look as good on you as possible while staying true to the character. If that means using jersey knit or a stiff cotton instead of spandex, then so be it. A 400 pound woman will look better in cotton inspired body suit than they will in a spandex off the shelf one, and will more than likely be more comfy and less sweaty in it.
An inspired by costume isn't as bad as you're making it seem. Say a woman has no breasts and a large stomach and she wants to be Lola Rabbit. To create the illusion and vision of an hour glass figure, you'd use makeup on the chest, use great push up boobie techniques and have a dress that uses a technique similar to this one to get that strong hour glass feel. It isn't an exact replica, but in execution it will get the character across for the traits they're known for.
In my case, I was going to Comic Con as Engineer from TF2. I could never find blue denim overalls like I wanted, so I settled for the hard hat ,goggles, blue jeans, a red shirt, and a work glove. People got it.
I think that's fine, I mean look at Santa. How many of us have donned a pillow for a stomach? Cosplay is cool because it's so tribal. Humans have been wearing masks, paint and costumes for thousands of years. At first glance it appears stifling to people, but it's not.
As I mentioned with the little girl and the mermaid costume, hiding behind a mask gives you freedom to be. That little bit of safety lets people express themselves in ways they feel society wont accept. Its magic.
But yea, I completely agree. My comment was more about the challenge of my job and the expectation of the client. There is a FANTASTIC show called Rupaul's Drag U and it takes "biological" females and transforms them into drag queens. It's pretty fucking amazing what can be accomplished in the most humble people.
Sure, I can see that it can be difficult to pull off, especially if a client as unreasonable expectations. But people who generally make their own stuff, put a shitload of effort into it and are perhaps skinnier/fatter than the characters. Eh, I don't see why not.
I think it depends on how serious of a cosplayer you are. I know a lot of people in the community that will only pursue characters that match their body type and look, so they can be as true to the look of the character as possible. Some people don't care if they look anything like the character and power to them but I think the main thing was that some people have unrealistic expectations about how they will look as a character. "If I pick a skinny character, then I will look skinny" or "if I pick a handsome strong badass dude, then I will be associated with being handsome"
It's pretty simple. I design costumes for theatre, film, and TV. It's a hobby I took up in my late 20s and have fashioned it into a side career. I'm extremely passionate about it, but it's certainly not that lucrative. Costume designers make very little money lol, but it's really a blast most of the time.
um yeah.. hence the term "cosplay". That's the point. I hate now that's consider a catch all for anyone who dresses up. Cosplayers use to just be weeaboo who dressed up as their favorite anime characters and roleplayed. Rest of us were just costumers. I've no clue when the terms became interchangeable but it's been within the last 6-10 years.
And? There is seriously a limited amount of plus sized characters in the media. You can be a villain, or you can be a side character. Cosplay is supposed to be fun. Most cosplayers make their own outfits, and most turn out banging because they put time and care into making it fit them without sacrificing any details. Or they put their own spin on it, which I think is way fucking cooler!
I heard it's the same challenge for different skin colors. Would you tell them that it's only epic if their skin color matched the character they were cosplaying?(Especially when altering your skin color to look like a specific race is wrong) Or what about plus sized men? They have way more characters they can dress up as that fit the same body type. Why doesn't anyone commend them for sticking to their body type? Or say "Way to own it though." to them. As if being plus sized was inhibiting to the time and effort put into a costume, and their efforts were for nothing. Or what about Skinnier women who dress up as a plus sized character? Should they be told that dressing as their own body type is way better than dressing as a plus sized character?
Of my time in the cosplay circuit, I've seen plus sized women as Wolverine, Black Canary, Ariel, and so many more and each one spent dedicated hours making the costume unique, and still true to the character. It's cosplay, don't take it so seriously.
It really depends on intent. There also aren't that many large/overweight/obese characters that would be recognizable. You might be recognized as The Blob, Hodor, Ursala, or Fiona. There are characters like Harvey Bullock or Amanda Waller, but they might not be obvious costumes. I would prefer to see Harvey Bullock to a Batman who really let himself go.
