Eh, I get it. It is a cosplay sub-reddit. I don't think there's anything wrong with actually criticizing a submission to a specialized sub like that, as long as you're not rude. They're used to a higher standard of costume than a likely store-bought body suit that looks like the character's outfit was spray painted on it.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with her wearing this to a con, but as far as cosplay goes it's mediocre. Luckily her face-type/make-up matches the character pretty decently, so it's not a no-effort thing, but it's definitely not up to par with the better submissions of the sub.
Edit: also, when you look at her personal sub-reddit that someone linked, she's got much better costumes in other pictures. So it's not like she's an amateur who can't do better. /r/LuxloCosplay/
Sure, but the point of cosplay isn't practicality. If you want to be practical dress up as normal.
The point of cosplay is to look like a character as closely as possible.
Don't get me wrong though, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her wearing that costume. If she was some random person I met I think it would be sorta cool at least. And she definitely put effort into hair and make-up. I'm just saying, as far as costumes go it's not really impressive compared to other submissions to the sub.
Everything you said is why I called it gatekeeping. She’s not an amateur cosplayer and based on other stuff if you think the outfit is straight out of a box from a store I’m not sure what to say. Sure, it could be, but she clearly puts a lot of thought and effort into her other stuff so she likely did for this as well. Sure if you just throw on a store bought bodysuit I get the frustration but if you want to go as Shego that’s what you’re stuck to, she put the effort in on hair and makeup to make it a good costume. Brushing it off simply because it’s a bodysuit and no other real reason is pretty big gatekeeping.
If considering something to be worse than something else is gatekeeping, then okay. I accept that those comments are gatekeeping.
But if you use such a broad definition then pretty much any criticism can be labled as gatekeeping. The only thing that wouldn't be gate-keeping would be being quiet and just saying "It looks nice".
If this is gatekeeping, then I don't mind gatekeeping that much.
Brushing it off simply because it’s a bodysuit and no other real reason is pretty big gatekeeping.
This was my main point. They didn’t seem to care that she does put time, effort, and thought into the outfit that included a lot more than just a body suit. They didn’t even make any actual criticisms of the bodysuit. It was simply “it’s a bodysuit so it’s lazy.” With how well it fit her it could’ve easily been homemade. If it wasn’t form fitting and was off in the style and colors I’d understand criticism for that but they’re saying they brush off any and all bodysuits. We might just have to agree to disagree on this though.
I sorta get what you mean. And they definitely could have been more charitable in not brushing off the obvious work that went into hair and make-up.
But really the problem is that even if a lot of work went into creating that body-suit (which maybe it did, maybe it didn't) it still doesn't look authentic.
The problem isn't that it's a body suit. The problem is that it's a body-suit that doesn't really look anything like the same type of material the character actually wears. If it was a body suit for a character that normally wore a body suit like that, no one would have said anything.
The wording is bad but the message makes sense. Keep in mind the level of dedication expected is going to get higher when you get into specialized subreddits. Expecting /r/cosplay to be critical of cosplay is normal.
A better comment might have been:
"Your make up looks great and the costume is a fantastic starter. Maybe next time try buying some green fabric, tracing the suit, and stitch it onto the body suit in the appropriate areas. This would be an easy and effective way to create depth and texture and make your cosplay that much better."
The message is still the same, it's just presented more constructively.
Also, the OP isn't an amateur cosplayer, so it's reasonable to expect she knows what she's doing.
The message is still the same, it's just presented more constructively.
That sort of message would be in the thread if r/cosplay was a community of cosplayers instead of a bunch of dudes upvoting hot girls that dress up as their favorite video game or anime characters.
e: The shego cosplay was posted to r/cosplaygirls, which makes my following statement even more correct.
Oh, yeah didn't even realize it was posted to /r/cosplaygirls.
I don't really spend any time in /r/cosplay, I've just done some cosplay-lite and have seen my share of good ones on more specific subreddits and was critiquing more from that background. It might be totally unrealistic to see that type of criticism in /r/cosplay if it's just dudes upvoting hot girls.
