Cosplaytoday Forums

I'm a doctoral student in the University of California - San Diego's department of Theatre & Dance, currently working on a project to be presented next month at the Comic Arts Conference, an academic conference presented in conjunction with Comic-Con, here in San Diego. The project is an investigation of racial identification in cosplay. I'm currently looking for any thoughts, reactions, and feedback from actual cosplayers on the topic. Please, feel free to reply to this topic here, or by contacting me privately, especially if you'd be willing to participate in a more in-depth interview.

From what I've seen, lurking on other forums, there seems to be an interesting difference in the way gender and race are used in cosplay. Over on Cosplay.com, they have a specific forum devoted to gender crossplay, offering binding advice and thoughts on public bathroom use as well as some more in-depth discussion on the personal issues involved in portraying a character of a different gender; however, I've come across no similar discussion regarding cross-racial-play. Why is that?

Some general questions:
-When you are considering a character to perform, do you look for characters that share your race? Are you more interested in characters of a different race? Is their race even a factor in the decision?
-What about in other people? If you're of Asian heritage yourself, how do you feel about Caucasians cosplaying as Asian characters? Vice versa? Do you feel any sort of racial ownership of the characters?
-Do you perform your character's race in any way? As part of the costume? Makeup? Vocally?
-To what degree do you think race is truly a part of these characters' identities? (For instance, with the ruckus over casting for The Last Airbender, one of the defenses used is that these are fictional characters, inhabiting a fictional world, and are therefore, by definition, not Asian; for many fans, however, the connections to Chinese culture is a strong part of the characters.)
-How do you feel about cross-gender-playing? Do you do it yourself? More or less comfortable than cross-race-playing?

Any other thoughts you may have, outside the confines of these questions, please share.
I will not use anything said here, or in personal discussions, without your permission, and any responses presented as part of the final project will be as anonymous as you want them to be. Even if you're not willing to let me use your response as part of the project, please chime in with your thoughts. I'm genuinely interested.

Okay, so this is a really great topic and I joined this forum just to answer. Anyway...

First off it would be good to say that I am a 5' 7'' Thai male at 160 lbs [though I am athletic and people guess my weight at about 130-140].

When I look for characters to cosplay, I look for those with traits that I have. Physical traits do help (such as race) but a good amount of makeup can fix most problems. Being Thai, I'm a tad bit darker than the average Asian so makeup is a must (though I believe makeup should go with a costume anyway.)

And example- I once played Kyoya Ootori from Ouran High School Host Club. The man is a bit lighter than me, but his personality is similar to my own. With the clothing and the makeup, I feel I became him.

There are some racial limits, at least to me. I will never play a black man simply because I lack the facial structure and skin tone.

Crossplay? Meh. Do what you will. Not for me.

If you want more from me hit me up mike.beck42@gmail.com

Interesting topic. Just joined to help out, so here we go.

-When considering a character to cosplay, race is not a major factor to me. Rather than looking at the race of the character I choose characters that I have interest in. If I want to cosplay a character, I don't stop myself because the character's race differs from mine. At most I look at the structure of the character's face to decide whether or not I would be able to cosplay that character well. For instance, many "Japanese" characters have very prominent noses. Because of this, I believe a Caucasian cosplayer could pull off the character better than a Japanese cosplayer could.

- Although I may set standards for myself, I should hope that nobody feels ownership in the cosplay world. I attempt to portray a character accurately because that is my goal and decision, but that gives me no right to tell others how they should have cosplayed. It is called Cos-PLAY for a reason. The main goal is to have fun. If an African character wishes to cosplay as someone from Naruto, he/she should not let their skin color become a limitation. The same goes for any race that wishes to cosplay any character.

-"Do you perform your character's race in any way?" - This varies from character to character. I will look at the dialogue and mannerisms of the character over the race. More often than not the race of the character does not identify the character. Though I did cosplay a Korean martial artist from a video game once, so of course I researched the martial art a bit in order to mimic some stances. Posing for pictures using a Boxing stance wouldn't have made much sense if the character uses Wushu.

