Final Thoughts on Heroes of Cosplay

One of my
early costumes

I’ve been a cosplayer for about 15 years now, so I was excited to see Heroes of Cosplay. The show was interesting and the costumes were beautiful but the attitudes of some of the cosplayers were crappy. I’ve already ranted about a few things on the show, but I wanted to share my feelings about the show as a whole, especially the finale.

Knowing this was a reality show, I know that it was edited together to make drama. And sadly, some of the elitist / size-ist attitudes shown in the show have basis in real life because I’ve come across it before in my own cosplaying journey. I have no doubt that Monika is at least as half as bitchy in real life as she is on the show because you can’t really edit some of the hateful things she said.

But what bothered me the most is what information that came out after the finale was aired. The following has spoilers if you haven’t seen the last episode. In the group competition, there was a group of femme Doctors from Doctor Who. They were shown getting into a scuffle with the ‘heroes’ from LA after an audience member shouted about how out of towners should go home. It caused quite the issue in the back stage area, with one of the ‘heroes’ in tears.

I felt bad for the ‘heroes’ when I watched the episodes, since they were the cosplayers I liked most on the show. But then the Doctor Who cosplayers story came to light. Apparently, the thing shouted was something along the lines of ‘everyone who isn't a SyFy plant, I love you,” but that was apparently dubbed over with the out of towners line. Also, from the Doctor Who cosplayers have said that the skit in the group contest wasn’t told to them until they got to the con, since it was the first time it had happened at Planet ComicCon. They were shown to be villains, rather unfairly from what I’ve read. You can read one account from one of the Doctor Who cosplayers' on tumblr.

While I did enjoy the show for the most part, I think it gave cosplayers a bad name in some ways. Some of the cosplayers had the right attitude, but some didn’t at all. I honestly hope that it doesn't come back because it will just be about the drama again and not about the fun that cosplaying should be.