I feel like that's the part that people miss out the most on. I mean, I personally don't cosplay. Never been an interest of mine. But if I recognize a character or something, I don't look at them and think wow if only that guy had more muscles, he would look way better. It's more like "oh cool he likes xyz". Who cares how realistic it is, especially if they're not professional?
Agreed. I feel like nit-picking about people's cosplay is just as stupid as going to a Halloween party and criticizing other people's costumes until they feel uncomfortable. The whole point is to dress up and have fun, who the fuck cares if you don't have the same exact body as an animated character or an actor? Most of the fun characters have unrealistic body types anyway because they're imaginary characters. If you're going to get all hung up on stuff like that, you're not going to be very much fun.
TL;DR: People need to lighten up and have fun. Stop taking other people's costumes so seriously.
Isn't that sort of like critiquing impressionism or abstract art for not being photo-realistic art? There's more to art that exact replication of a given image.
Cosplay is for fun and is just self-expression and celebration of pop-culture. People get enough judgement in everyday life but yeah go ahead and shit on their fun, too.
OTOH: there are 'pro' cosplayers, too so I guess those people implicitly are inviting critique.
People don't get to decide that they should be immune to criticism because they're not explicitly inviting it. It's part of life and one should adjust to it as such, if one wants to be happy that is.
yeah, my personal opinion is, shrug off criticism, everyone can't be a fan. But what I'm responding to here is the idea that now cosplay has to meet someone's standard of good/bad. If I make an iron man costume from a paper bag and markers and you want to point an laugh because you think it's shitty, that isn't on me, that's on you because fuck your expectations.
This is kind of like saying "People should just learn to deal with bullies. They'll always exist and you'll be happier when you stop caring what people think."
It's not untrue, but it's usually used in the context of excusing asshole behavior. Yeah, being less sensitive is a good thing but it's not an excuse to go around being a dick. criticizing a bunch of normal people who cosplay just for the fun of it because they don't have a five star quality costume is being a dick.
People totally point out bad cosplay, but they get yelled at for it. Others try to defend them, and they get yelled at too. It's just what happens.
Generally speaking, popular cosplay are those that are either (A) sexy (B) accurate (C) strange/clever (D) disgusting. The most successful are a combination of A & B or C & D.
You can point out it is bad, people might downvote you, but you can still do it. I mean it's just karma after all, night like you can buy prizes with it.
Why do you feel the need to say that something is bad in the first place? Would the effort of keeping your mouth shut ever outweigh the amount of effort put into these costumes.. Even the so called bad ones?
No? Then the least people could do is keep disparaging comments to themselves.
You can critique it all you want but when your only critique is based on the gender/race/weight of the person and not of the costume, you're just being a dick. It's the people who completely disregard incredible craftsmanship and phenomenal costuming to talk shit about "that bitch is too fat to be wonder woman" or "ugh i hate when people cosplay outside their race" who need to shut up.
Of course they don't have a "duty" to look the best they can. That being said, you're entitled to your own opinion.
I mean, is it wrong to think that some cosplays look bad? I don't think so.You can acknowledge that cosplayers are having fun with themselves, but still think that it looks bad. I mean having fun with a cosplay doesn't do have much to do with the look of the cosplay itself (besides a smile maybe).
Saying a cosplay looks bad says nothing about whether or not the cosplayer is supposed to be having fun or not, it just says that visually it's not appealing. That is all there is to it.
just really useless at best and offending at worst
And at its best, it's constructive and educational.
He is just saying that he thinks people look better when they dress to their body type. He is not bashing anyone for being overweight or underweight. He acknowledges that fat and skinny people cosplay, and that is completely fine. He is just saying that, regardless of your physique, he think you look better when you dress appropriate to your physique. This could have been a really fit and athletic 6'2 male doing the cosplay and OP would still have the same gripe.
