Playing With Adults: This Week’s Cosplay Riots

If you’re not old enough to have seen Star Wars in its original 1977 theatrical release, you are not a true Star Wars fan, and arguably not even truly a human being.

If the first time you saw Star Wars was on home video or, may God forbid, as a “Special Edition” DVD or Blu-Ray, you were not part of the original wave of excitement that occurred when the movie first broke, and therefore, are unworthy to call yourself a real fan. You were a kid who never had to live in a world where there was a Star Wars movie, but where there were no Star Wars toys. You never dealt with the crippling discomfort that came from pretending you were Luke Skywalker and getting a proto-boner over Princess Leia. The first time you saw Boba Fett was in a major motion picture, and not during a holiday special that made your sainted mother say, “With God himself as my witness, Diahann Carroll and Harvey Korman will die by my fucking hand. And if this program makes my eldest son say he wishes he had a Goddamned Lumpy Wookie… that’s it! Time for bed, you!”

My point is: to me, these experiences were integral to being a Star Wars fan. So when it comes to you little bastards whose Star Wars experience started with slapping in the VHS tape whenever you felt like it? You’re not real fans. Seriously: fuck you wretched, hipster poseurs.

So… anyone about ready to scroll to the comments and call me a shortsighted, ageist, elitist motherfucker yet? You ready to really rip into me and ask me how I dare to define your fandom based on my experiences?

Great! Now maybe we can all quit whoring around and whimpering about female cosplayers for a minute.

In the past week, we’ve had a new batch of yammering spastics complaining about women who go to comic book conventions wearing costumes, from a demographic ranging from semi-random dudes to high-profile comic creators. And those complaints run a very specific gamut, from the concept that lots of those cosplayers aren’t “real” comic fans, to the idea that many are simply attention-whoring exhibitionists who get off on making male geeks all horned up. And everyone’s argument is logical and thought out and heartfelt… and they are all pretty much self-serving horseshit.

So let’s start with the argument that women who like to attend conventions in costume aren’t real comic fans. Let’s say you’re right; let’s say that to a one, every woman in a costume at a comic book convention has only ever read, maybe, Doonesbury, or was dragged to a second-run screening of The Dark Knight. Let’s stipulate that you are dead. Fucking. Right. (You’re probably not, but let’s pretend!)

Who cares? I’ve been to seven San Diego Comic-Cons, and that motherfucker is filled with people who don’t give a tinker’s shit about comic books. Last year, I passed a guy ranting that he “knows for a fact that the Government is reading all of our emails!” That guy doesn’t read comic books, because Alex Jones has never written one. I’ve seen Pauly Shore wandering the convention floor with a tattooed skank and a camera crew, and believe me: that weasel (ha!) wasn’t there looking to beef up his collection of first print Sandman issues. I have seen Lou Ferrigno hanging out at the Mile High Comics booth for each of the last seven years, and he is less interested in laying eyes on cool collectibles than he is in avoiding eye contact with anyone taking a photo without giving him twenty dollars up front. I have seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of – whoops! Wrong convention.

Anyway, my point is that I have never been to a comic convention that wasn’t half-packed with looky-loos, freak-watchers and rubberneckers… and no one gives a tin shit that those people are there to suck our air. Hell, I defy you to ask any five strangers at SDCC who drew Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and get more than two correct answers. The third will tell you it was Christian Bale. The fourth will ask you if “Darknight” is a rare Pokeman card. And the fifth will pepper spray you for being a creepy, intrusive douchebag… probably after taking her pistol-gripped Mace bomb out of her Huntress costume’s utility belt.

And besides: do you really want to turn a comic convention into a who-knows-enough-to-be-worthy dick measuring contest? Let’s say you strut into a comic convention with a backwards and forwards knowledge of the past twenty years of comic book history. There isn’t a question you can’t answer about a comic book produced since Todd McFarlane released Spawn. You are invincible… right until someone asks you about Todd’s work on Infinity, Inc. Do you really want to attend an event where someone calls you a bubblegummer just because your comic knowledge starts at Al Simmons? Would you want to be in a place where someone would take your background and use it to call you a useless twat, rather than just show you the Goddamned Infinity Inc. book? Hell, my first comic was a 1975 Marvel Team Up with Spider-Man and Scarlet Witch; should I be able to kick you in the taint if yours was the following issue with The Vision (Please tell me yes; Comic-Con can always be improved with a touch of elitism, amirite?)?

So let’s forget about the whole female-cosplayers-aren’t-real-comic-fans crap, since I think we’ve established that it’s no real reason to get all pissy about who knows more than who about comic books, unless you enjoy the spittle of we old 40-plus-year-old fans who are at the conventions with you. So that just leaves the reason to get upset espoused by Tony Harris yesterday: that many female cosplayers might be at conventions to get male comic fans all hot and bothered without any intention of ever having sex with them. This, honestly, is a valid thing that happens at comic conventions. And in bars. And at beaches. And on the streets. In other words: hi! Welcome to the human race on the planet Earth!

