Not the Winter Soldier: Cosplay, Trick-or-Treating, and Safety

As evidenced by my Halloween post, I cosplay fairly frequently. I don’t hand-sew my costumes like some people do. To be honest, most of my cosplays are thrown together the night before the event I’m dressing up for—or the day of.

{Image is of me cosplaying as Tony Stark for the Iron Man 3 premiere. I am wearing a black Iron Man t-shirt from the boys’ section of Target and purple sunglasses I got for free somewhere. I have an arc reactor button pinned to my shirt. My hair is dyed brown, and I’ve painted a goatee on my face with mascara. All of this outfit was decided on just hours before the movie started.}

I enjoy dressing up. I’m willing to bet that most of your students do too, even the ones who don’t enjoy comics. High schoolers might be older kids, but they’re still kids. Ask who dressed up for Halloween, and I’m sure almost all of your students will raise their hands. Ask who went trick-or-treating, and some hands might go down, but you’ll still have some hulking teenage boys (and tiny teenage girls) with their hands half-raised.

The problem with big kids in costumes isn’t that they don’t deserve to have fun. But adults tend to view these huge costumed people shuffling to their door as a sham, or worse, as a threat. Not me, of course. I trick-or-treated through my freshman year of college, guys; I won’t turn anybody who wants candy way.

What happens when fully-grown adults wander the streets in costume? How about when they do so, and it’s not Halloween? This is the dilemma cosplayers are often faced with. Nobody wants to have to get dressed at the convention center, especially if they’re going to wear a handmade replica costume of, say, Iron Man. Con restrooms can be gross and awkward, and besides, some of the best photo ops happen when you’re in line for big events.

This leads to people wandering the streets as Captain Marvel or Harley Quinn. Not a big deal, right? Sure, cosplayers probably get funny looks (and unfortunately, cat-calls), but they aren’t generally perceived as dangerous.

Until they get ahold of replica weapons.

A man cosplaying as the Winter Soldier was arrested in Canary Wharf the other day because people mistook his replica gun for a real weapon. He was in town for a convention and, therefore, wandering in costume. As someone who spent a good amount of Halloween wrapping their fiancee’s arm in tinfoil, I can only imagine how much effort it would have taken him to apply and remove his extraordinarily realistic-looking metal arm. He probably wasn’t thinking about how he might appear to people who aren’t familiar with the erstwhile Bucky Barnes.

As some people have pointed out, cosplayers are supposed to leave the tips of their replica guns unpainted—usually they’re orange, if the gun is Air Soft. But even with a bright orange tip, from afar, guns look like a threat.

I sort of think the cosplayer’s bright silver metal arm should have been a hint that he was in costume. Not that people don’t have prosthetic arms, but usually they aren’t indestructible metal.

Still, I understand why someone called the police. Gun violence is no joke. It’s better to be prepared, to take action every time a gun might be present, than to let something slip.

Though this whole situation reminds me of an anecdote Viggo Mortensen tells in the behind-the-scenes clips from Lord of the Rings. He took his prop sword everywhere with him in order to practice his moves. One time, he was wandering the streets half-in costume, swinging his sword. A cop started tailing him. Somehow I think that a police officer working near the set of one of the biggest fantasy films of all time could have assumed that the sleep-deprived sword-wielder was an actor.

I can’t help but to think of the effect this must have had on the cosplayer, who didn’t have the good fortune to be a famous actor working on a film. I’ve been scouring tumblr to see if he has a blog so I can send him encouraging messages. He might have made a stupid mistake, but being arrested like that must have been traumatizing. In all of the photos of his arrest, he’s shielding his face.

{Image is of a police officer leading the cosplayer away. The cosplayer is handcuffed. He is shielding his face with his non-metal hand. Image (c) the Daily Mirror.}

Let’s say one of your larger boys, six foot tall—big guy, football player or basketball player—decides to be the Winter Soldier for Halloween. He goes all out for it—his best friends will be Cap, Falcon, and Black Widow, and they’re all designing their own costumes, so builds a metal arm and buys a replica vest. He even borrows Black Widow’s eyeliner to smear on his face as war paint.

As the final touch, he spray paints an Air Soft gun black.

Your big Winter Soldier goes trick-or-treating. Late at night: he’s fifteen or sixteen or seventeen, not a baby. He has his gun. He has his mask.

Somebody calls 9-1-1.

I have questions for your students and for you. What should the man on Canary Wharf have done differently? What are your thoughts/your students’ thoughts on older trick-or-treaters? On guns as part of costumes? On the culture of cosplay in general?

I don’t have the answers to these questions. Just more questions. Sometimes being a geek sucks.