Cosplay is still out of reach for some crowds.
Cosplay is a special art derived from ACG culture – in order to express their love for virtual works, people put on makeup and wear customized clothing to play their favorite characters.
Compared with other artistic activities, the threshold of cosplay is not high, it is more popular and belongs to the public. For enthusiasts, a great role-play can be accomplished even at a very low cost. Because there is almost only one theme of this kind of activity:
Imitate virtual characters and show your body.
But even so, this threshold is still out of reach for some people.
Muslim women in some countries have always been considered unrelated to “Cosplay”. In some Islamic countries, they are required to cover their bodies as much as possible:
In areas with stricter requirements, women need to cover their bodies with black robes; in areas with looser requirements, wearing a headscarf covering hair and neck is the basis.
Under this restriction, playing Cosplay has become a luxury for these women——
until a
“Scarf Cosplay”
The gameplay begins to appear.
The so-called “hijab Cosplay” is a “castrated version” of Cosplay activities invented by Muslim girls:
They modified the characters’ cos costumes to “conservative versions” that were doctrinal and fashioned the headscarves into hairstyles to replace the hair they shouldn’t be showing.
The girls get as close to their fantasy as possible without touching religious precepts.
Turn shackles into a part of creativity. This kind of “dancing with shackles” has been developing rapidly in recent years.
Compared with the average cosplay enthusiast, Muslim women are obviously more prepared for this event. In addition to basic makeup styling, they also need to wear conservative version of cos clothes that can wrap the whole body.
The most important step is to style the hijab – pinching it into folds to mimic the texture of hair.
The hijab is one of the most common religious attire for Muslim women. Although only in Iran and Afghanistan so far, women are required to wear headscarves, but in most cases, Muslim women still need to wear headscarves every day for the purpose of expressing their beliefs and protecting personal safety, and not showing their necks and necks in front of outsiders. hair.
They were taught to be “dignified” from an early age and to take care of their physical privacy to avoid being sexually attractive to others.
But these girls still have a “beauty-seeking” nature. It is also for this reason that Muslim women wearing hijab gradually began to decorate their appearance through various secret means, such as adding accessories and matching hijabs of different colors according to their clothes.
Under the trend of this hijab fashion, around 2010, a kind of “unthinkable” event also came into being:
Bandana Cosplay
. (hijab Cosplay)
This is a bold attempt. In ordinary cosplay, wigs are the essence of cosplay. But in hijab cosplay, the hijab appears instead of the wig.
Girls choose a headscarf that is similar to the character’s hair color and use it as hair.
And modify the cos clothing to ensure that you do not show body parts other than your face and hands.
Compared with the pursuit of physical resemblance, Muslim COSERs can only aim at “spiritual resemblance”, abandon the degree of reduction, and move closer to the role they play as much as possible.
But even so, when the concept of hijab Cosplay first came out, it was quickly welcomed by Muslim ACG fans.
Among the Islamic believers, ACG culture lovers constitute a small and low-key group. Although strictly religious, Muslims shouldn’t watch Japanese anime – there are a lot of naked women and sexual content. But there is still a group of unswerving otakus who say that they will reasonably love animation and two-dimensional culture on the premise of not violating religious regulations.
On Facebook, a group called the “Islamic Homestead Community” has been established for many years and has nearly 5,000 participants so far.
Their aim is to balance hobbies and beliefs.
The activity of hijab Cosplay has become popular among these Muslim homesteaders.
Prior to this, although these Muslim otaku girls had already known about the existence of Cosplay, they never thought of trying it.
The birth of this castrated version of Cosplay gave them a chance to experience different identities briefly.
In the emerging period of hijab Cosplay, some Muslim girls in the region who have looser restrictions on religious dress have begun to boldly join this activity.
Mainly in Indonesia
At this stage, their handling of the headscarf is still somewhat unfamiliar: it is simply put on, and nothing else is done.
With the further popularity of hijab cosplay, more tricks began to appear.
About five years after the concept of hijab cosplay was born, some hijab cosers began to become popular on the Internet and were followed by people from all over the world with different beliefs.
People marveled first at their expressiveness not suppressed by the religious system, and secondly at the creativity of the girls with their headscarves.
In 2016, a Muslim COSER became an Internet celebrity for cleverly imitating Harley Quinn with a hijab.
As hijab Cosplay is gradually accepted by more people, Muslim girls have paid more attention to the shape of the hijab.
They started experimenting with shaping the headscarves to get closer to their characters.
From imitating the texture of long hair.
To fabricate a “double ponytail”.
Muslim COSERs use various ways to design their own headscarves and share tutorials on the Internet for their colleagues to learn.
Groups with the theme of hijab cos started to be established on the Internet. In a shopping mall in Malaysia, a small comic exhibition of turban Cosplay was also held, and about 20 fans participated.
At comic conventions around the world, the figure of the hooded COSER has also begun to appear.
A group called “Hijab Cosplay”, which only accepts female members, was also established in 2014. So far, only 20,000 fans have participated, and it is still growing.
