Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Shared Narratives: Intermediality in Fandom
- 2 Fan Membership: Traditional and Digital Fieldwork
- 3 Naturalizing Sherlock: Dutch Fans Interpret the Famous Detective
- 4 Queer Teen Drama: Rewriting and Narrative Closure in Glee Fan Fiction
- 5 Transmedia Play: Approaching the Possible Worlds of Firefly
- 6 Embodied Characters: The Affective Process of Cosplay
- 7 Conclusion: Prospects for Fan Studies
- Bibliography of Fan Works
- Index
6 - Embodied Characters: The Affective Process of Cosplay
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Shared Narratives: Intermediality in Fandom
- 2 Fan Membership: Traditional and Digital Fieldwork
- 3 Naturalizing Sherlock: Dutch Fans Interpret the Famous Detective
- 4 Queer Teen Drama: Rewriting and Narrative Closure in Glee Fan Fiction
- 5 Transmedia Play: Approaching the Possible Worlds of Firefly
- 6 Embodied Characters: The Affective Process of Cosplay
- 7 Conclusion: Prospects for Fan Studies
- Bibliography of Fan Works
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Cosplay, short for “costume playing”, is a practice in which fans reenact existing fictional characters from popular culture. Through props, costumes, and even role-playing, fans transform themselves into well-known characters. The costumes are crafted by fans themselves and worn primarily at fan conventions. I outline the dress up of fictional characters as an affective process, inspired by philosophical theories and by Matt Hill's work on fandom as an affective space. Affect will be analyzed here as a form of meaning making and contextualizing, and related to the results of qualitative interviews with cosplayers. The affects that are generated through cosplay are multiple and relate to the fan's own body as much as the character, as well as the reception of the story.
Keywords: Affect, cosplay, fan costumes, identity, gender
Introduction
In fan studies, the personal, the domestic, and the material have often been overlooked in favor of a discourse on texts and realism. Practices such as dressmaking or model-building were seen as different from fandom because they were not text-driven (Abercrombie & Longhurst, 1998, p. 150). Fan cultures, however, also contain many material practices that use the text as a starting point for new forms of play and productivity. The textual bias in fan studies has led to the neglect of object-oriented fandom visible in, for example, dressmaking, model-building, and collecting (Cherry, 2016; Hills, 2014; Rehak, 2012). In terms of narrativity, I would suggest that these two things – the material and the textual – are not in opposition, but are, instead, both ways to understand and interpret media texts. Stuff – bodies, fabrics, plastic – allows us to tell stories. Especially in fandom, material practices support narrative inquiry and creation but also have their own aesthetic qualities as media texts.
In this chapter, I focus specifically on “cosplay” – dressing up as fictional characters in homemade outfits. Cosplay is a heavily embodied and affective practice; these are perhaps the reasons why fan scholars have thus far ignored cosplay, despite its visibility at conventions worldwide. The aim of this chapter is twofold: first, to unearth this unexplored territory through cultural analysis and, second, to explore it socially through qualitative methods.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Productive FandomIntermediality and Affective Reception in Fan Cultures, pp. 199 - 230Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018