In what ways can cosplay be understood in terms of notions such as affect, transportation, transubstantiation and mediated fantasy?
Cosplay is an art of entertainment which combines costume and role play. Participants known as cosplayers will play virtual roles by copying the outfits, the mannerisms and gestures of those particular characters (Mckay, 2019). The term of cosplay was convinced from the Japanese term “Kosupure” by a Japanese animation director Nobuyuki Takahashi (Runnebaum, 2019), who witnessed Western sci-fi costume culture and activities, and brought this popular culture into Japan, making some anime lovers dress up as Japanese anime characters. Since then, Japan has become a place to promote the culture of cosplay.
Cosplay can be interpreted as mediated fantasy. The cosplayers bring themselves into illusory roles from anime or fictional works by acting as virtual characters, transforming themselves into the dreamy and perfect self like anime. Thus, leaving the seemingly ordinary and humble of themselves from reality. This is also called as psychological transportation.
Psychological transportation, in simple terms, is to transform oneself into another character, as Mountfort (2018) said the ability to mimic an animated body and activate virtual characters, and cosplayers will achieve psychological pleasure and satisfaction through cosplay, Just like us need to relieve the stress of life through interests or hobbies. As according to Rahman & Cheung(2012), cosplaying provides performers with a momentary escape from the stresses and monotony of ordinary life; and allows them to enter into a whimsical dream of fantasy.
This is another kind of affective of transformation. The strength of the personality of a cosplayer will be affected by the role he/she plays, that is to put themselves into a specific role, not only the body, but even the personality will be affected by imitation, this is also called an intense corporeal response (Mountford, 2018). For example, a person who tends to be shy, once dressed as an anime character, he/she will be confident and put more efforts to perform in accordance with the level of the role he/she plays. However, this phenomenon is also called Proteus effect, that is cosplay is an asemic medium, the behaviour of the character may become intertwined with a participant self, once that individual exists that role, he/she will take on traits of that role for while, eventually leading to split personality (Lesher, 2017). This is a critique of cosplay is wrong, because there are many controversies, as according to Mountfort (2018) relationships between cosplayers with the source text and the role-playing of popular media avatars are often complex and parodic, in the end, they are merely performers to perform within a certain range. Proteus effect is wrong towards cosplay because ordinary people like us grow up through the influence of the surrounding environment to produce some kind of personalities, but ordinary people do not have the hobby of cosplay.
Finally, cosplay is an emotional and spiritual feeling. Fans of anime love to see the virtual characters to be realized in realistic forms by the cosplayers. For example, the traits of cool, hot, sexy, and cute in the animation are realized or activated. Because of the enthusiasm of fans, cosplayers are highly valued like celebrities, and it also gives cosplayers greater confidence and energy to promote cosplay culture (Rahman & Cheung, 2012). For participants, fictional characters also have personality and emotions, which are self-projection. Therefore, cosplayers are knowledgeable about the characters based on their own experience and regard the characters as their peers. Cosplayers do not play cosplay for being unique, but their love and passion of anime and their ability to improve their self-concept via cosplay, it can be said as the process which they build their self-image.
Reference:
McKay, R. (2019). Cosplay: Everything you need to know about it. Are Media. Retrieved https://www.who.com.au/what-is-cosplay
Runnebeum, A. (2019). The origin of Cosplay. Japan Daily. Retrieved https://japandaily.jp/the-origins-of-cosplay-6598/
Mountfort, P., Peirson-Smith, A., & Geczy, A. (2018). Planet cosplay: Costume play, identity and global fandom. Intellect Bristol,UK/Chicago, USA. Retrieved https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/pid-5343828-dt-content-rid-12985577_4/institution/Papers/ENGL602/Publish/Mountfort%202018_Planet%20Cosplay_Intro%20and%20Chaapter%201%20Cosplay%20as%20Citation.pdf
Rahman, O., Wing-Sun, L., & Cheung, B. H. M. (2012). “Cosplay”: Imaginative self and performing identity. Fashion Theory, 16(3), 317-341. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174112X13340749707204
Leshner, C. E. (2017). Theories and implications of the Proteus Effect on cosplay. The Phoenix Papers, 3(1), 46-55. Retrieved https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Connor_Leshner/publication/321170271_Theories_and_Implications_of_the_Proteus_Effect_on_Cosplay/links/5a130b150f7e9b1e572c2f47/Theories-and-Implications-of-the-Proteus-Effect-on-Cosplay.pdf
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