So you’re telling me that your complaint is that attractive people are dressing in an attractive fashion that matches the societal norms of the given location? That would be cynical and reprehensible and awful, if it weren’t for that fact that every person in the world does that every day of their Goddamned lives. Seriously: look down at yourself (unless you’re reading this at home, alone, naked, with the shades drawn): you are dressed in a fashion to best attract other human people. Looking down at myself, I am not wearing a spandex costume; I am wearing three layers of T-shirt, novelty T-shirt and flannel overshirt. This is not because I think that the chicks love the “Hiding Track Marks In 1990 Seattle” look; it is because I recognize that these layers are the best way to hide my man-tits from an undeserving public. If I were thinner, I might be wearing a tight Wolverine shirt, and if I were fatter, I would be wearing a doublewide I’d need to be sawn from, but the fact remains: pretty much everyone tries to be as attractive as possible, to as many people as possible, much of the time. This is not a plot against the genre fan, it is HUMAN FUCKING NATURE.

That supremely hot girl in the Phoenix costume at the convention that you can’t take your eyes off of? She’d be wearing a half T-shirt at the bar, or a bikini at the beach, or a cleavage-cut suit at the office, and none of it has anything to do with you. She’s wearing it for the same reason I’d be wearing a muscle shirt if beer and pizza weren’t so Goddamned delicious, and if “Willpower” wasn’t just the name of a superhero I invented when I was 15: because I would know it make me look good.

Turn things around for just a second: imagine that you are cut and fit enough to get away with wearing a Spider-Man unitard. And further imagine that some girl who, frankly, is built and smells like you came snuffling around and asking you to play a little Hide The Webshooter behind the Oni Press booth. You’d recoil in fucking horror at the unwanted advances of a girl in a dirty Penny Arcade shirt with a neckbeard (sorry; I’m projecting myself on you as a chick. In my defense, I have been drinking). You’d be wishing that Spider-Man had a utility belt to carry a pistol-gripped Mace bomb. So why do you think that attractive female cosplayers would react any differently to you?

Lets actually make the scenario as fair as humanly possible, guys: you’re still able to rock the Spider-Man suit, and a fucking Penthouse Pet-looking girl walks up to you and asks you to go back to her hotel room. Things get hot and heavy, the Spider-Man suit comes off, and BAM! You wake up in the bathtub missing a kidney! Because people, regardless of dress, don’t just walk up to you and offer to fuck you for no reason at all. And if they do? I have made some terrible, wasteful mistakes in my life. But that’s not the point right now.

Look: when it comes to the really hot girls that get so many of you up in arms, the truth is that it doesn’t matter if they’re dressed as Power Girl at a convention or as just a hot girl at a bar: if they’re out of your league, they are out of your league. It’s not their fault that seeing a girl dressed as Dove tickles you in your special place. News flash: dressing as Dove does not mean that they owe you a blowjob. If anything, it means that Rob Liefeld owes you a blowjob, since clearly you were the one dude buying that piece of shit book.

And for those dudes who whimper that some female cosplayers are only “con-hot,” the way that Harris did in his vicious little screed? Well, I imagine those people go one of two ways: either they are seeking to find a place where they can be accepted – same as you fanboys – regardless of the reason, which maybe means you should get off your rotten little high horse. Or they are simply Goddamned confident fangirls who are dressed that way because they actually are what you consider to be “acceptable” comic-loving cosplayers: which means that – newsflash – maybe you should quit your bitching and consider talking to them *. You might, after all, find you have something in common. **

Let old Uncle Rob tell you a story: once upon a time, I met a beautiful redhead who, upon learning I read comic books, told me about how she grew up reading Marvel comics, but who didn’t know much about Transmetropolitan, one of my favorite books at the time. I had a choice: I could either give her shit for not knowing about one of the best books of the 1990s, or lend her my copy of Life On The Street. Unlike some of the dipshits railing about who is allowed to attend and enjoy comic conventions, I was smart and lent her the books. And we have been together for the twelve years since… and have attended about a dozen comic conventions together during that time. And, in fact, she edited this article.

So, in conclusion: quitcherbitchin about female cosplayers. Regardless of the reason, they are at conventions for the same reason as you: to have fun in whatever way they see fit. And conventions are like any other place in the world: filled with people who, for whatever reason, won’t fuck you. That is arguably a problem, but if it is? It’s not theirs.

But with that said: if you first saw Star Wars on home video? You are the worst fucking person in the world.

* And that means talking, not crudely propositioning. I don’t care how thoroughly wooden you get over a female Robin, there’s still a person under that suit, deserving of basic human dignity. Before opening your jabberhole, spin out the conversation for a few lines in your head while picturing it occurring on a city bus in your hometown. Honestly assess if that non-convention conversation would end with you whimpering, “OW, MY BALLS!” Then proceed – or don’t – accordingly. You’re welcome.

** Unless, of course, you’re grumbling, “con-hot” to make yourself feel better about failing to obtain sex from them. In which case, still not her problem, and please line up with those fake Star Wars fans and prepare for “reeducation.”