Through participant observation and interviews with cosplayers in the midwestern United States, we analyze the boundaries between frontstage and backstage and between self and persona (character) in cosplay spaces, where fans dress up as fictional characters. We find that back and front regions bleed into each other without causing the conflict or tension that dramaturgical theorists would predict, and that cosplayers engage in varying degrees of theatrical performance when in costume. This blurring of boundaries between front/back and self/character is part of what makes cosplay pleasurable. We argue that the body—not just as a “personal front,” but as cosplayers experience it—is important for understanding what cosplayers mean when they talk about “becoming someone else.”
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.