Cosplay is made up from the two words ‘costume’ and ‘role play’ or ‘costume’ and ‘play’ (Crawford & Hancock, 2018). Cosplay is defined as the practice of dressing up as a character from a book, film or video game. (Oxford dictionary). A citation on the other hand is the a means through which readers understand that the material in your work is derived from another source. Cosplay is analogous to the citation as it references materials from other texts, by editing the original source to produce an image or identity of one’s own.
Cosplay is a source of citation for fans who use this medium to dress up or transform their bodies into characters from a variety of media texts (Mountfort et al., 2018). A cosplayers body is metaphorically a text that references or cites another text, this is shown in their dress and even behavior (Mountfort et al., 2018). The cosplayer is required to put a lot of effort into researching their chosen text and character, they would like to dress up as. Only then can their cosplay, and performance be successful; through the perfect reference. (Mountfort et al., 2018). It is not limited to the perfect costume but rather the portrayal of the essence of the true character that is being imitated, this includes pose and gesture. For the audience, it is crucial that cosplayers make strong references back to the characters so that the audience are immediately able to identify who they are imitating. Unlike other forms of costumes for different purposes, cosplay is heavily reliant on its source material order to be able to portray the correct image, therefore comparable to citation. (Mountfort et al., 2018).
Additionally, some cosplayers even choose to use mannerisms from that of the character or pretend that they are present within a specific setting from the text that they are citing. This is beneficial to the audience as they now have a much stronger sense of how much research and thought was put into the costume. As well as the fact that they are able to cite materials, while expressing themselves as freely as they would like to be. Moreover, cosplayers are not limited to character adaptations but can also source “parody, pastiche, satire, burlesque, and caricature.” (Mountfort et al., 2018). They have the full freedom to cite multiple materials from a single source in order to enhance the character, or perhaps incorporate the different versions of the character into one, and portray it to the audience. Multimodal texts can also be cited in order to represent a character. Their opportunities to cosplay are limitless, and there is not a set structure or boundaries to follow other than sourcing correctly. For the above reasons, cosplay is analogous to citations.
References
Crawford, G., & Hancock, D. (2018). Urban poachers: Cosplay, playful cultures and the appropriation of urban space. The Journal of Fandom Studies, 6(3), 301-318. https://doi-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/10.1386/jfs.6.3.301_1
Mountfort, P., Peirson-Smith, A., & Geczy, A. (2018). Planet cosplay: Costume play, identity and global fandom. Intellect. Lamerichs, N. (2011). Stranger than fiction: Fan identity in cosplay. Transformative Works and Cultures, 7(3), 56-72.
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