-I think the identity of these characters are relative to the onlooking fans. To one fan the skin color may identify the character, but to another fan it may be the craftsmanship of the costume. There are certain characters that I could only see as specific races, but there are also many that can be cosplayed well by multiple races. Personally I am a bit biased and tend to judge cosplay "success" on accuracy, so race plays a larger role than I would like when I judge other cosplayers. I thought the actor for Avatar was pretty close to how I imagined Aang (though this doesn't nullify the fact that the movie was horrible).

-I've never crossplayed, but to each their own. I've seen very clever female versions of characters. For some reason crossplayers tend to receive large amounts of attention no matter how good or bad the cosplay is and it has almost become a sport for male crossplayers to push the limit of disturbing.

All in all, cosplayers should stop focusing on what others think. If you're having fun then it was a success, far more successful than one who sits in the corner hating and nitpicking on every cosplayer that walks by. Best wishes on your project, I hope this helps.

When cosplaying characters I always choose characters that have the same race as me or a race that looks similar. This is mostly because I'm incredibly picky about my cosplays and I want them to look as accurate as possible.

Well, I think that as long as you look similar enough to that character, it's completely fine. For example, I've seen plenty of Asians cosplay Caucasian-looking characters and vice-versa very well. Of course, there's limits to that. I think if you have really light skin you shouldn't attempt to cosplay an African-looking character. In conclusion, I don't really think the character's race matters as long as it looks similar to yours.

I have cosplayed Japanese characters before and sang some of the song from their anime. Even if there is an official English dub for the songs I always sing them in the original Japanese. Since that's been the language most of the characters I've cosplayed have spoken, I felt it was more true to the character.

I think it depends on the character. Race is definitely emphasized more is some characters than others. If their race has never even been mentioned, then I don't think it really matters, but if they are very obviously part of a certain race I think it does become part of who they are.

I have cross-gender-played and I find it to be a very fun and comfortable experience. Like I said, I've never cosplayed a character with a race that looked very much different than my own, so I can't make any comparisons.

Best of luck with your project.
Let me know if I can do anything else to help.

I DO NOT have to be anonymous,you may call me "iheartexploding" if you need to use any of this.

1.) to answer your first question it generally does not cross my mind,im of arabic and mediterranean descent and if i need to be lighter or darker i just use make up and contacts and face shading and such.

2.)it does not bother me in any way if people play other ethnics than what they are,good costumes are all about the effort,i dont care if a chinese girl wants to play a white character or if a black man wants to play a russian woman lol as long as they put effort into it then their costumes are usually great.

3.) i dont actually understand what you are asking here,so i will try to answer as best as possible.most of the characters i cosplay are white men,i tend to use light make up for them and try to do alot of face shading to make my face look more manly.some of my characters are even racist against the ethnicity i am in real life/out of character.i dont actively think of ethnicity,until you asked these race specific questions,i stay in character,reguardless of that characters ethnicity.so i preform the character not what ethnicity they are supposed to be.

4.)in most shows or comics that i like ethnicity only plays a part for certain characters,like scar in fullmetal alchemist,or like his enemy the racist white guy solf kimblee,to them it is a big part.,but for example naruto or something it doesnt seem like that characters on there care about ethnicity much at all in their fictional world,they all seem to care mostly about power and fighting and defeating bad guys and such.so i guess about 75-80% of characters it is not a big part in any way,but a few as i listed above sometimes it is in character to be all about races and ethnicity if the character is a nazi,or a spiritual person thats deep in their culture fictional or otherwise.

5.)as for cross gender cosplaying 90% or more of my costumes are male and i am not,HOWEVER i do have a say in this,men can get away with cross playing as long as they groom usually lol.WOMEN however,i do advise women under 5'7" to stick to cosplaying women and young boys or young teen boys.Even if they look good they are usually abnormally tiny dainty men in cross play.Note i never said i HATE it,i just said i advise against it for women under 5'7" and even at 5'7" i advise 2+ inch heels unless you are some short guy or young guy.i am honest with my friends on this as well,and they understand.
Face shading to make yourself more feminine/Manly is a MUST.cross ethinicity cosplay,again i dont really see why it should matter,use make up and contacts put effort into it and your costume will be great no matter what.

