Q2. What does the terms détournement mean and how is it applicable to cosplay?
Cosplay is a term derived from costume and play. It is a way for fans of popular genres to dress as their favourite characters from TV, Films, Comics, Anime, and computer games. According to Mountfort et al. (2018) cosplayers may be enthusiastically found at places where these genres are celebrated such as fan conventions. There are differing levels of commitment to those who engage in Cosplay. Some people will happily throw on a cheap costume bought from a store, while other more serious cosplayers will spend a great deal of time and money perfecting their costumes. These more serious cosplayers will often take on the persona of the character they portray within the convention circuit. As such cosplay isn’t just about ‘dressing up’, it’s about inhabiting and participating in the world the character performs in. For theses cosplayers they are both the audience and the performer when amongst other cosplayers.
Furthermore there are those in the cosplay realm that take their performance more seriously. They use cosplay as more than fandom and enhance it to encompass critical practice.
“A term that is useful in unpacking cosplay from this perspective is détournement. Associated with the Paris-based social revolutionary group of intellectuals and artists of the 1950s known as the Situationist International, it remains in use in critical theory today and resonates well with cosplay. Détournement literally means ‘to reroute’ or ‘to hijack’.” Mountfort et al. (2018)
Mountfort et al. (2018) explains Situationist détournement cosplayers go above and beyond to replicate and to create their own fandom around their cosplay. They may use a mash up of characters or genres in a form of ‘recontextualization’. They rise above regular cosplay going creating playfulness, subversion, pranks, to intentionally test the political, aesthetics as well as social hierarchy and authority in a story world.
For people who engage in cosplay they are not simply role playing. They are simultaneously using détournement by gathering materials of various types, putting them together to recreate new identities for themselves for the performance and attendance at conventions. It is a serious and expensive form of creative exploration for people to discover their own inner selves through the process of costume and roleplay.
References:
Mountfort, P., Peirson-Smith, A., & Geczy, A. (2018). Planet Cosplay. Intellect Books. Intro and Chapter 1
Pop Genres 2020 