Cosplaying while Black

"Cosplay" (an abbreviation of the 'costume play'), which, in a nutshell, involves dressing up as a fictional character of interest from an animated cartoon, manga, comic book and/or anime series. Developing costumes, props, accessories and even perfecting the way in which the character speaks/the characters' unique quirks and mannerisms are all ways cosplayers strive to resemble the character they are dressing up as.

I love cosplay/anime/cartoon culture and enjoy making new friends of similar interest online, however, up until summer 2019, I had never attempted cosplay myself, let alone venture out and attend the London Comic Convention by myself - I was so excited, yet terrified and in typical procrastinator fashion, left my costume design to the last minute (thank God for Amazon Prime hahaha).

I had less than 72 hours before Comic Con to decide which character to go as and to find an outfit complete with accessories - not to mention perfecting the 'like totally cute American, 'Valley Girl'esque accent Alex has. Not gonna lie - preparing for Comic Con was intense but totally worth it in the end! It was fun guessing the character being cosplayed was and really cool seeing other fans pour so much effort into their costume design... however, I couldn't help feeling a little sad and out of place as there were only a few Black cosplayers present at the event.

I started to feel out of place and disconnected from a community I really loved as it seemed there were so few Cosplayers of Colour and their attempts at cosplay were often met with unfair criticism for not being an exact 'likeness' of the character - for example, my online friend of many years decided to cosplay recently as Starfire from Teen Titans and she received several comments from angry trolls about how much her representation of Starfire in a curly ginger wig deviates extensively from how she is depicted in the DC comic episodes she features in.

This incident reminds me of how Disney was met with fierce criticism having cast Halle Bailey; a talented, young Black, Grammy nominated R&B artist/actress as Ariel in their upcoming live action feature remake of the Little Mermaid. Some members of the cosplay community felt that a Black woman with dreads was a far cry from the familiar Disney Princess they had grown up with. Others brought racist stereotypes into the mix, "We all know Black people can't swim... yet suddenly it's 2020 and the Little Mermaid has dreads".

In my opinion, comments like these undermine Black cosplayers confidence and takes away from the fun and spirit of cosplaying. I always thought cosplay was all about essentially being a kid again; having fun and pretending to be one of your favourite fictional characters without judgement and ridicule of your depiction being 'subpar' or 'inaccurate'.

I understand that not every non-Black cosplayers are against Black cosplayer creativity in expressing themselves through cosplay, and that many cosplay creators of other races avidly support Black cosplayers and stand in solidarity with Black cosplayers, especially with regards to the fight against racism and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. I would like to see more our cosplay community focusing more on celebrating how fun dressing up and having fun pretending to be these characters and focusing less on how much the cosplay differs from the original depiction of the character. And to my fellow cosplayers out there - we see you and are so in love with all the effort and creativity you put into bringing these characters to life. We respect your artistic right to portray a character even though you may be of a different gender from that character. We respect your creative licence to being a Black girl with beautiful, coarse, kinky hair playing a stereotypically Caucasian role and bringing new life to the character.

The real 'fight' for us as cosplayers is to help 'locals' understand why we love dressing up as these weird and wonderful characters so much!

I love you my amazing cosplaying community - let's go kick some costume-making BUTT!

~ Emma

P.S. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences as a cosplayer, especially if you are a person of colour who loves cosplaying! Any tips/donations would be greatly appreciated and will be used to support Black creators and the Cosplaying While Black Facebook family.