I used to be pissed off.
Aug. 10th, 2007 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kukla_tkoOnce upon a time I got hot under the sequined collar about the injustices of the Costuming At Conventions world.
It's one of those things that one outgrows, I think.
You enter the costuming world all starry-eyed and excited that you get to wear your dress-up clothes. You see people wearing gorgeous finery and maybe feel a little intimidated by the heavy-hitters who are doing perfect movie replicas and amazing historical confections.
You're nervous and delirious about putting your own work on the stage, and carefully prepare your presentation. Maybe you have a mentor who walks you through it, or maybe you go it alone.
And there you are, on the stage showing off your work. You do a little something to make it come alive and you walk off the stage listening to the applause.
Then comes the judging and suddenly what you've done seems... overlooked. Or worse, trite. They give the awards to the novice who had help with the costume, or they give it to the cute kid in the halloween costume. You look around and realize that the awesome original ideas were ignored in favor of re-creations of existing art (movies, tv), or you see that you have to wear something that caters to the judges in order to win. Maybe there's something awful that wins for some reason having nothing to do with the competition.
Then the scheming begins.
Suddenly, you want that stupid award, and you don't care who you have to mow down to get it. Maybe you add the indignant stance that you WILL be awarded for the kinds of things that you do, regardless of who's judging. Maybe you decide to dance like a monkey for the organ grinder, and do the kinds of things that get awards. Maybe you research who is likely to be judging the contest and work toward impressing that person.
And time after time, you're given Honorable Mention nods, or Judges' Choice awards (what DO they mean, anyway? They're not category awards; they're little cookies given by the judges... or are they the Real Awards?)
Or you're ignored for years but they make you bump up to the next category because you've been on the damn stage so many times that they can't let you call yourself a novice anymore.
And the cycle continues.
Let's assume that you get a lucky break. You hit the right combination of luck, skill, timing, and personal energy and you take a major award.
Now what? Keep digging? Hang it up? Try to out-do yourself?
In the mean time, you either seethe to yourself or you bitch to anyone who will listen to you about how UNFAIR the whole thing is, how at that one con the only ones who got awards were the ones dressed as the characters portrayed by the actors who were judging. How you spent YEARS on this costume and nobody cares about it while the guy in the spandex (that you just KNOW that he ordered from Hong Kong, you recognize that Zantai suit maker's work...) is swanning across the stage looking all buff. You try to compete in other venues and discover that nobody cares if you made the costume when you're competing in a bar on Halloween for a cash prize. You discover that the Best Of Show winners at that minor con actually (gulp) RENTED that Lancelot and Guenivere set.
You find yourself competing against snot nosed kids in either their parents' handiwork or store-bought costumes and see the awards getting handed to them right and left.
And you know what?
You're not having any damn FUN.
So if you think that any of the above rant actually applies to you, consider this:
We dress up for many reasons.
Figure out why you do this. If the words "award", "Competition", or "Win" appear in that statement, TRY AGAIN. Get back to the root of why dressing up in funny clothes attracts you. Now, do stuff that makes you happy, forget the stupid awards and ribbons and titles and classes.
This goes double for that crazy woman in the Green Room who went on and on and ON about how UNFAIR the contests at the Anime cons were. I just looked at her and wanted to say, "Oh, sweetie. None of these costume contests are FAIR! Not one of them! They're all biased and frankly, you shouldn't be doing the kinds of things you're doing if you want to be competing in a FAIR environment. Good Lord! This contest isn't fair, it's biased in YOUR direction!"
After all, life isn't fair. One learns and figures out how to get through life without fairness.
Here's why I am a costumer.
I'm a performer and I've been addicted to the stage since I was in first grade. An excuse to tell a funny story, get a groan for an evil pun, or scare you right out of your pants? How on earth could I resist?
If I'm going somewhere fun I do a simple breakdown to determine what I wear:
Are we supposed to wear costumes?
Are we allowed to wear costumes?
Are costumes tolerated?
Can I get away with wearing this costume as though it were real clothes?