I WOULD love to add 1 thing that annoys the pee out of me that is abundant in the cosplay community are 'weeaboo's , wapanese etc..." if you dont know what that is please wikipedia it.they are so obsessed with asia period they assume all anime characters must be asian,when clearly there are many characters that are white,black,arabic,latin,even if they are from fictional countries.

and there are also a group of jeks that i dont know the word for that think any anime characters that arent black haired are white,when a series has clearly stated many characters are of asian descent,even if it is in a fictional world.or they will go by skin tones eye colors and things that just should have nothing to do with whatever was canonly mentioned.

which also brings me to this.extremists who argue that cosplay is from one country or another...we have had people cosplaying D&D as far as modern cosplay since the 50's or so in pretty much every country that caught on to D&D...and almost every country has had med evil fairs for ATLEAST the past hundred years with guess what COSTUME PLAY...BUT people need to look through history and stop arguing because every culture had some time of festival or faire from thousands of years ago where people dressed up and had fun.its all trivial in the end no one invented it except maybe primitive man when he learned what stains and dyes were LOL.

i hope my rant has helped.

[the added attachment is an example of a cosplayer that could be either gender.]

-Well, I don't really look into the race so much, though at one point I didn't think I could pull off the asian look. I have native american blood but I'm quite pale unfortunately. However, my eyes are unique enough to occasionally pull off a slight slanted look, especially when smiling. But in truth, I look more into if the costume would be a lot of fun to wear over skin color. Sure, it'd be nice to have really tan skin to pull off Prince Soma from Kuroshitsuji, but again, if I really wanted to, I'd still do it anyways, just be white over tan.

- I actually don't mind seeing people cosplay as a character even if they're not of that race. There have been a few too that can pull them off really well and don't require the specific race. Cosplay is more of a way for all people, no matter what race or color they may be, to enjoy and to have fun. So for anyone to be extremely negative about the whole thing (as I've come across only 2 so far), it's really unnecessary over something that people enjoy to do.

- I try my best to play the character's role mainly in pictures and occasionally out of fun. Sometimes my characters will have narrow eyes, which is pretty easy to pull off with the help of eyeliner as well as softening the eyes a little to get the narrowed look. It's more about the look of the character rather then the race of the character really. If you can pull them off, kudos!

- At some point, race is probably required for certain characters. For a white person to pull off a black character... doesn't really work out too well. Tan sometimes but not necessarily needed. But there are characters that do better if the race is accurate or at least the person can pull off that certain race.

- I actually do cross-gender-play myself. It's actually pretty comfortable since the guy outfits are pretty simple or they're just a lot of fun to wear. For me, I don't have to bind to the extreme but I do wear a sports bra that gives me that flat look. However, cross-gender-play can sometimes get rather old if you're doing it all the time. And I don't support those with huge breasts to strap themselves down so tightly or to do very many cross-plays. Seeing my two friends who have that issue a little, it hurts and is really hard to breath. As for being more or less comfortable than cross-race-playing? ..... actually, it is. Then again, with us cosplayers, I don't believe we worry so much about it unless the character is more well known for their race then anything else.


I hope this was of some help ^^

Wow. Thanks for all the great replies. I'm actually on vacation right now, but will be back in San Diego soon, and will definitely be doing some follow-ups. I just wanted to make sure to thank you all now for some very thoughtful and interesting responses.

Gator90, do you mean that crossplay is more comfortable than cross-race-playing? Just want to make sure which way you meant that.

Your rant was very helpful, definitely. It's interesting that you're chiding both extremes: those who treat all characters as Asian, and those who treat them all as Caucasian. That lines up with the sense I'm getting from a lot of responses, both here and elsewhere: namely, that race really isn't a big deal for cosplay, as long as you're having fun and the costume looks good. That sound about right?

With that said, though, one more question: a couple of you specified that you prefer to use characters of your own ethnicity, for the sake of accuracy. For those who haven't said, though, I'm curious: looking at most of your costumes, how do the ethnicities of your characters compare to your own? Does that desire for accuracy wind up with you mostly cosplaying as characters of your own race, or do you have more variety?

I am really willing to help you. But you know, i am just a oversea student in LA from China, my poor English. But, what i want to say is than as a avid cosplayer, i often portray male characters from Final Fantasy, and i am a girl from China. And friends made a praise for my show, sometimes. So, cross gender or race is all right. Cosplay is just a activity for exploring yourself.