Posted in: Comics, NYCC | Tagged: Charlie Quinn, Comics, cosplay, entertainment, NYCC, Poison Oak, Rule 63

Cosplay/Crossplay: NYCC Rule 63 Panel

By John Odum

No, we're not talking about Ferengi_Rules_of_Acquisition "Work is the best therapy – at least for your employees"… but the internet-originated "rule" stating that any fictional character has it's gender-swapped alternate – a rule that expands as our social and biological concepts of gender do.

LGBT and disability activist Jay Justice, joined by cosplayers Tony Ray and Brayan Vasquez, emceed a panel as an open conversation with "crossplayers" to provide support, and share experiences in cross-gender cosplaying.

"Don't let your haters stop you, let your haters motivate you" Ray advised, while recounting a cosplay experience as "Poison Oak" accompanied by "Charlie Quinn." Vasquez, on the other hand, characterized demands that a gender-bending cosplayer justify their creative choices as a form of bullying.

"I don't care if I'm the shortest, wimpiest, big-boobiest Colossus you'll ever see… it's about fun." Justice explained.

Cosplay as personal creativity and playfulness was the initial message of the panel, with panelists and audience members recounting tales of passersby trying to impress a political message they could object to onto an individual creative cosplay. "I am whatever character I am dressed up as, I am not the 'black (version)'," Ray explained.

However, as the discussion quickly broadened into a general discussion of the interplay between race, queerness, and cosplay, the spectrum of the personal & political could not be overlooked – particularly in regards to race. Ray laid out in no uncertain terms that cosplay does not exist in a cultural vacuum

"Blackface is steeped in history," he noted, acknowledging that some costuming decisions could inevitably evoke far more than an isolated character, and that those lines and mores transcend genre.

With culture on the table, the discussion of cosplay as an individual exercise gave way to a range of social influences, pressures, expectations… and controversies. Topics of discussion ranged from discussions of diversity in films to the ongoing national controversy on cisgengered bathrooms.

Ray closed what had begun as a discussion centered around the individual, with an appeal towards community empowerment.

"We must stand together united and tall, and show them that we will not take (haters) bullcrap."

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