Would I be thrown out if I wore a costume?
Would I be arrested if I wore a costume?
I like costumes better than my "real" clothes. I've tried to avoid being a slave of Modern Fashion. I own more costume pieces than actual work clothes, and most of my shoes are not casual footwear.
So, I took myself out of competition for a while. This meant that I got the other half of the fun back, too: Dressing up my friends and letting them play with me onstage. As a Maaaahhster Costuuuumer I could never get my novice (or even my journeymen) friends to come and play with me. Oh, Noes! We cannot be on stage with YOU! We'd be competing against Them or Them or god forbid THEM!
No, no, no. Come and PLAY with me! Let us go up there and do some silly, scary, satire, or even a stupid skit, get away with something rude, or just be freakin' pretty together!
I make my costumes for me, my friends, and my troupe. My award is the looks on the faces of the audience, whether that is 2 thousand screaming fans or one person's look of recognition and awe.
And sometimes I do it to fool those closest to me. Fooling my mother in her own stuff FTW.
So, you compete against me at a SF con in something that has nothing to do with SF and you win, even though I wore something that was a reasonable re-creation of a very cool SF TV show?
So what? Good job on your work. No, I didn't understand it. Yes, I understand that a lot more work went into your costume, presentation, and meat-puppet wrangling.
Good for you!
I'm proud of my own art, and I'm delighted that you brought yours to share.
It's one of those things that one outgrows, I think.
You enter the costuming world all starry-eyed and excited that you get to wear your dress-up clothes. You see people wearing gorgeous finery and maybe feel a little intimidated by the heavy-hitters who are doing perfect movie replicas and amazing historical confections.
You're nervous and delirious about putting your own work on the stage, and carefully prepare your presentation. Maybe you have a mentor who walks you through it, or maybe you go it alone.
And there you are, on the stage showing off your work. You do a little something to make it come alive and you walk off the stage listening to the applause.
Then comes the judging and suddenly what you've done seems... overlooked. Or worse, trite. They give the awards to the novice who had help with the costume, or they give it to the cute kid in the halloween costume. You look around and realize that the awesome original ideas were ignored in favor of re-creations of existing art (movies, tv), or you see that you have to wear something that caters to the judges in order to win. Maybe there's something awful that wins for some reason having nothing to do with the competition.
Then the scheming begins.
Suddenly, you want that stupid award, and you don't care who you have to mow down to get it. Maybe you add the indignant stance that you WILL be awarded for the kinds of things that you do, regardless of who's judging. Maybe you decide to dance like a monkey for the organ grinder, and do the kinds of things that get awards. Maybe you research who is likely to be judging the contest and work toward impressing that person.
And time after time, you're given Honorable Mention nods, or Judges' Choice awards (what DO they mean, anyway? They're not category awards; they're little cookies given by the judges... or are they the Real Awards?)
Or you're ignored for years but they make you bump up to the next category because you've been on the damn stage so many times that they can't let you call yourself a novice anymore.
And the cycle continues.
Let's assume that you get a lucky break. You hit the right combination of luck, skill, timing, and personal energy and you take a major award.
Now what? Keep digging? Hang it up? Try to out-do yourself?
In the mean time, you either seethe to yourself or you bitch to anyone who will listen to you about how UNFAIR the whole thing is, how at that one con the only ones who got awards were the ones dressed as the characters portrayed by the actors who were judging. How you spent YEARS on this costume and nobody cares about it while the guy in the spandex (that you just KNOW that he ordered from Hong Kong, you recognize that Zantai suit maker's work...) is swanning across the stage looking all buff. You try to compete in other venues and discover that nobody cares if you made the costume when you're competing in a bar on Halloween for a cash prize. You discover that the Best Of Show winners at that minor con actually (gulp) RENTED that Lancelot and Guenivere set.
You find yourself competing against snot nosed kids in either their parents' handiwork or store-bought costumes and see the awards getting handed to them right and left.
And you know what?
You're not having any damn FUN.
