I Was a 31-Year-Old Cosplayer

Much like the planet Alderaan, nerd culture is exploding.

You can hardly turn on a TV, watch a movie or enjoy a cool, refreshing soft drink label without seeing a character I was once picked on for enjoying. So how do I show the general public that I Iove fictional men in tights more than they could ever understand? By dressing like them, of course.

And I’m not alone. This last weekend, Chicago hosted C2E2, a national comic book and pop culture convention that featured hundreds of cosplayers utilizing miles of double sided tape. I attended dressed as Jareth the Goblin King--RIP David Bowie--and here is what muggles should know about the process.

How does one cosplay?

You know how “Batman Begins” spent like 10 minutes on how Bruce Wayne put together his Batsuit? To create a good-looking replica, the process can take days or even weeks, and cosplayers don’t have millions of dollars and Morgan Freeman’s soothing voice to help them.

When walking the floors of conventions, you will see costumes that light up, play music, move through mechanical automation and defy gravity in ways comic book artists drawing female characters can only imagine. To do this, cosplayers sew, dye, glue, paint, weld, bedazzle, wire and scour the California desert for dying aliens handing out power rings.

I got off easy. For my costume, all I had to do was purchase and maintain a wig, put together an ensemble from numerous online stores, spend 45 minutes on makeup and wear tight leggings, aka what many women do every day.

(For the sake of full disclosure: My girlfriend was the one who actually did my make up, although she refused to help with my dance belt.)

What could be the possible downside?

The nice thing about creating your own costume is that you can dress like your preferred version of your favorite character. This means you can go as guerrilla commando Princess Peach or Seventh-day Adventist Han Solo.

Many people choose to dress as the sexy or otherwise attractive variations of popular characters. For women, examples found in pop culture are in no short supply and sadly, neither is harassment. This is predicatively a bigger problem for She-Aa’s than He-Men, but even me, a man with Groot-like proportions, had his lower Gotham groped while dressed as Nightwing a couple years back.

Many conventions fight to prevent harassment so people can fight crime while looking fabulous without running into the villainous Cat Caller and his sidekick The Male Gaze, but you have to do your part. Just ask to take a photo, be respectful and don’t quiz every Mary Marvel you see on the history of Mr. Mind to see if they’re a “real” fan.

Why!? For the love of Zod! Why do you do this?!

I’m an adult. I work a day job and pay taxes (Oh, crap!...what’s today?), so why did I spend two days dressed like a bad guy in a kid’s fantasy movie? Because I can.

I enjoy being weird and role playing super heroes and villains the same way overweight middle-aged guys wear football jerseys. Or Sean Hannity dresses like a reporter. What’s great about conventions is people are not only supportive…they’re excited to see me. 

Cosplayers are not paid to be there. In fact, some of us drop hundreds of dollars on back issues of “Supergirl” and “The Legion of Super-Heroes,” but they are still a huge draw to convention-goers. Seeing somebody who not only enjoys the same obscure, prolific or nostalgic character as much as you do and spent days dressing like them….well, I know it makes me really happy.

So in the real world, our outfits may not help us save the world, but they can make somebody’s day.

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C.J. Tuor performs with the improvised drinking thriller “Hitch*Cocktails” every Friday night at The Annoyance Theatre in Chicago.