Pop-culture loves to get mad about sexism, but the conversation has yet to transcend the hollering Clicker offensives of hardliners looking for necks to chew on in every direction. Ragequit that, it’s going nowhere. There is no one better able to talk about objectification in the context of geekdom than a real-life human female, dressed up as skimpy fiction, standing in the middle of a baying crowd of smartphones. This trio of cosplay ladies made the woosh noises for me: Ardella, Black Cat, and The Vixen Gamer.
Left to right: Ardella, Black Cat, and The Vixen Gamer.
Hey girls. Do you think some cosplayers just do it for the validation?
Black Cat: Absolutely. When I was younger, I struggled with my body-image. I always felt like I was never very feminine, that I wasn’t a very feminine woman at that. I’m quite short, I’m very straight up and down, I don’t have heaving bosoms. I’m boyish. When I do my cosplays, I try and accentuate all of the features I do have. I try to make myself feel a bit more feminine than usual. It’s a way of putting myself out there to show people I’m sexy in a certain way. At the same time, it makes me feel safe because of the community I do it around. It’s like when a girl goes to a club. She wears a cute, short dress and high heels and people look at her. I don’t feel safe doing that sort of thing, so I step into a costume and I take on a character. I can hide behind that character if I need to.
Ardella: I’m not gonna lie: I love the attention. It’s a great upside. That’s why you have to take the bad attention with the good attention. You can’t pretend everyone’s gonna be loving and caring and adore what you do but not take it a little too far. I really enjoy it because it does make me feel powerful. It does make me feel like I’m in control of not only the way I look, but also of the way other people react to me. It’s strange because I find it easy to split me up. I know it sounds like I have some kind of disorder, but on Facebook my persona is very… I have a very sharp sense of humour. I can be quite nasty and brash. But Ardella is very nice. She would never say anything bad about anyone.
You don’t have to sacrifice your femininity to be powerful.
The Vixen Gamer: I’ve been stopped in the girl’s bathrooms, I’ve been stopped everywhere: “I just love what you do. I love the costume, I love how it’s put together.” Feedback like that is amazing. Lots of women love a strong, feminine, female character. You don’t have to sacrifice your femininity to be powerful. I think that’s happening in the gaming industry. We’re seeing a big spearhead of feminism in the gaming industry, and I think don’t sacrifice your femininity to fit in.
That's not a side of the discussion that gets a lot of airtime...
The Vixen Gamer: That’s a shame, too. That’s sexist in itself, right? I’ve copped a bit of flack from other females. They see what I do, they see I have a little bit of a sexy persona or whatever. I’ve been accused of using my looks to get ahead. I mean, sorry, if I wanted to do that, I’d go into porn. I am me, this is Clare, and this is essentially why I created this character of The Vixen Gamer. A part of that is me. She’s a hugely exaggerated part of my ego, it’s not me on a daily basis, but there are elements of me in all those characters I adore: Wonder Woman, Lara Croft, female versions of Assassin’s Creed or a Sith… I think it’s so sad we’re at a point now with feminism where other women are turning on one another.
Credit: Kris Ezergailis
Ardella: Sexism is really a point of view. It’s how you react to it, and how you portray yourself as to whether or not you allow people to objectify you. Sexuality is something to feel incredibly proud of, not to hide or cover up or keep from the world. If you feel like you’re sexy and that makes you feel good, go out, be proud of it – and don’t let anyone treat you like an object if that’s not the way you want to be treated. In comic books, that’s the great thing about female characters. They are sexy, but they’re also in control. They can accept that people go, “You’re hot,” but then they’ll kick ass.
Black Cat: It’s empowering. A lot of people look at sexier cosplay girls and they think, “You’re giving females a bad name ‘cos you’re being slutty.” In actual fact you look at yourself in the mirror and think, “Right, I’m a woman. That means I’ve got this, this, and that, I may as well use them.” People are like, “You can’t use your sexuality to your advantage.” Why not? If I’ve got it, I may as well do something with it. I have no shame in putting on makeup every morning and trying to make myself attractive. It annoys me when girls look at other girls and say, “You’re giving us a bad name ‘cos you’re a slut ‘cos you’re pretty, or you wear a skimpy costume.” It’s just like, “Well, no. I’ve got everything underneath the costume, I’m just putting something over the top of me.” It’s not me trying to be slutty, I’m embracing my sexuality and my femininity. It’s a shame they can’t do the same thing.
The Vixen Gamer: I see these crazy feminist gamer conversations or ones inspired by that, and wonder, “Is that subject matter really hurting somebody? Do we really need to discuss whether that woman’s boobs are real or not?” What’s happening in Palestine is 10 times more important.
End of the day, I do what I do because I love it. Makes me feel good.
Ardella: I’m definitely no feminist, and I do often clash with girls who consider themselves major feminists. I say to them, “You know what, it’s what makes me feel good. It’s not necessarily because anyone’s told me this is how I should feel.” Then you get into all of the media saying this is what you should enjoy, blah blah, nature over nurture – and that’s just a long path to go down. End of the day, I do what I do because I love it. Makes me feel good.
You sound like you really enjoy repping these characters...
Black Cat: Hell yeah. Men design these characters, and if I can put it on and look accurate, I think I’m doing something right. Right? I have no problem with portraying sexy characters. That being said, I also have no trouble portraying male characters. Recently I made a Robin costume. I had a lot of negative feedback from males saying, “Why’d you bind your chest down? Where are your boobs? Why didn’t you cosplay the female version of Robin?” Because I wanted to do this version too. It was a big deal, but at the same time a lot of people received it really well. Mixed messages. Kinda confusing.
