Black Cosplay Lives Matter
The darkness behind cosplay
As much as I honestly wanted to not title it that way, it captures how I feel about the current secret war that blacks have to deal with when it comes to cosplaying as popular characters. I call it a “secret war” because aside from the community that can’t fully identify with popular anime characters from shows like Dragonball, Naruto, Sailor Moon, One Pience, Hunter X Hunter, Pokemon, or My Hero Academia, no one else is thinking too much about it.
Or maybe we can’t find cosplay opportunities from the wide variety of fair skinned super heroes that dominate Marvel and DC. It is an onging battle many of us have when considering the newest convention to attend. With the ever growing popularity of the cosplay, more and more people with more and more variations are starting to arise, but does one have to cosplay as a character that matches their color or race in order for it to be a good cosplay?
I’ve been to many conventions, mainly Anime themed, such as Anime Expo in Los Angeles, but recently, I had the pleasure of attending Stan Lee’s LA Comic Con (formally known as ComiKazee). Amazing cosplays, from Arrow, The Flash, Overwatch, Gotham, you name it, it were there!
But the black community cosplay was lacking. Sure, there were plenty of us in attendance, but when seeing a Miles Morales (MM) or Black Panther cosplay, it was more than likely a black person behind the mask.
Why? Because alongside the popular (MM) Spiderman, Black Panther, Storm, War Machine, Green Lantern, and Cyborg, what options do we really have? With the popularity of Luke Cage recently, we can add one more to the fray, but that’s usually just jeans and a hoodie (we know how well that turns out). Still, where do we go?
I’ve always wanted to cosplay, but I’ve never had the right feel for any characters to believe that I would do them justice. The cosplay world can be a bit brutal sometimes as one’s style of costume can be heavily criticized for plenty of reasons, such as being a black Batman. When does it end? No one, even with the “right” skin tone, will look just like Batman, Naruto, Storm, or Nami, so why is it such a joke for us darker skinned cosplay lovers to dress up as a character that’s depicted as asian or white? Or better yet, why aren’t there more characters for us to choose from?
There are black coplayers such as Chaka Cumberbatch who absolutely KILL the game and don’t give any fucks, but it would be great for more individuals, including myself, to have the same mindset. It would be even better if the cosplay community would be more open, not only to black cosplayers but all shapes and sizes as well. Conventions are a time for the lot of us to truly be ourselves (or someone else) and show our love for these characters and that’s all they should be. One day, I’m going to get the dragon balls to step into a convention as Sanji or Oliver Queen and it will be amazing and feel amazing. The future will be bright for dark skinned cosplayers and the movement will grow.
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