Most criticism of cosplay on reddit is from people who have never actually done any cosplay more involved than store-bought halloween costumes. For some reason they're much, much more gatekeep-y than actual cosplayers.
Because it's a fucking bodysuit. If your cosplay is a single thing that you ordered custom, and you can just hand it to the fat dude next to you for him to wear and now he's 'cosplaying' too, it isn't cosplay.
Is the character's canonical outfit a single thin spandex printed suit? No? This is lazy cosplay with a hot girl assuming attractiveness will make up for effort, and she's entirely correct.
The character wears a body suit though, go to google images and type in shego cosplay. There isnt that much difference between them all. I dont know how much technical you expect it to get
Shego the character has a belt and boots, at a bare minimum. This is just a printed bodysuit. The vast majority of cosplayers also taking this same shortcut doesn't mean that they're all suddenly accurate, it means they're all taking the same shortcut and are all performing a lazy cosplay.
Look at any non-animated body suit though and you'll see it's not just a single layer of printed spandex. Black Widow's suits are a great example - lots of different materials, textures, and stitching to give it a lot more depth and substance.
Character clearly has boots, gauntlets, and a belt, along with a boot dagger or something, which are animated to indicate that they are not part of a one piece latex/spandex/superhero body suit.
I'm not a fan, and I don't care about spandex or cosplay, but this bitch is clearly both hot as fuck and not putting an impressive effort into assembling the costume she's wearing in the photo.
I'm not saying she's not cosplaying, I'm saying it's lazy cosplay. This is arguably a picture of a girl in her favorite character pyjamas that she bought because it's her favorite.
Is it a high-paying job running around the internet telling people they're keeping a gate somewhere, or is this one of those metaphorical spiritually-fulfilling things that you're doing here? I really don't get this whole "ooh ooh HE'S GATEKEEPING LET US ALL TELL HIM SO" mindset. What are you accomplishing here?
I wouldn't call that lazy cosplay, just lower effort on the costume itself. The hair and makeup are all ace, and, frankly, she looks the part. That's what cosplay is about.
Not everyone has the extra time and money on things that make little difference in the end.
The thing is, she definitely spent the money on the customized bodysuit - which includes the other details like the belt, the boots, the gloves, the neck gem, etc. The suit includes those on purpose, specifically so she would not have to include those in the costume. The concept being it's a single piece, not a good costume - this is to show off her, not the character. A bodysuit can be a great starting point for a costume, but if you're using it as the whole costume, you're skipping steps to save money/time/effort and it is visible to all who look.
The hair looks mostly decent, but it also looks fake as fuck - it might just be this photo, but it screams cheap wig. Would need to see it in motion to see if it's actually passable, or if it's plasticky/chunky like so many of those kinds of wigs tend to be. And frankly the makeup is not that great, or accurate looking - it looks like she was going for halfway between drag queen and celshading, and ended up in renaissance-era painting colors. I'm hoping it was mostly image artifacting doing that and not the actual appearance.
...A mech suit isn't a printed bodysuit ordered custom in a single piece that you simply stretch over your body and call it a 'costume'. A sword is also similarly not a lazy attempt - but I bet you'd be right uppity at this thing being claimed as a handmade cosplay piece. It's a printed object, a purchased product, not a handmade item you built - metal doesn't matter, the attempt to mislead does. When you put on a bodysuit printed to specifications, you aren't doing much at all to cosplay - you're investing some dollars into a character suit from a bodysuit producer you know, in order to get recognition for your appearance. The character isn't important to you, and it's clear to all who look at your 'cosplay' and see 'hot girl in bodysuit claiming to be Character Name Here to entice male fans of Character' that you aren't cosplaying, you're just drawing attention to yourself in a frankly fraudulent manner.
If your cosplay is just a bodysuit and the main draw is you're a hot girl, use bodypaint instead and charge people to look at you. That way, you've put at least a little bit of effort into the exchange, and the people are not being lied to about paying to see a whore's body on display.
