Dear old Google keeps turning up mentions of Worldcon in the Malaysian media. I found this article on cosplay fascinating for two reasons. Firstly I’m surprised and delighted at the apparent freedom these kids have to cross-dress in a country I’d heard was fairly repressive. Glenda?
In addition the article traces the history of cosplay back to a Japanese fan who was inspired by seeing That Masquerade at the 1984 Worldcon. So next time we see thousands of teenagers dressed as magical girls and cats, we can all blame Janet Wilson Anderson. 🙂
Wow. I had never heard of this! Fascinating. I did notice there were no Muslims mentioned in the article…and society is a lot harder on them than on others.
BTW, anime gets good coverage in English language newspapers, with weekly lift out sections on new publications, reviews, interviews, opportunities to submit your own artwork etc etc. Anime is much, much bigger here than normal sff.
Cross-dressing? Interestingly enough, there is quite a sub-culture of transvestites in KL, many of whom are Muslims too. There are excellent nightclub transvestite shows, usually very clever and a tad outrageous, which are tolerated by authority. Generally speaking, you can get away with a lot here as long as you aren’t belligerent, in-your-face about it, sort of like the US army’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy on homosexuals.
Of course, there will always be those ready to condemn, but Malaysians are expert at pushing the envelope gently…it’s how we survive.