Category: Questionable Fridays
Last article published: 5 September 2014
This is the 14th post under this label
Obviously, in this day and age, there's a lot of quality cosplay trotted out at conventions, on social media, or, if we're gonna look to this weekend, on Halloween. At the highest end, these are movie-quality reproductions giving the rest of us some unavoidable insecurity about our arts & crafts attempts. In a way, at the level most of us can play it, I almost prefer covert cosplay, where someone is (to the knowing geek) is referencing/evoking a fictional character, but can still go to their office jobs with it. Only the connoisseur will recognize the "costume", and so here we approach how the word "geek" fits into Marty's question.
What is a geek? Or rather, because I don't want to be mistaken for a gate-keeper, what makes one thing geekier than another (and therefore, the "best" as per the question)? My answer would be obscurity. Just how niche is the costume might be a useful metric. The fewer "get it", the better. So an Ambush Bug cosplay is inherently geekier than a Batman cosplay, for example, while Ambush Bug can be beaten by an indie comics character like Too Much Coffee Man, and the still popular TMCM by a one-off or failed character like Big Bang Comics' Knight Watchman.
But there's another criterion I want to include, and that's creativity. It's one thing to reference someone else's character, but another to make it your own and have even the people in the fandom work for it. A personal example is dressing as Spock did in The City on the Edge of Forever (plain clothes, knitted hat) but adding a goatee. In other words: Mirror Universe Spock in City on the Edge of Forever. This combines a known character (Spock) with deeper Star Trek knowledge (a specific episode), then creates an untold story (in which, I'm sure, he kills Edith Keeler - or does she have to survive?). It's not just a costume, it's a conversation piece, and geeks do love to converse and debate minor points of continuity. Also, very easy to do with household items.
It also shows that you can be "obscure" and "creative" while still referencing something most people will recognize. For Doctor Who, I once raided an actor friend's closet and became "a future regeneration of the Doctor played by that actor". I've also gone to a party dressed as the time vortex, with a little TARDIS dangling on a spring in front of a vortex print (blue in front, red in back) stuck to my shirt. I've been movie credits, and the fun for other guests was reading my shirt and pants to figure out which movie's they were. Interactive deep cuts at a fraction of that mind-boggling Transformers armor built in someone's garage.
So while I wouldn't care to name the best geek costume I've ever seen - and it's definitely not one of mine, I admit I trade production value for clever ideas - I think it probably would have to fit both those criteria.
What do you think?
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