Salt Lake Comic Con and Why Dressing Up is Awesome

Last week, or rather a week and a half ago, I got the chance to go to the Salt Lake Comic Con. It was my first time ever, and I have to admit, it was pretty fun. It confirmed something I already suspected—I’m a nerd. Out of all the interesting things there, I would have to say my favorite thing was seeing all the people in their cosplay. As a very amateur costume designer, I enjoyed scoping out what everybody else had done. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough notice to come up with an awesome costume for myself. (I did make an attempt at a C-3PO involving an old hoodie and some gold spray paint, but it was an epic failure.) I made due with a simple R2-D2 t-shirt.

And yes, I stole that picture from the Salt Lake Comic Con Facebook page. Hopefully I don’t get in trouble, but it was too perfect, and it was my favorite cosutme there (for several reasons).

Despite the fact I didn’t go all out on my costume this round, I think dressing up is fun as an adult, and I personally believe it to be fairly healthy for children (and perhaps, in the right situation, for adults). Here are my reasons to encourage dressing up.

1- It exercises the imagination. It’s pretty hard not to go to that area of your brain that can take you out of your normal life into something different. Whether it is a little girl dressing as a princess, or a little boy trying out a football jersey, they are imagining something. I always used to love it when my cousins would come over. They were always happy to be crazy and dress up with me. As we got a bit older, the games of dress-up turned into coming up with stories, and eventually we even tried to make a movie with one of our interesting plots. It involved a mad-scientist (awesomely portrayed by my sister) who invented an “imagination machine” which would transport people to a world similar to that of a storybook. The movie never got finished, but the story stuck around for a long time. In fact, I still think there is potential in it, with quite a bit of tweaking and revision. But the point is, when kids are dressing up, they are creating a different scenario and putting themselves into it. I think this is an important step to gaining problem-solving skills.

2- It enables us to consider the views of others. How would the person you are dressing as view the world? Dressing up can enable you to take a step back from your point of view and help you see beyond yourself. For just a moment, it can be like walking in other’s shoes. One year for Halloween, I decided to dress as Shirley Holmes (Sherlock Holmes’s hastily created twin sister. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t be Sherlock himself. My school had cross-dressing rules). That day, I saw the world as Sherlock might. I had fun trying to solve problems using his methods, and thinking how he might react to any given situation. When you can learn to put yourself in a fictional character’s place, it is not difficult to translate that to putting yourself in a real person’s place. When you can take a step back and consider what another person might be thinking or feeling, it can make it a lot easier to get along with them. You don’t necessarily have to agree with them, but knowing where they are coming from helps you understand a little better.

3- It promotes self-confidence. My middle school used to have spirit week, where each day there was some crazy dress thing students could participate in. One day was crazy hair day, one day was hat day, and another was backward day. I loved that week. One year, they had super-hero day. While most kids wore a quickly thrown together cape, or a t-shirt depicting their hero, I decided to go to school as Wonder Woman. It wasn’t an exact replica costume—the school’s dress code would never have allowed that—but it was easy to tell what I was going for. I kind of went all out. As I walked into one of my classes, one girl commented, “Wow, you must have a lot of self-confidence”. I thought about it, and I guess I did. At that point in my life, I really didn’t care what other people thought. Kind of strange for a middle schooler, I know, but it was true. That day, however, I was walking with an extra spring in my step, because that is what Wonder Woman would do, and I was her. As I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that, it was still me being Wonder Woman that day, and if I could be that confident as Wonder Woman, why couldn’t I be that way when I wasn’t Wonder Woman? It had to be somewhere inside me. The costume wasn’t really magic. No, I can be just as awesome as Wonder Woman with or without a golden lasso.

So, there are three benefits to playing dress-up, or cosplay as they call it for adults. There may be more. Can you think of any I missed?

P.S.– I met some trolls at Comic Con. They let me take a picture with them. I think they took a liking to me.