Cosplay & Gender
How Watchmen’s costumed culture subverts patriarchal norms
As I walk through the vast layout of my first comic book convention, my eyes dart here and there. A sea of costumes surrounds me, imitations of characters both instantly recognizable and bafflingly foreign. Cosplayers, displaying an admirable dedication to character, rush here and there. I have a conversation with The Wolverine, whose responses are mostly guttural growls, and I say a flirtatious hello to Black Canary, who points her fist at me in a karate stance.
Comic book conventions and cosplay are so intertwined that one calls to mind the other. To an outsider, a convention (more commonly abbreviated as “con” in the popular lexicon) looks like nothing more than a group of overly obsessed fans, spouting off nonsense about “alternate timelines” and stuffing themselves into ridiculous costumes. But to the seasoned fan, calling those getups “costumes” is a cardinal offense. Cosplay is central to fan participation and comic book culture. Dedicated fans often fabricate their own cosplays, putting meticulous attention toward accuracy and authenticity. Often, fan-made cosplays rival the costumes used in major motion pictures based on the same character. When a fan cosplays, they are not merely in costume, either. Professional cosplayers attempt to embody their characters, even going so far as to use principles of method acting to determine how their character will respond in any given situation.
A cultural landmark for the graphic medium, Watchmen has developed its fair share of cosplayers. Venture into any significantly large convention, and you are bound to come across some rendition of The Comedian, Silk Spectre, or any of author Alan Moore’s characters, unshackled from the pages of their tome and come to life amid racks of vintage prints and overpriced memorabilia.
Cosplay as a participatory experience means that cosplayers often find fresh interpretations of old characters. One of the most common cosplay tropes is the genderbend. In a genderbent cosplay, a traditionally male or female character is reimagined as the opposite sex. At first glance, genderbending may seem like just one more inscrutable aspect of nerd culture, but in practice it works to break down narrowly defined definitions and expectations of gender in a culture that has been dominated by males for much of its storied history.
Watchmen in particular has developed a significant amount of genderbent cosplays among its fandom. Upon cursory Googling, it appears that the most commonly genderbent Watchman is The Comedian, although Nite Owl, Rorschach, and Ozymandias have all been re-imagined as women by fans. Genderbent Comedian cosplays are especially intriguing, in that they eschew the character’s traditionally utilitarian leather body armor in favor of tight fitting latex and dominatrix-like garter straps, much like Silk Spectre’s default costume. This hypersexualization of male-to-female genderbends is surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly, depending on your level of societal cynicism) routine in the cosplay community. In viewing the Watchmen fandom and Watchmen-related cosplay as a microcosm of fan culture at large, it becomes evident that cosplay simultaneously allows the breaking down of gender barriers, resulting in a form of gender fluidity, even as it confronts widespread sexism prevalent in comic book culture.
Cosplay as an accepted facet of comic book participatory fan culture is significant in that it allows gender norms to becomes blurred; women in particular are allowed to display traits traditionally associated with masculinity and reclaim them. Rachel Adidin, an editor at Dark Horse Comics, writes thoughtfully in an article on io9, “Being a woman in geek culture was for a long time a profoundly gender-deviant act. ‘Girl and ‘geek’ were a zero-sum dichotomy: to claim space in one, you had to relinquish equivalent claim to the other.” She goes on to describe the way in which female-dominated segments of geekdom like cosplay have aided in improving visibility for and cementing the core identity of female comic book fans. This effect is particularly noticeable when one considers gender-bent cosplays, wherein a woman or man cosplay a character who is the opposite gender in the source material. Reclamation of gender identity is apparent in the Watchmen fandom, where the most commonly gender-bent character is The Comedian, who is prototypical of the hypermasculine ideal. With his gruff demeanor, muscular build, and an affinity for large, phallic weapons, The Comedian is an ironic alpha-male ideal cobbled together from many such characters in comic book lore. He draws specific inspiration from X-Men’s cigar smoking, chopper-riding, indestructible bundle of bulging muscles that is The Wolverine, the most overt example of testosterone-fueled alpha-masculinity ever to grace the pages of a comic book. When genderbent, The Comedian does not relinquish any of these traits. The woman in the photograph above may have given the character cleavage and garter straps, but these have not altered the character’s masculine personality traits. It is the ultimate expression of gender fluidity.
Female cosplayers are also central in breaking down sexism within the comic book fan community. The increasing prevalence of female cosplayers increases visibility of women in the community, and works to bridge the gender divide in comic book culture. As Noah Berlatsky writes in The Atlantic, “Once you stop neurotically policing boundaries, the question of whether comics or superheroes are masculine or feminine becomes irrelevant.” Men, exposed to women who share their level of passion for comic book lore and culture, are more readily amenable to female participation at all levels. High numbers of female cosplayers also foster a safer environment for all women at conventions and other such events.
As comic books pander less and less to a young, male demographic with each passing year, cosplayers work to break down classical interpretations of gender norms within the fan community. This is a significant factor in decreasing the stigmi that plague female comic book fans. As comic book culture continues to converge with the mainstream, gender representation is more important than ever before. Female cosplayers have become an essential part of con and comic fan culture, contributing in far more ways than have been covered here. Even within the subcategory of Watchmen fan cosplays, the nuanced role they play in breaking down established gender norms is clearly evident.