However, in contrast to its development momentum, the display form of the turban Cosplay event has almost no longer changed, but has stopped there.
Because it always has strict rules for participants.
On the promotion page of Hijab Cosplay (www.hijabCosplay.com), some basic precautions for this activity are listed in detail.
Its gist can almost be summed up as
“Muslim women should remain ‘dignified’ even in the process of cosplaying”.
For example: this activity requires Muslim female COSERs to cover their bodies; cos clothing should be loose and not revealing the figure; if you need to wear a base coat, white should be used instead of skin color; the overall effect should not be gorgeous, so as not to attract the opposite sex; Characters related to God.
And for these regulations, the Muslim COSERs are more than enough to implement them.
They will deliberately choose conservative characters and ensure that these characters do not conflict with Islam in terms of religion – such as whether to wear a cross, whether to be “favored by God”.
A female COSER from Indonesia, Ad Diena Islamy Haq once said: I will study the various costumes of the characters before cos, and then choose the most conservative one, and make sure that it has no religiously ambiguous attributes, such as the shape looks like like a cross.
Compared with ordinary COSER’s desire to “completely restore the role”, their pursuit is to “emphasize the distinctive characteristics of the character’s personality”.
At the fork in the road between religious precepts and personal preferences, it’s a decision that tries to do both. But even so, the controversy surrounding hijab Cosplay still exists.
In 2016, an Indonesian scholar conducted an investigation on the phenomenon of hijab Cosplay.
She interviewed a large number of Muslim netizens aged 19-36 on the Internet and asked them what they thought about the campaign.
The results showed that 96% of the respondents knew about cosplay, and 72% of the respondents knew about hijab cosplay. But of those, only 60 percent supported the campaign, while the rest of the respondents were unanimously opposed.
Because they believe that even if they cover their own bodies, the activity of cosplay itself violates Islam’s “dignified” requirements for women: the hijab exists to cover up the “shame body”, not to show oneself.
“Shame” in Islam refers to the private parts that should not be shown to people. According to different sects and regions, its definition is also different, and some places even consider a woman’s face to be a “shame body”.
In the eyes of conservatives, imitation of hair with a headscarf is a very contradictory act – it just doesn’t seem to violate the rules.
A similar sense of contradiction is often manifested in the bodies of Muslim women COSER. On the one hand, they want to enjoy the activity of Cosplay, on the other hand, they dare not completely remove their headscarves. “If I take off my hijab just for cosplay, I’ll feel bad for myself,” one woman said. “I’ll feel like there’s a conflict inside.”
On social media, COSERs who perform hijab cosplay often face this kind of controversy. They are not only questioned by their peers for being unruly, but also criticized by Cosplay fans for “not enough restoration”.
Finding self and “beauty” in the cracks is something these people have to experience.
But in recent years, as restrictions on religious dress have been relaxed in some regions, hijab cosplay has begun to no longer be seen as a serious act of treason. On social software such as Tik Tok and Ins, Muslim COSERs began to appear enthusiastically wearing headscarves, chasing popular culture with ordinary people.
For example, at the moment when “Spy Play House” exploded, the turban Ania began to become a hot spot of attention.
After a long period of accumulation, the use of hijab by Muslim girls has become more flexible, to the extent that it is no different from a wig at first glance.
Their costumes and props are also better.
It’s just that most of these COSERs who have the courage to show themselves and perform well on the Internet are still in non-Islamic countries. For them, wearing a headscarf is more inclined to self-selection.
But in areas with stricter controls, it becomes difficult to discuss “voluntary” or not. Plenty of Muslim girls are still enjoying the hobby in a more low-key, conservative form—and they’re even among the lucky ones who get a chance to try it.
In more places, Muslim women still choose to remain “dignified”.
So far, there are still Islamic countries that require women to wear black robes and headscarves in public places. Last year, a 21-year-old Afghan woman was shot dead in the street for not wearing a hijab; more recently, Iran has tightened its dress code for women, with more than 1,500 women punished for not wearing a hijab in the past two months.
Therefore, for these Muslim COSERs, their greatest wish is to allow more compatriots to enjoy this relatively free activity.
Cosplay is for everyone – in interviews about Hijab Cosplay, these interviewees almost always emphasized this point.
An Indonesian COSER named Matsurikara once became popular for her outstanding cosplay work. In an interview, she also encouraged other girls like this:
“Cosplay is for everyone, regardless of race, age, etc. Cosplay doesn’t belong to anyone, so anyone can do it.”
Matsurikara’s work
Matsurikara belongs to the “pioneer” among Muslim COSERs. She has been experimenting with hijab cosplay since 2012. Compared with other girls, she is more avant-garde and bold. Before that, she even tried to take off the hijab and use a wig for a full cosplay, because the character (Funno Esayama) was not so revealing and wore a scarf, “So, I feel that this character can cos in a normal way. “
This article is reprinted from: https://www.yystv.cn/p/9561
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