Holly Swinyard - A Guide to Film and TV Cosplay

A Guide to

FILM and

TV COSPLAY

Calypso Pirates of the Caribbean.

Holly Swinyard

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

PEN AND SWORD WHITE OWL

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright Holly Swinyard, 2021

ISBN 978 1 52677 563 4

eISBN 978 1 52677 564 1

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52677 565 8

The right of Holly Swinyard to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Thanks to Meg Amis, Margaret Swinyard, Dominic Westerland, Helen McCarthy and the cosplayers of the UK.

If you have picked up this book then once upon a time you wished yourself away into a world of fantastical adventure, daring heroes, dramatic space battles and dastardly villains. You let your imagination run riot so you could disappear into these stories and have the time of your life. And then you grew up. Or someone told you that you had to.

But what if thats not true. What if growing up and growing older arent the same thing at all and actually those worlds of superheroes, pirates, space cowboys and all the rest are more within your grasp than you could have ever dreamed as a child? Well, guess what. They are.

Welcome to the wonderful world of cosplay.

A place where you can be who youve always dreamed of being. Putting on a costume can help you tap into something really special about yourself. You might just look like Wonder Woman for a weekend, but who knows, you might just be Wonder Woman every day after that. With a wide and varied community, cosplay can show you ways of interacting with the world that you may never have thought of before, and may even give you a new sense of self and inner strength.

Its time that we all woke up to the idea that playing isnt just for kids and make-believe is just as important as you get older as it was when we were five. Feeding your brain with creativity, teaching yourself new skills and opening up your space to new experiences and people are still a necessary part of our lives, and cosplay gives you all of that in abundance.

Humans love to test their brains through entertaining problem solving, interesting storytelling and most of all, through social play. Cosplay is all of this rolled into one. Learning new crafting skills like making your own clothes, working out how to recreate costumes that may never have been made before in real life (youd be surprised how many films use CGI instead of real props and costumes these days), and getting to engage with that childish love for the imaginary again are all indispensable parts of our lives.

Miles Morales and Gwen Stacey Into the Spider-Verse.

There is a reason that nerd culture is on the rise; no longer is it a social taboo to play Dungeons and Dragons or watch superhero movies. We all need a little bit of escapism, so its time we all embrace our inner child and take a deep dive into cosplay and all of the amazing things it has to offer.

Pick out your favourite Disney Princess or Avenger and lets get going on how to become a cosplayer.

Most people involved in nerdom are likely to have seen a lot of cosplay over the years, even more so in recent times as it becomes more and more popular. But even for the biggest nerds amongst us, there seems to be a lack of understanding what it actually is. And trying to explain cosplay to someone who has never read a comic book? Thats even harder! But lets give it a try anyway.

So what is cosplay? That is a question that doesnt have a small answer. Well it does, in a very basic way: costume + play = cosplay. In ten words or less, cosplay is dressing up and playing at being a character, but its so much more. There couldnt be a more succinct way of explaining it. But as with any hobby or subculture you cant boil it down to ten words or fewer. That rather misses the point dont you think? Why dont we take a jump into the world of cosplay and see what its really all about.

Cinderella Disney.

If all youve seen of cosplay is pictures online, or on TV, or even in the newspapers, of people in exciting costumes, then you would be forgiven for thinking that this hobby is simply a new version of dressing up; something to get nerds out of the house every once in a while. But ask any cosplayer and they will tell you that there is more to it than going to a fancy-dress shop and picking something at random off the shelf to throw on without a thought. No, what cosplay is, is loving something so much you want to be part of it, to inhabit it, and to show that love in the most open form possible.

OK, sure, that might sound cheesy, but think of it like this: you wouldnt go and buy a football strip without already loving your team. Its important that you show your support, your passion, that this is your team, that it is part of your identity and thats the same in cosplay. Its supporting your team and expressing your identity.

It may be that you see yourself in these characters or you connect with them on a profoundly personal level, so dressing as them is a way to open up that part of yourself. Or it may be that you want to be like them but struggle with self-confidence; youre shy, but putting on your Captain America helmet means you walk a little taller, speak a little louder, and find a way to overcome the shyness with that little bit of help from your costume. Or maybe you just really love the show, the film, or the franchise, or whatever it is so youre wearing the uniform to find your people, because that way they will see you in the crowds to make that connection. Or maybe its because you have seen yourself as the lead on the big screen for the first time. Maybe youre the teenage girl who finally got to see Rey beat Emperor Palpatine and save the day, not only there to be the love interest, or maybe youre the black man who got to see Black Panther as king and a hero, not just the sidekick, and you want to show the world how much this means to you.