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Doctor Who Cosplayers
Feb. 25th, 2012 11:25 amYou can disagree with me on this wholeheartedly.
I recently read an article called Gender-swapped Doctors. The article's cosplay pictures are really fantastic, but I think it tries to read way too much into cosplayer motivations. It talks about female cosplayers who dress up as the Doctor, and how this reflects their perceptions of the show and their disappointment in female characters in the show. While this is an interesting argument, it left me confused.
Maybe because I've cosplayed in the past, but gender lines in cosplay are pretty much non-existent. I like the Doctor character, so I dress up as him. If I wanted to dress up as Martha Jones or a dalek, I would do it because I find those characters interesting. There's no real gender crisis for me, and I'm confused why the writer of the article expects cosplayers to have these same crises. Some of the questions asked in the article were:
Why do so many women want to dress up as the Doctor, rather than his many companions?
Because it's a goddamn Doctor Who convention. I don't understand why the writer of the article expects female cosplayers to all dress up as companions. That takes all the fun out of cosplay. The Doctor is the main character, and I don't know why the writer thinks that female cosplayers would stay away from him just because he's played by a male actor. Also, genderqueer. Look it up. It's kind of a thing.
And why do they create such beautifully femme versions of the Time Lord's eccentric costumes?
There are all sorts of different interpretations of the Doctor's costumes. There are very few and visible fandoms that prize absolute accuracy of costume over inventiveness. I'm sure you can name a few. Sure, there are femme versions of the Doctor's costumes. There are also steampunk versions. I would love an article about that.
And most of all, why doesn't the Doctor look like this on television?
Not sure if a real question or just creepy.
I recently read an article called Gender-swapped Doctors. The article's cosplay pictures are really fantastic, but I think it tries to read way too much into cosplayer motivations. It talks about female cosplayers who dress up as the Doctor, and how this reflects their perceptions of the show and their disappointment in female characters in the show. While this is an interesting argument, it left me confused.
Maybe because I've cosplayed in the past, but gender lines in cosplay are pretty much non-existent. I like the Doctor character, so I dress up as him. If I wanted to dress up as Martha Jones or a dalek, I would do it because I find those characters interesting. There's no real gender crisis for me, and I'm confused why the writer of the article expects cosplayers to have these same crises. Some of the questions asked in the article were:
Why do so many women want to dress up as the Doctor, rather than his many companions?
Because it's a goddamn Doctor Who convention. I don't understand why the writer of the article expects female cosplayers to all dress up as companions. That takes all the fun out of cosplay. The Doctor is the main character, and I don't know why the writer thinks that female cosplayers would stay away from him just because he's played by a male actor. Also, genderqueer. Look it up. It's kind of a thing.
And why do they create such beautifully femme versions of the Time Lord's eccentric costumes?
There are all sorts of different interpretations of the Doctor's costumes. There are very few and visible fandoms that prize absolute accuracy of costume over inventiveness. I'm sure you can name a few. Sure, there are femme versions of the Doctor's costumes. There are also steampunk versions. I would love an article about that.
And most of all, why doesn't the Doctor look like this on television?
Not sure if a real question or just creepy.