The Vixen Gamer: I think it comes down to a lack of empathy. The word “feminism” is lost now. A lot of people don’t understand what it stands for or what it means. I look at someone like Jessica Nigri. She’s amazing and sexy and sassy, but she’s so powerful. She doesn’t apologise to anybody, she doesn’t cover up who she is. The fact she has a bust and she shows it, that doesn’t mean anything. She’s a woman. She looks amazing. There’s nothing to be ashamed about. Flaunting your femininity – there’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t have this conversation about shirtless guys in video games, so why the opposite end?
How much of your success is because guys on the internet have all your pics saved to a special folder?
Ardella: Yes, yes, the average male’s response to me is very much: “Boobs.” I get a lot of that in my day to day life, because there’s no padding in that costume, I’ll tell you that. That’s what I look like. It can make it difficult for me in the corporate world, you know, every day dressing up trying to have people take me seriously. I guess that’s why I like to cosplay Power Girl. I look like this. I think I look pretty good in the costume. I’m tired of trying to cover up and pretend you can’t be taken seriously if you look like this. That’s not on. You can’t judge a person by the way their body shape is, especially if they were born that way. It’s interesting. Those people who haven’t heard of the character, their reaction is just: “Boobs.” The people who know the character actually go, “You really embody the strength of the character as well.” I’ve never had any genuinely scary fans, though. Just people sending me cookies in the mail. It is nice, except that… no. Food doesn’t hold up so well in the mail.
It’s a broad generalisation to assume that my male fans are all basement-dwelling mouth-breathers.
Black Cat: It’s a broad generalisation to assume that my male fans are all basement-dwelling mouth-breathers, as they’ve come to be known as. My partner likes to point out that, “You’ve got 12,000 fans on your FB, how many do you think are men?” A good 80%. That’s the audience female cosplayers like me attract… because we’re female cosplayers. These are the comics they’ve read for so long, and if you finally see a person that portrays the character accurately, you’re gonna wanna follow them and become a fan. When people say that most of my fans are like that, I ignore it. It’s not fair to assume that, but I am aware that my FB demographic shows they are older men between 24 and 30 or something. Meh, huh. It doesn’t worry me. If I start worrying too much about it, it stresses you out and makes you think, “Are these people just following me ‘cos they’re sexually perverted?”
Credit: Kris Ezergailis
Does anyone ever step over the line?
Black Cat: Yeah, absolutely. It’s not a frequent thing, but when they do, some of them overstep the line quite a lot. It’s more of a pole vault over the line. I’ve been asked to do nude photos for money. People have offered me cash in exchange for certain photo sets, like, “Could you cosplay as this character but in this scenario?” Sometimes there’s inappropriate touching at conventions. A couple of years ago I was with Ardella, and a man was making lewd comments about her… assets. I turned him around and told him to take it somewhere else. He got angry and disgruntled and was calling me a slut.
Ardella: We were actually at a con recently, and I was in Power Girl, actually. I was walking around and a “gentleman” came up and asked if he could take my photo. I said, “Of course you can.” That’s part of what I do it for. I posed and he got his friend over, and as soon as his friend lifted up the camera, he actually groped me. I stepped back and I went, “That’s not appropriate, let’s not do that.” He said, “Now you’ve gotta give me your phone number.” I told him, “That’s not actually the way it works in real life. Just ‘cos you touched me doesn’t mean I have to give you my details.” When I’m dressed up I feel much stronger in myself. I feel like I’m able to say, “Hey buddy, step off” – whereas I may not actually say that if it was my day to day life.
If somebody grabs you at a con, you turn around and threaten to break that d--k’s nose.
Black Cat: A lot of girls react in incorrect ways. They get all offended that somebody touched them at a con, but then they go home and don’t do anything about it. If somebody grabs you at a con, you turn around and threaten to break that d--k’s nose. You’ve gotta step up and be assertive, otherwise nobody’s gonna learn. You can say, “Please don’t do that,” you can say that all that you want, but unless you put them outside their comfort zone, it’s not gonna change.
Ardella: This is the thing. It’s so shocking, but then you think, these are people who are used to being on the internet. They’re used to being anonymous and invisible. I guess mentality changes when you spend too much time behind a computer screen. So, this guy decided to get really angry. Luckily at this point Gabbie came up and took me away from them. My partner went and found security, and they got kicked out of the con.
Credit: Kris Ezergailis
The Vixen Gamer: It gets really shady when there are dudes with camera-phones and they literally have the whole camera in your cleavage. They’re the guys that I have absolutely no problem tapping on the shoulder and saying, “Get away.” It’s such a shame there are so many female cosplayers – and guys, I suppose – who don’t take ownership of that. They’re too scared to say, “No don’t do that,” or “That’s making me uncomfortable.” I think it’s misogynism, that’s what it is. These guys are a-holes in general. A lot of them see this opportunity… you know what I really think it is? I’m just gonna come out and say it: There are so many journalists out there now and so many dudes and a whole bunch of chicks are starting to do it, people are starting to look for controversy to get their names known. That has happened to me. They’ll do anything to get clicks, to get views. Some of these dudes do step over the line ‘cos they think it’ll get a few extra thousand views on YouTube.
Ardella: Thing is, I’m not terribly scared of people touching me. I don’t know what it is. I’ve always grown up knowing that people were looking at me funny because of the way I’m built. But I didn’t want it happening to anyone who was just getting into cosplaying, and having a bad experience because this d--khead was f--king around with people and acting like a douche. That would be a real shame if they encountered that guy and decided it wasn’t for them after all ‘cos people were creepy.
Toby McCasker is freelance journalist based in Sydney, Australia who sometimes has a moustache. You can track him down on Twitter here.
Source : ign[dot]com
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