Resistance within Reproduction: Affect, intervention, and embodiment in cosplay

The embodiment of character and narrative through cosplay – the (re)creation and wearing of costumes from popular culture – engenders a sense of liberation and empowerment in the cosplayer. Through this embodiment, the cosplayer is able to express and experience behaviours and emotions normally (normatively and usually) unavailable to them; this is reinforced by the reactions of others, which are informed by the character and associated narrative. This enables a radical form of identity exploration, wherein the cosplayer is able to express and develop an understanding of their own and others’ emotive and gendered experiences. To investigate these issues, I made and wore my own costumes and interacted with other cosplayers as an insider; crucially, feeling and recording the affects on my own body. Whilst the referenced popular culture narratives and characters typically reproduce existing militarised norms and aesthetics, and reinforce the link between agency and violence, the personal affective experience of embodying these characters through cosplay creates an ownership of them that intervenes in the traditional power relations by experiencing through them the illicit Other. Combining Butler’s performativity and Bourdieu’s habitus, I posit cosplay as resistance and transgression through reproduction, enabling the expression and exploration of gender identity through the embodied Other.