Image Attribution: “Cosplay Character Wonder Woman” by Alyson Tabbitha is licensed under CC BY-SA. (See interactive map)
Parth Zalawadiya
VISA 1500_01
Dr. Terryl Atkins
Assignment 2, Part A
Alyson Tabbitha is a cosplay artist from Florida who debuted in 2017. She portrays herself as “just a girl who likes to play dress-up & create things” on her Instagram page. She is one of the famous cosplayers in the community known for her makeup transformations with over 1.1M followers on Instagram. Alyson Tabbitha shows on her social media her passion for cosplay. “Alyson Tabbitha is known throughout the cosplay community as the cosplayer with many faces” (Endter, 2020). She has cosplayed Wonder woman, Captain Jack Sparrow, The Joker, and many more.
In this picture, Alyson Tabbitha is cosplaying Wonder woman who is a strong confident superhero in American comic books published by DC Comics. Most of the time, Alyson is always cosplaying as a strong, independent, and confident superhero. In this picture, she is wearing a wonder woman outfit including accessories such as the armor, the shield, and her tiara. She made her costume herself and the sword that she has in her hand is from goregeek, a social media influencer. Her makeup and hair truly make her look like the long-lost twin sister of Gal Gadot. The picture was taken in the forest which shows that she is not scared of anything, ready to conquer and vanquish anything coming her way. Her facial expression looks angry, ready to fight, and determined. She has strong body language which shows that she has huge confidence in herself. I think that with this kind of body language, we can see her personality through it too. She was inspired to make the costume by Gal Gadot herself. She said on her Instagram caption “I saw Gal Gadot make such a fun vid for today, so it inspired me to make one too!”
Looking into cosplay on google scholar and some websites I realized that women superheroes such as Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, or Super Woman are very sexualized. They have this hourglass body, very “short and sexy” outfits compared to men superheroes. Many teenagers, kids, and young adults may look at these women superheroes as the “perfect body” which can lower someone’s self-esteem.
Conner Dyer thinks that Cosplay is much more than just dressing up as a popular cosplay character. He thinks that cosplay can “promote critical thinking about interaction with popular culture and fandom, to explore the construction of identity, and to use cosplay as a form of artistic practice.” (2021) That’s what Alyson Tabbitha is trying to show as well, the artistic part of Cosplay and the construction of her identity. Moreover, I think that people take pride in fabricating, designing the costume themselves.
References
Endter, K. (2020, October 22). Alyson Tabbitha creates incredible wonder woman cosplay video. Cosplay Central. Retrieved October 17, 2021, from https://www.cosplaycentral.com/themes/cosplaying/news/alyson-tabbitha-creates-incredible-wonder-woman-cosplay-video.
Connor Dyer. (2021). Critical Pedagogy and Visual Culture Art Education in a Cosplay-Based Curriculum. Transformative Works and Cultures, 35. https://doi-org.ezproxy.tru.ca/10.3983/twc.2021.1987