high regard given to cosplay’s transversal moment as it crosses gender, race or reality can be
seen to offer an optimistic creative and social moment’ 30 . ‘such.a.classic’ stares at the camera
defiantly, sword in hand, shield ready, while Tracy Trash raises a cocktail with a femme fatale
stare; but, Both cosplayers’ creativity embody a form of Wonder Woman which extend Wonder
Woman’s narrative.
The onlooker however, fails to be wholly convinced. Commenting upon the duality of
the masquerade Weltzien argues ‘it is not possible to call either of the two personalities the
real one and the other the disguised one, there is no one “true identity”’ 31 . Under this frame
work, both the cosplayer and cosplay can be said to simultaneously exist. The male cosplayer
and the female Wonder Woman are both present. Both identities are ‘real’ to the onlooker.
Martin Shingler’s paper on drag 32 places a distinct focus on what Valocchi might term the
‘social consequences’, noting that ‘In drag, gender (the performer’s femininity, signified by
costume and behaviour) is at odds with sex (the performer’s anatomical maleness, which is
repeatedly exposed)’ 33 . Therefore, so long as there is an awareness of gender bending, the
performer cannot fully embody the alternate gender. In gender bending Wonder Woman, so
long as we are aware of the male physique, the male performer cannot be Wonder Woman.
Though, cosplayers do succeed in evoking shared narratives, through the iconography they
adopt. Spieldenner understands that audiences of Wonder Woman embody, ‘Wonder
Woman’s transformations’ 34 which offer practical examples for the ‘reader on managing a
shifting identity’ 35 . For some cosplayers, gender bending is an important creative process, as
a platform of expression. Whilst the cosplayers cannot be Wonder Woman, they are all
Wonder (Wo)man.
Conclusion: ‘I will fight for those who cannot fight for themselves’ 36
If those who gender bend Wonder Woman in cosplay can be considered Wonder (Wo)men,
what does this have to say about the performed gender? In Undoing Gender, Butler examines
the complexities of defining these terms, posing the question: ‘Is what we mean by gender
Jason Bainbridge and Craig Norris, ‘Posthuman Drag: Understanding Cosplay as Social
Networking in a Material Culture’, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific. 32
(2013): 35.
31 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): 241.
32 Martin Shingler, ‘Masquerade or drag? Bette Davis and the ambiguities of gender’, Screen 36:3
(1995): 179-192.
33 Ibid., 188.
34 Andrew R. Spieldenner, ‘Altered Egos: gay men reading across gender difference in Wonder
Woman’, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 4:2 (2012): 241.
35 Ibid., 241.
36 Spoken by Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins
(USA: Warner Bros., 2017).
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