User:Ander171/sandbox

The concept of cosplay has become extremely popular within the United States in recent years of multiple conventions.

Cosplay is a form of expression to pay homage to a specific genre, or character in which the cosplayer emulates in honing their craft in mimicking their movements and mannerisms. Cosplayers do this simply out of their passion for their fandom and how this alternate reality has changed their persepective. For example, in Western society the entertainment industry is a media juggernaut and impacts lives on a massive scale. One of the shows that have swept most of the nation is Game of Thrones in which most Americans have heard of the show and follow it. The show has built a fan base here in the United States and throughout many fan or gaming conventions there is a chance that you will see a cosplayer dressed as a character from the show. Cosplay has a definite impact on society as a form of expression for people that wish to express their support in a performative manner.

Cosplay and Gender

Gender within cosplay is a topic that gets a lot of attention for females in which they seem to dominate. Some say that it is because of their ability to portray characters accurately in a sense that most characters, especially from Eastern influenced genres, have more feminine physical traits that women are able to duplicate better than males. For example, when cosplaying as an anime character it depends on the artist, but the characters are drawn to be more feminine in facial structure to having masculine physical features. This isn't to say that the characters are not masculine, but their physical attributes are drawn by what the artist feels to be appropriate.

Cosplay and Crossplaying Crossplay might be atypical to a person that is new to any genre of fandom and may encounter this with mixed reactions. Crossplay is the action of dressing as a character who has been labeled as male or female, but the cosplayer is of the opposite gender. Crossplay is quite popular in the anime subculture with various characters that have more feminine features. For example, take the new game Final Fantaxy XV and its main character Noctis (Pictured right). It is possible to make an argument that even though he has been identified as a male character and sees himself as a male character, there is a higher possibility that females mostly portray him. There are many other instances that this can go the other way in which men dress as women characters simply because they have the physical traits to do so and vice versa.