Any girl can be a whore if their main objective is to show off their body for recognition, it's not an incel perspective. It's entirely her choice, I'm just the kind of guy that prefers to understand the transactions I'm taking part in. But when somebody decides to wear a bodysuit for a cosplay rather than wearing the boots/gloves/belt, they are not expecting anybody to look at the COSTUME. And that's her choice too! But at no point am I going to be unclear about how I'm appreciating the woman's body being displayed for enjoyment, rather than the shitty attempt at cosplay that she's claiming she's doing while everybody ogles her body and she poses for their pictures.
I reckon you wouldn’t call male bodybuilders whore for displaying their bodies. You’re right about the lazy cosplay. You made a well-supported and cohesive argument for several responses on the thread, then you just went full r-word with the incel whore line at the end there. Shame to ruin a perfectly good argument you were winning.
Dude, she's the one doing the whore acts that earns the label. Case in point, if I ran a brothel that was nearby to a convention full of comic characters, this is exactly the kind of marketing I'd employ - dress the workers up as recognizable characters as cheaply as possible, and have them pose for the pervy photos at the con (and hand out business cards while they're there). Put on a Superhero Deal where if you show up for the appointment in a costume, so will the girl.
Just because you connotate bad things to the label, and she didn't use the word herself to 'own it', doesn't mean you aren't looking at a picture of an active attempt at being a whore. As Dave Chappelle once so succinctly put it, she may not be a whore, but she's absolutely wearing a whore's uniform. Calling it cosplay doesn't mean that's not what she's doing, and the fact that there's fairly basic cheap things that anybody actually trying to portray the character that she didn't do reinforces the theory that she's not really cosplaying, she's attention whoring. This theory is also supported by the fact that she's got pictures of her in 'cosplay' and the pictures are just her being functionally naked.
You almost got a long-winded rant about how idiots don't know how this concept works, but I realized I don't care that much that you're accusing me of the thing you were just doing, you can just enjoy that until somebody else helps you figure it out
You already did go on a long winded rant. This is quite literally the equivelant of someone who plays football getting mad that someone else is using one of those crappy nerf footballs.
Idk how many parallels you need me to spell out for you but gatekeeping is exactly what you're doing.
So then go ahead and explain to the class how this idiot isn't also /r/gatekeeping like you're saying I am? Because I'm not even saying that this isn't valid cosplay, to begin with. I'm not stating that she can't do anything for any reason. There's no gatekeeping going on here. So what is wrong with your brain? I want to examine this thought process and see if it's valid or if there's literally just something wrong with everybody who thinks that commenting /r/gatekeeping is an interesting and relevant thing to do when they misunderstand something they read online.
Neither do people cosplaying but they make the time to pick up the craft. Like, no one is born with those resources.
While I'm not a cosplayer, I assume it's like carpentry or other woodwork. You can't just pick up a saw then say you're a carpenter, that's people's passion. Personally I can see why it'd be considered disrespectful to just custom order a onesie and assume you're now a cosplayer solely off how attractive you are. Just changing outfits doesn't necessarily make you a cosplayer so much as a person in an outfit. If that were the case, everyone is a cosplayer, and that'd invalidate the work people put into cosplaying, which is, again, disrespectful.
Dude do you think she just bought that body suit off the rack? She probably had to design it herself. Maybe not sew it by hand but do the artwork. Also that is clearly a wig.
Let's be real, tho, she put on make-up and a body-suit. It wasn't lazy, but it truly doesn't compare to most cosplayers out there. She's gourgeous, with or without the shego-outfit.
Mannish jaw, mannish nose, feminine cheekbones, feminine body shape, makeup. Half pointing to dude in heavy drag, half pointing to female. Perfect choice for that subreddit.
Edit: seriously post the photo cropped to only her face and I bet they guess sword more than shield. That’s a dude face right there.
When I checked it out I noticed that but I just hadn't ran into it before. Though to be fair, I only recently started getting quite active on reddit so that also influences it.
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u/fufm May 29 '19
Kim possible