Well, speaking as a girl who's considering crossplaying as a rather femmy-looking teenage male character -- part of the rationale behind the cosplay I'm pondering is that I'm sufficiently flat-chested that it'd probably be a rather easier to squash my boobs down for a guy outfit as opposed to piling on the padding to get a typical anime-girl sort of figure; part of it is that his hair's of a length and style where I wouldn't need a wig, just a spot of hairdye (and I've already got the right eye color); part of it's that his costume would be relatively simple to put together and is a good cut for disguising my very obviously non-masculine hips; and aside from those practical considerations, he's a minor, relatively unpopular character so there aren't going to be a squillion other people running about in the same outfit. I've yet to see ANYONE cosplaying as the poor boy, and he's one of my favorite minor characters so that's a bit of incentive to do it myself just so he gets some cosplay love. *shrugs* (Haru from Avatar season one, if you're curious; the girls that I like best there either have the wrong body type, or I'd need a wig, or their outfits would be way more work and expense than I'm up to right now, or there are already enough really good versions running about that I don't feel like reinventing the wheel.)
for me, it's odd seeing a female dressed up as a male character I'm attracted to because I'm not attracted to females
Ah, for me there's no real cognitive dissonance there as I'm bi and just interested in general in crossdressing and other forms of more playfully fluid, performative approaches to gender. But I'm also one of those girls who's just as likely to identify with male characters as well as female ones -- some of that probably goes with the territory of having been a somewhat tomboyish girl in a generation when there were relatively slim pickings for girl characters that I could see myself in. I got in the habit of identifying with boy characters since they were usually the ones with interests and adventures that I could put myself into, and while it's much easier these days to find female characters that do click with me, I've still never gotten out of the habit. If there's a story I love and the female characters are unappealing, or just too different from me, or just barely there to begin with, and there's a male character who is more in synch with my personality, I'll still glom onto the guy character without a second thought.
(Mind you, Saiyuki has brought me an entirely new sort of cognitive dissonance, because this is the first time I can think of in a lifetime's worth of fangirling where the character I perv on the most is *also* the one I identify with the most strongly. That's never happened to me before and it really, really hurts my brain if I try to think about it too much...)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-01-21 10:35 pm (UTC)for me, it's odd seeing a female dressed up as a male character I'm attracted to because I'm not attracted to females
Ah, for me there's no real cognitive dissonance there as I'm bi and just interested in general in crossdressing and other forms of more playfully fluid, performative approaches to gender. But I'm also one of those girls who's just as likely to identify with male characters as well as female ones -- some of that probably goes with the territory of having been a somewhat tomboyish girl in a generation when there were relatively slim pickings for girl characters that I could see myself in. I got in the habit of identifying with boy characters since they were usually the ones with interests and adventures that I could put myself into, and while it's much easier these days to find female characters that do click with me, I've still never gotten out of the habit. If there's a story I love and the female characters are unappealing, or just too different from me, or just barely there to begin with, and there's a male character who is more in synch with my personality, I'll still glom onto the guy character without a second thought.
(Mind you, Saiyuki has brought me an entirely new sort of cognitive dissonance, because this is the first time I can think of in a lifetime's worth of fangirling where the character I perv on the most is *also* the one I identify with the most strongly. That's never happened to me before and it really, really hurts my brain if I try to think about it too much...)