Forum - View topic

Man-Faye on Jay Leno

Thank you Jerseymilk, Wolverine Princess and the rest of the level headed people out there who read the article before assuming the guy is a major crossdresser hiding behind cosplay. I didn't want to take a public stand on this thread when it began hoping that people would read the interview and understand the reasoning behind Man-Faye without my need to defend his point.

Part of the reasoning for this is that I think the original spontanious idea for the costume is rather tacky and lacking in humor. I do however find the points of the police and convention center banning him from the con very alarming. It would be okay if they would have standards that apply to cosplay dress code that effect everyone, but this was a clear case of a double standard. The fact that Man-Faye was banned the following year and didn't get the support from the con staff is also a big statement in discrimination.

Although the humor of Man-Faye seems completely lost to me, the statement of censorship really hits home. Man-Faye isn't some delusional transvestite who enjoys being banned from cons. He is someone who is willing to become a spectacle (and maybe even enjoying it now) in order to make a statement. People like Man-Faye are important in this current era where our freedom of speech and ability to express radical ideas seems threaten.

Once again, he was just having some fun guys. I'm not a cross dresser or anything, but i've been to a Rocky Horror Picture Show or two and those cross dressers look like they're having a blast. So lets just stop whining about anime's image and fandom and all that nonsense, and just accept that this dude likes to cross dress, and has fun while doing it.

I am aware, and I encourage you to continue, I'm speaking to the sections of people angry about the whole ordeal. Forgive me, I should have clarified

I don't cosplay myself, but my understanding of it is that it is not so much an attempt to be a perfect image of the chara as much as it is a show of appreciation and devotion to the chara and anime it represents for the fan.

It really depends on how seriously you take cosplaying. Some people do it totally for fun and to enjoy dressing as a favourite character or illustrate their fandom for a particular show.

Others take it more seriosuly in that they *do* indeed try to emulate the character as closely as possible. They work at everything from as accurate a costume as possible to imitating the character behaviour, body language, poses, etc. And of course there are those that seriously compete at the masquerade competitions. It's also about fun for these types too, but just on a different level.

For me personally, yes I do cosplay, the choice of character I cosplay as is decided by whether or not I think I can pull the character off physically-wise first. Obviously I look at characters from series and games I love. But ya I think it helps to somewhat resemble the character at least a bit to pull it off. I also tend to prefer a unique choice, but not always. I just never want to have fifty other people all dressed the same way I am, running around at a con.

Unfortunately, I also have a gripe about this as well. There are some whom accurately cosplay, but are complete nutcases. I had the unfortunate opportunity to be witness to one Aeris cosplayer whom derided ANOTHER Aeris cosplayer going as a Zombie Aeris (as a poke to spoiler[Aeris dying in FFVII at the hands of Sephiroth.]) God, that was a sight to see.

If you like the characters, fine, but unless you can do it within a tolerable ammount of accuracy, or do it as an intentional joke, don't, just don't cosplay.