The Cause Behind The Play

For Mallory Alexa and Michelle Dira, being in costume is a natural state of existence.

The girls are the founders of the New Paltz Cosplay Cartel, created last semester. The idea for the club came when the creators became close friends after attending the same convention over spring break. The two wanted to create a “cosplay home” after realizing a cosplay club did not exist at the college.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Alexa, a second-year English education major and president of the club, said. “It’s a great way to form a geek community, meet new people and represent how much of a fan you are of something.”

According to Alexa, cosplay is a “culmination of art forms” incorporating photography, costuming, modeling and makeup art.

The art form began with character homage at Star Trek conventions and has since taken off in popularity with the development of other fandoms and pop-culture conventions, Alexa and Dira said.

Alexa began cosplaying in 2009 after seeing cosplay videos online. With a seamstress grandmother and a makeup artist mother, Alexa said she already had the tools and experience passed down from her relatives to begin creating cosplay.

Dira, a second-year English education major, was in eighth grade when she saw her first cosplay video and began to teach herself the craft through tutorial videos online. Having gained more experience as well as instruction from Alexa, Dira now considers her cosplay worthy of “art.”

“There’s something exciting about trying to replicate a character that you love,” Dira said. “Then you find a photographer that loves what you look like, and you find a [photo] editor that would love to turn you into that character.”

While the process of accurately embodying a character requires skill, talent, collaboration and determination, it cannot begin without first finding a character, Alexa said.

“It starts with a series that you love,” Alexa said. “If it’s an anime, a video game, a comic book, you meet that character and you are able to associate with them or they resonate with you. It’s a lot about self identifying with them.”

After finding a character and going through the laborious creation of a costume, cosplayers have an opportunity to showcase their work at conventions.

Preparation for these conventions are often the most stressful experience cosplayers go through, Alexa said, as they represent the deadline when a costume must be as perfect as possible.

The convention environment itself can even be a cause of stress, particularly for female cosplayers, Dira said. Sometimes other convention-goers make unwanted sexual advances or remarks based on what they’re wearing.

Dira said she used to laugh it off and walk away. But she said after seeing a video distributed throughout the online cosplay community called “Cosplay is Not Consent,” featuring both male and female cosplayers taking a stand against unwanted comments, she will now confront a harasser, telling them what they said has made her uncomfortable and asking them not to do it again.

Dira said hearing derrogatory comments can create a feeling of vulnerability and loss of empowerment that many cosplayers feel while in costume. Her advice to anyone who experiences a verbal harassment is to report it — not only for themselves but for the community itself.

On the other hand, the two agree that cosplaying can  be an empowering experience.

“It’s something really cool to take control of your own body and present an image you might not necessarily be able to portray otherwise,” Dira said.