A Thought On Drow Cosplay

Male_drowEarlier today, over on Google Plus, I got into an argument with some folks, who were seriously taking the position that banning people from cosplaying as Nazis was somehow a slippery slope to actual Nazism, because “it was curtailing freedom just because of feelings” or some other nonsense.

Anyway, I was arguing that it should NEVER be done. Which resulted in one of the folks saying that my position was just like the “social justice” people who are complaining about people cosplaying as Drow.

So here’s the thing — there have been some pictures circulating around the internet today of Drow cosplayers at GenCon. I’m not linking to it — you can find it if you want. The problem, as is sadly often the problem with fans cosplaying as Drow, is that they look like they’re in blackface. That’s always going to be the association of a white person who has caked jet-black make-up on their face. It’s a thing. A thing with some very strong feelings behind it, and I’m saying that perhaps you might consider what impression you’re giving.

Gamers: do a google image search on “drow”. You know what you don’t see? Anything that looks like your too-much-like-blackface cosplay. You see grey skin, pale ghostly skin, violet skin, blue skin… Nothing there reminiscent of blackface. Cosplayers at cons, though? Blackface.

I’m sure you don’t mean it that way. But fer chrissakes, THINK.

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