Sunday, April 8, 2012

Cosplayer, Jessica Nigri asked to leave PAX due to costume...

"Word is that Jessica Nigri, a big-time cosplayer hired to portray the protagonist of Lollipop Chainsaw, was asked to leave PAX East yesterday. Why, you ask? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that hot pink jumpsuit with a “neckline” plunging to her crotch has something to do with it.

She’s back today (here is Nigri, as Juliet Starling, at the Lollipop Chainsawbooth.) But Destructoid first reported that she was “asked to leave the show floor” until she had changed out of that pink outfit at right. But after changing back to the Juliet Starling costume, at left—which she had worn all Friday with no issue—she was asked to change again or leave the show entirely.

….

“Ultimately the costume policy is designed to keep the show family friendly, as we see a good number of parents being their young children to the show,” Khoo said.

- Kotaku

Once again, the video game industry smells like sexism - and I even like Penny Arcade. But I’m sorry, a convention is only as fambly friendly as the goods they’re peddling. Why is it okay to create, design, and sell a game that portrays women this way, cover their booth in life-size images, have shots up the character’s shirt, yet it’s totally unacceptable for a girl to dress in costume like this (for the purpose of promoting said game)? Talk about double standards. If they’re trying to appeal to peoples’ modesty, it needs to be reflected in the products that they allow to be sold as well.

You know, I get a lot of questions about how one determines whether a scantily-clad video game or anime character is sexist or not, and I don’t have that answer; it depends on the context, and even then, peoples’ comfort levels with what is or isn’t misogynist will differ greatly. But for me, it’s most certainly sexist whenever women are denied ownership over that sexuality, which I feel like is happening here with Nigri.

What bothers these parents isn’t the nudity itself - if that’s what bothered them, they wouldn’t be taking their children to a video game convention, where a fair portion of the games sell sex, violence, and violence via sex. What bothers them is that a young woman is showing ownership, even willingness, to portray herself in a sex-positive way, and it’s just really disheartening that the convention would buy into this message of chastity without making the video games and products comply by these standards as well."


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