emerged. In addition, reference is made to writings of Judith Butler, identifying both limitations
and transformative consequences of gender bending in cosplayers playing with social
gendered norms.
Becoming Wonder Woman: Gender performance and transformation
When examining Wonder Woman’s relationship with LGBT audiences, Andrew R.
Spieldenner 4 , proposes that Wonder Woman represents a ‘quest for identity [which] is
reminiscent of accounts of ‘coming out’ for gay men’ 5 . These ideas of ‘coming out’ are seen
by Spieldenner in Diana Prince’s transformation into Wonder Woman, ‘by using the altered
ego, readers see themselves in multiple storylines and actions, far beyond a single
demographic’ 6 . Costume is integral to the superhero genre, and something which audiences
are able to interact with through cosplay. In cosplaying Wonder Woman, cosplayers are
‘coming out’ and expressing their own ideal gendered selves.
Judith Butler argues that ‘gender identity is the stylized repetition of acts through time’ 7 .
According to Butler, our cultural binary of male and female only exists in repeated cultural
actions, though Butler does locate a way to transcend these binaries ‘in the arbitrary relation
between such acts [of male and female, and], in the possibility of a different sort of repeating’ 8 .
In dressing as Wonder Woman, male cosplayers can be seen to appropriate a costume
disassociated with one’s own gender. For a demographic ‘coming out’, gender bending can
be read as a liberating act which enacts an arbitrary relationship between male and female. In
Friedrich Weltzien study on costume in the superhero genre Weltzien comments that
‘Transformation from one to the other is always indicated by the change of clothes. […] This
change transforms the whole personality’ 9 . This statement supports Butler’s understanding of
subversion, and emphasises the importance of dress in conveying gendered personalities. As
a result, male cosplayers who don female costumes, are able to enact alternative genders.
There are however limits to cosplays function, in that cosplay is usually confined to the
grounds of convention sites. In Butler’s writings on the theatrical actor and cultural actor Butler
comments, ‘“This is only a play” allows strict lines to be drawn between the performance and
Andrew R. Spieldenner, ‘Altered Egos: gay men reading across gender difference in Wonder
Woman’, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 4:2 (2012): 235-244.
5 Ibid., 241.
6 Ibid., 242.
7 Judith Butler, ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and
Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal, 40:4 (1988): 520.
8 Ibid., 520.
9 Friedrich Weltzien, ‘Masque-ulinities: Changing Dress as a Display of Masculinity in the Superhero
Genre’, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture 9:2 (2005): 232-233.
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