Jason Driskill

In writing to my friend Jon, who is working on his senior show at Watkins, the issue of “cosplay” keeps coming up.  We have been having a pretty interesting discussion about the subject.   There are some interesting issues that I really want to save for future reference, so I’m posting them here.  Jon writes:

Cosplay is something I was going to bring in as an example of obsessive fandom.  (Hence, why I’m still trying to find and get in contact with Mike.)  You see it as a form of drag, I see it as a level of fandom equal to those posterboard and magic marker signs on TRL or even on WWE.  Only, you know, several steps above that.  It’s kind of like how you can be totally obsessed with a celebrity to the point where you end up mimicking everything about them (another level of obsessive fandom) right down to what their PR report says they like to do when they are not in front of the camera.  But that’s going in the direction of the stalking fan that you brought up several e-mails back.

Cosplay and drawing relate through couture and fashion design.  The steps are pretty much like any sculpture project you or I have done before.  Draw the design on paper, figure out materials and how much you need, then produce.  In cosplay culture, the work is already half done, as the characters are drawn and ready for the fans to mimic.

Reminds me of this one girl and her family I saw at Regal when the latest Harry Potter movie opened.  She was in full costume like Hermine.  Plad skirt, sweater vest with an embroadered Griffendor seal, even had a plastic Time Turner necklace.  Curlled her hair and everything to look just like the character.  Her mother wore a matching outfit only with a longer and more formal looking shirt and a different hair style.  Her father just wore a simple black dress pants, white dress shirt, and a tie that just so happen to be yellow and orange (the colors of the Griffendor house).  Three different levels of cosplay by one family.  Needless to say, they made my night.  Knowing what I’ve said before, I ask you which one would be considered fashionable and normal in the real world?

This whole talk about cosplay and fashion makes me want to watch The Devil Wears Prada.  I remember there was a monolouge where Myrel Streep talks about the history of Cerullian in relationship to fashion and industry that was very well written and excellently delivered.  To summerize, it was along the lines of how a color, patter, or fabric can be introduced into the fashion world and then six months find its place in a Wal-Mart bargin bin through business deals and mass production, thereby lowering it from “fashion” to “clothing.”  The same argument can be applied to art… and it has thanks to Kinkade.

And I have responded: 

So cosplay is a good example of fandom, very true.  I stand by  my comparison between it and drag, and between it and performance, and between it and masculinity - it is a display of identity.  Fandom seems to be the shorter scope of what you’re looking at, which is identity.  I am wondering how you connect that with your work - it is obviously connected, but you have to bridge that gap for the sake of your review/thesis, etc, of course.  How much do you think you’ll focus on the cosplay in your thesis and how much of it will show up in your art, if any?  I am curious to see you cris-cross your method of obsessive drawings/escape with the notion of sliding one’s self into a character like a layer of skin.  Or armor.  I have no doubt that there are some very visually interesting ways to bridge the gap between the two.  What will Bielaczyc bring to the picture?  Isn’t he always traveling for rennaisance festivals?  Do you consider that to be cosplay too?  I am curious, as enthralled as you are with people dressing up as their favorite characters, why don’t you participate as well?  Spectacle vs. performance, and the relationship between the two… 

I’m also curious what you think about people dressing up in the same outfit or articles of clothing every day, how that becomes a type of cosplay for them, except instead of patterning their outfit after an established cartoon, they are patterning their outfit off of some notion in their head of what they want to be.  For instance when I was in Junior High I wore the same shoes daily, and the same jacket, and my hair was sprayed stiff always in the same shape/style.  Departing from this look terrified me because I didn’t know how to be anything else, and the way I measured my own coolness was by trying to emulate an idealized, (somewhat cartoonish) imaginary me that I carried around in my head.  I have to wear jeans - they’re part of my look.  It’s my image.  These high-top puffy basketball shoes aren’t just totally comfortable, but they’re part of how I see myself.  I can’t wear my hair flat or spikey - it has to be just this certain way or I’m not comfortable with how I perceive being seen by others.  It sounds silly, perhaps, but I have seen it tons.  A guy I worked with at Xerox had long hair and a goatee, religiously refusing to shave or cut his pony-tail because he perceived it as somehow defining him, regardless of how un-sexy it was (it was a mess).  One of my best friends in high school had a single jacket that he wore all four years, it was like his security blanket.  A girl I was on a mission trip with would get up at 5am and do her make-up and hair for nearly four hours every morning because she couldn’t be seen without her “look.”   A guy I dated always wore a baseball cap - even in formal attire.  He’d worn one in high school and refused to take it off even into adulthood, even at the risk of looking silly at times.  Other guys with certain brands of jeans.  Or belt-buckles.  Converse sneakers were a thing for me for awhile, and I’ve run into it with other guys a lot through five different art programs.  These aren’t just fashion issues - they’re identity issues.  Here are people trying to emulate an ideal that they have in their head of the way they want to be seen. It is cosplay only the costumes are self-defined rather than lifted from a cartoon or comic book. 

The interesting thing to me, is that this type of pursuit of the ideal disavows the fluidity of identity and the inconstant nature of the human body.  Cartoons change at an imperceivable rate, and when they do it is usually the slightest shift toward an even more ideal version than before.  People, however, change daily from morning to night.  Their weight fluctuates, they get pimples, they get haircuts, sometimes they shave parts of themselves, they get cuts, scrapes, bruises.  They work out and they build muscle.  Or they starve themselves and appear anemic.  Over time they get wrinkles and sagging parts and their bones shrink and their shape completely shrivels.  These are the helpless truths of being human.  The ”look” that my friend had in high school - the constant ball-cap, tight jeans wearing guy worked in the 70’s when he was a teenager (and how!).  But as he approached his 40’s it looked silly.  The tight pants were unstylish and didn’t flatter his less-youthful shape, the cap was an obvious cover for thinning hair.  Overall his refusal to let go of this particular self-image expressed insecurity more than anything else.  Even ill-fitting, he didn’t want to take off his costume.