This weekend, fans gathered together for Salt Lake City’s annual FanX Convention. The convention draws tens of thousands each year, offering panels, artist booths and more, celebrating fan culture in all forms. However, FanX shows the paradox of fan culture: simultaneously inclusive and celebratory, while also reproducing misogyny, fetishization and cultural commodification.
Choice feminism and sexual freedom
While perusing the various vendor booths, a variety of artwork was on display. Most work was artists’ adaptations of beloved characters. However, amidst the beautiful works that decorated Artist’s Alley, there were countless depictions of characters with exaggerated features or in overtly sexualized clothing.
There is a complex juxtaposition between the normalization of fetishization in fan spheres and sexual freedom. Some argue that sexual freedom and choice feminism support these artists and women who cosplay these characters.
In an interview regarding art and cosplay of highly sexualized female characters, Betsy Roundy, an artist vendor, said, “I believe that you should have your own say over your body and how you dress yourself, so I feel like it’s more of a gray area.”
Maid Kitty, an employee of a maid cafe, said, “As a woman myself, I see a lot of the fetishization, and it is disheartening. But I’ve also seen an increase in people calling that out … Cosplay is not consent … Our maid dresses aren’t consent for you to do whatever you want.” There are uncomfortable conversations that surround issues related to sexual freedom, choice feminism and fetishization, particularly regarding Asian women and minors.
Roundy said, “That’s where it gets a little hard, because usually the characters that are being cosplayed are teenagers, and the people who are cosplaying them are adults.”
Within fan culture, there must be both the ability for women to dress in ways that help them feel empowered and taking accountability for decisions furthering larger issues for Asian stereotypes and minors.
Origins in sexualization
However, Roundy found that art was, instead, a major concern. “I love anime. I think that it has a lot of great stories that people want to tell, that have a lot of interesting perspectives. And, it’s really upsetting to see characters, especially Asian characters that are oversexualized, especially when they look like children,” she said.
This expands the argument beyond the scope of conventions and fans to the actual artists and origins of the characters. With anime’s lengthy history of sexualizing young girls, Western ideology has slowly begun to place international pressure on normalized Japanese media.
The blame for this uncomfortable element of fan culture cannot be solely placed on fans. When the original material pushes a narrative of normalizing harmful stereotypes and views of Asian women and minors, fans extend and reflect these thought processes. Rather than questioning or pushing back against the overt sexualization of minors, Western fan culture seems to only recycle and reinforce stereotypes.
When asked how artists should approach sexuality, Roundy said, “There’s a way to do it tastefully, like if it’s true to the character’s personality and what they’re meant to be in the story. But, I feel like so often people take the easy way of making them hot and sexy.”
An important element of progress towards ethical media and conventions is creating and reflecting female characters with depth and purpose. However, as Western media becomes fascinated with Japanese culture, a new problem arises.
Western fascination
Inspired by the maid cafes of Akihabara, the Dreamland Maid Cafe is marketed as a family-friendly space where attendees can experience their “’super-kawaii’ anime dreams.” Yet, such performances often reproduce Orientalist fantasies of Asian femininity, ones that frame women as submissive, hyper-cute, infantilized or available for consumption.
The performance of a “maid” itself carries histories of Orientalist desire and gendered subordination, which circulate regardless of how “family-friendly” an individual cafe may present itself to be. The servers themselves articulated this tension during an interview. When asked about the fetishization of Asian women, the workers rejected the idea.
“I personally don’t agree with that. As you can see, a lot of us here are pretty diverse. We’re just appreciating that Asian culture and bringing it somewhere where people don’t have access to the cafes in Japan … We make sure to respect the culture we’re representing,” Maid Kitty said.
However, she does acknowledge the broader issue of sexualization in fan spaces, particularly directed at women. She said that the maids at the cafe have clear boundaries: “We’re people. Don’t touch us, don’t do anything inappropriate … If you are a nuisance, you are immediately removed.”
Those participating in these cultural imports recognize the persistence of sexualization, even as they attempt to create a safe, respectful space within it. This defense relies on diversity and “respect” to distance the cafe from accusations of fetishization but reveals how they adopt selective aspects of culture while unembedding them from their original social contexts.
Representing Japanese culture is not a problem in itself. There are many places that a maid cafe can be present, such as SLC’s annual Nihon Matsuri. But why does it have to be at FanX? Is Japanese culture a fandom itself? A deeper problem within fandom culture is commodifying and decontextualizing Japanese culture, transforming it into fandom aesthetic rather than recognizing Japan as a living culture where real people exist.
For the fans
In order to establish conventions rooted in safety, female empowerment and cultural accuracy, fans must realize the drawbacks of their source material. Although conversations about these topics in fandom culture are uncomfortable, they must be had.
With regards to progression in art towards gender equality, Roady said, “I feel like we’re kind of moving in the right direction, but at the same time, we’re still taking steps backwards depending on the artist representing their work.” When asked what causes positive movement, she said, “I’d say as we get more female characters that are introduced that are written by women, animated by women [teams].”
By understanding cultural practices and their possible negative impacts on communities, Utah fan culture can move away from normalizing the fetishization of Asian women and minors. Fans are what make our convention community, and fans are the ones who must implement meaningful change.