So if you think that any of the above rant actually applies to you, consider this:
We dress up for many reasons.
Figure out why you do this. If the words "award", "Competition", or "Win" appear in that statement, TRY AGAIN. Get back to the root of why dressing up in funny clothes attracts you. Now, do stuff that makes you happy, forget the stupid awards and ribbons and titles and classes.
This goes double for that crazy woman in the Green Room who went on and on and ON about how UNFAIR the contests at the Anime cons were. I just looked at her and wanted to say, "Oh, sweetie. None of these costume contests are FAIR! Not one of them! They're all biased and frankly, you shouldn't be doing the kinds of things you're doing if you want to be competing in a FAIR environment. Good Lord! This contest isn't fair, it's biased in YOUR direction!"
After all, life isn't fair. One learns and figures out how to get through life without fairness.
Here's why I am a costumer.
I'm a performer and I've been addicted to the stage since I was in first grade. An excuse to tell a funny story, get a groan for an evil pun, or scare you right out of your pants? How on earth could I resist?
If I'm going somewhere fun I do a simple breakdown to determine what I wear:
Are we supposed to wear costumes?
Are we allowed to wear costumes?
Are costumes tolerated?
Can I get away with wearing this costume as though it were real clothes?
Would I be thrown out if I wore a costume?
Would I be arrested if I wore a costume?
I like costumes better than my "real" clothes. I've tried to avoid being a slave of Modern Fashion. I own more costume pieces than actual work clothes, and most of my shoes are not casual footwear.
So, I took myself out of competition for a while. This meant that I got the other half of the fun back, too: Dressing up my friends and letting them play with me onstage. As a Maaaahhster Costuuuumer I could never get my novice (or even my journeymen) friends to come and play with me. Oh, Noes! We cannot be on stage with YOU! We'd be competing against Them or Them or god forbid THEM!
No, no, no. Come and PLAY with me! Let us go up there and do some silly, scary, satire, or even a stupid skit, get away with something rude, or just be freakin' pretty together!
I make my costumes for me, my friends, and my troupe. My award is the looks on the faces of the audience, whether that is 2 thousand screaming fans or one person's look of recognition and awe.
And sometimes I do it to fool those closest to me. Fooling my mother in her own stuff FTW.
So, you compete against me at a SF con in something that has nothing to do with SF and you win, even though I wore something that was a reasonable re-creation of a very cool SF TV show?
So what? Good job on your work. No, I didn't understand it. Yes, I understand that a lot more work went into your costume, presentation, and meat-puppet wrangling.
Good for you!
I'm proud of my own art, and I'm delighted that you brought yours to share.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Amen.
Date: 2007-08-10 07:21 am (UTC)You do what you do for your own satisfaction. As do I.
Am I pleased if I win something? Of course I am; I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the ego stroke. But it's temporary. The satisfaction that comes from doing my best and enjoying the process, regardless of anything else, lasts forever.
We are artists and entertainers. Our styles are different, and that adds to the fun. There's room for all types.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-10 11:13 am (UTC)I prefer hall cosplay. I feel I get more attention there, and I don't have to wait to wear my costume until Saturday night so I can "debut" it.
I prefer dressing up for the sake of being able to dress up. I completely agree with you. ^^
no subject
Date: 2007-08-10 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-10 02:08 pm (UTC)Con*traception in Kansas City has much the same thing. The "costume contest" has been turned into three events: A balcony-decorating contest based on that year's theme, a parade related to that year's theme, and the Vaudeville Show which has no judging or awards of any kind.
No competition to speak of, really. Sometimes the parade gets judged, and the balcony contest always was judged. Unfortunately, now they have to get a new hotel. The wonderful hotel that hosted it for years has been torn down and rebuilt into something else. Sigh. I presume that the balcony contest is no more.
Long live the vaudeville show!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-10 10:21 pm (UTC)And since I didn't get to dress up much at all this year, I'm completely game for whatever's up next.
(btw, check your friends page while you're logged in, 'cause there's info there for ya)