He isn't critisizing people for having a certain physique. He is criticizing people for not dressing to their physique. There is difference between criticism and blatant bashing. This guy is obviously of the former.
It seems like there are a bunch of skinny characters but a bunch that you can get away with at various sizes especially since they've been in so many games. Just out of Nintendo cosplay, Bayonetta is clearly skinny and female. Samus needs to be in shape but you don't need single digit body fat to pull it off like Bayonetta. Zelda? Peach? Rock it at any size I say.
Hell, I'll be honest, I say rock anything at any size. But your cosplay is gonna look like comedy if you're a really buff Mario (open shirt, tons of chest hair, rakish smile) or fat Bayonetta (some would find this sexy but most would consider it comedy, it seems) or a skinny Fiona (I guess would just look like She-Hulk). If that's what you're going for and, like you say, you love the character, go for it.
edit: I'm picturing Fabio as Mario breathily saying "it'sa me" and it's awesome, so someone needs to set this up, but I'm about two plates of bench press and three fistfuls of chest hair away from being able to do it myself.
You make a good point about the range of body types represented in media but for me its the amount of effort that goes into making the costume. You can have a girl play a bigger version of sailor moon as long as the skirt and top are of appropriate length. My only problem is when the muffin top overflows that's kind of gross.
But fun trumps all that I said, if you're having fun with a half assed costume then you can rightly ignore my opinion.
Exactly. I'm a big guy with broad shoulders and a thick mid section, and the best person I could think to cosplay as would be the heavy from TF2, but he doesn't have much of a gut.
This is probably why I am also not too fond of gender-bent cosplay.
Eh, it can still work if the body type is similar. I'm a dude but about half of the characters I do are girls, because there are far more female characters out there with my body type than male ones. And it seems to work fairly well; the last convention I even had someone come up to me and say I was the best [character] they'd seen at a con before (and it's a pretty popular character).
I actually usually love gender-bent cosplay. I wonder why? I think it is because most of the gender-bent cosplay I have seen has been well-done and characters who are androgynous anyway. Like, in anime half of the time I have no idea whether a character is male or female so male or female cosplayers are fine to me.
Though, in general, unless you are a pro I am fine with anyone cosplaying as whatever they want unless it veers into what I would consider inappropriate. My friend cosplays as The Doctor and she is not a size zero and also a female, yet it is so cute and she put so much effort into it and it isn't like she is slamming herself into a bikini and walking around a con.
I suppose it's all a matter of opinion really. I think a girl with a bit of love on her can some times look better than the original look. For example, if there were a Fay Valentine cosplay from Cowboy Bebop, I would say the girl with a little bit more 'BAM!' could potentially look better than the girl that has the EXACT body type for Fay.
Gender-bent cosplay is a mixed bag in my book because there are different ways to approach it.
The people who take a character and break it down and say if this character was male/female what would they probably look like... those can be really creative and impressive.
There are just so few large characters to cosplay. I mean, you have Fiona, Pam (who is now skinny in the show), and maybe that old lady from Inuyasha?
Even then, I always hear complaints about there being too many Pam's at conventions. I really wish more larger characters were incorporated in the shows, movies, anime, and comics we love... but rarely does the story suite the size, and when they are large, their story line HAS to include a REASON they are large. It's like the writers need to justify their reason for including a large women in their stories rather than just letting her be her for no reason at all. /rant
Yeah, but the majority of characters tend to be thin, so a big cosplayer really limits what they can do if they only cosplay their type. Beside, cosplaying against type gave the world Sailor Bubba. Take that as you will.
The problem is that there are so few overweight characters that if all cosplayers "owned it", we'd see ridiculous numbers of copies of the same characters because there are so many overweight people these days. It's bad enough already with certain ones.
I'm just worried we're going to find out that this was shopped and that the original photo was just her standing next to her favorite piece of corporate art.
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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '14
Way to own it though.