My obsession is makeup.  Makeup of all kinds, brands and colors.  I think I started getting more into makeup and doing makeup when I realized I was good at it.  Also, as I learned more about different products I just couldn’t get enough.  It’s kind of an expensive hobby, but I don’t really care.

As for the title of this post, I have heard so many people who like wearing makeup say that they are too afraid to wear red lipstick.  I can understand that because I didn’t use to be as comfortable wearing bright colors either.  However, I think that having the confidence to wear attention grabbing colors can make you feel powerful in other areas of your life.  I read an article about Olivia Wilde who said that she wears high-heels because they make her feel like a strong and powerful woman, even though at the end of the day her feet are killing her.  I love that and I think about it when I don’t feel as strong.

Some makeup brands that I love are:  Urban Decay, Benefit, Tarte, NARS and MAC.  Those are the expensive as hell brands that make me go broke, and the more affordable brands that I love are: Maybelline, Revlon, Rimmel, and NYX.

My first obsession for this quarter is basketball. Basketball is my everyday life. I have been involved in basketball since I was a little girl. Basketball has always been my source of separation from the real world. Its my stress reliever. Its a way that I am creative. I wasn’t blessed with being able to draw, or create cool artsy things but I was gifted with the way to shoot a basket and to understand how the game works. I continue to involve basketball  into my everyday life. I am playing or watching (mostly watching) basketball Monday-Saturday and wouldn’t have it any other way. Basketball has always been my obsession and always will be rather thats playing or coaching basketball. My high is when I shoot a 3 (in someones face), when I get to steal the ball out of the other players hand or am able to see the that one play that people will talk about for the next two weeks. Basketball is my obsession.

I’ve had a hard time deciding what I wanted to academically obsess over for the up coming weeks and have decided that I need to play Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Z.O.T). This is a game that I have easily played over 20 complete times and probably even more partial times. It is a game that I shut out the rest of the world and play from beginning to end in one go because I love it so much. Everything from the music to why I started playing it to the story line I love. And it’s because of that intense love that I chose to look at racial and gender implications in the game. To elaborate on that, since I’ve started to learn about mis-portrayals of everything from relationships and characterizing of race and gender/sex roles in popular culture I look at the wrong in things without seeing the beauty and when it’s something I already like I acknowledge it to myself but never talk about it with others, which is something I don’t think is right on my part. So because I already have a deep since of beauty for the game I’ve decided to look at some of the issues and talk about them through this public blog (which is really freaky to me).

So, how do I plan to do this? Well I thought I might start off with finding and reading some articles and what not on race and genders in video games along with some on overall impacts that video games can have on people and I will find out about popularity, sub-culture. Since I have played the game so much after each of my reading that I find useful I will vaguely make connections between the text and the game. Once I felt I have an abundance of knowledge I will partake on my final quest of playing the game and paying close attention to the dialogue and portrayals of characters and document my findings while keeping my love for the game.

By definition (according to wikipedia):

Cosplay (コスプレ kosupure^?), short for “costume play”, is a performance art in which participants wear costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture centered on role play. A broader use of the term cosplay applies to any costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cultural context.

Definition of Cosplay according to Hot Topic:

Now this, along with the various elitist assumptions that have spawned from the series Heroes of Cosplay, has created a huge mass of chaos among the cosplay community. Many cosplayers have started to forget the reasons why people cosplay and began to heavily focus on factors that should not matter. Such as skin tone and body type. Claiming that people should not cosplay characters that do not fit their body type or skin tone, that it is just wrong. Making this seem like one of the unwritten “rules” of cosplay. And for awhile, this was made so apparent in my cosplay life that I was afraid to cosplay any character that was not considered “dark-skinned”.

This was difficult for me. Mostly because there weren’t many characters that were dark in skin tone in any anime, manga or video games. And the ones that were, I wouldn’t want to cosplay because they wore really revealing outfits or because they had very over exaggerated racial features that just irritated me. I got so fed up with people, who I didn’t know at all, telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.

Cosplay was my escape, my chance to be someone else. For all of my worries to fade into the background and not matter for a weekend. I was bullied enough while I was myself, I didn’t want to be bullied while I was cosplaying as well.

So I said, “Screw it! I’m going to cosplay whoever or whatever the hell I want!”

This took time of course, and at first I had to deal with people mumbling things they really shouldn’t. And not really welcoming me into the community. This was very discouraging…

(more will come later)

Sources:

A hanbok, a traditional Korean dress. It is composed of a long skirt called a chima, and a short jacket called a jeogori. The sleeves are curved, and traditionally used to hide a coin purse or other small items.

The dress was designed to highlight a woman’s hips, as larger hipped women were more desired for childbearing. The skirts are designed to be very full. In the Chosun dynasty when there were shortages of fabrics, due to wars and tributes, the jackets would become shorter and shorter. Today, longer jackets are still used, but the shorter jackets are more prominently distributed.

Traditionally made from silks, modern hanboks utilize fabrics like chiffon.

I have strange obsessions that is for sure and one of longest standing obsession of mine the art of forensic science with careful attention to the mind of the serial killer. I suspect that this slightly deranged aspect of weirdness started around the time of the People’s Temple with the Rev. Jim Jones at the head of the church. On Nov. 18th,1978 it ended in the jungles of Guyana with deaths 905 people including the only U.S. Congressmen to die in the line of duty. I was 9 years old at the time of cover of Time magazine had the now notorious cover of the vat of purple Kool-Aid for the world to see. It left an impression,obviously.

How does this tragic event relate to the current theme of the class of Asian Pop Culture? Well, in the case of Jones he had a “rainbow” family of children of all races and one of those children was of Asian descent. In another case that is unrelated to Rev. Jim Jones was the sarin gas attacks in Toyko in the 1990′s.

Murder and serial killers in particular do not really care about racial divides rather they care about the maxium body count they can hope to achieve by whatever methods and in turn pop culture on both sides of the PAcific Rim glorifies it with television,movies,comics and books. We eat that up by the treasure droves. We don’t admit either that we are consumed by the darkness that all of humanity is capable of,but, yet we watch it unable to tear on eyes away. Just like the wreck on the freeway that stops traffic for miles because we cannot tear our eyes away.

The difference here is I freely I admit to watching the train-wreck and studying murder most foul on a pop culture level. Does this mean I am out to off the next person,no, not today. Rather I study the human condition of darkness and the pop culture cult of personality that surrounds this.

So yes! One of my obsessions is RuPauls Drag Race…What is it? WELL..RuPauls Drag Race is one of the best reality tv shows that is out there! It’s a reality tv series in which Drag Queens from all over the United States compete to see who will win the title of Americas Next Drag Superstar! The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song, “Drag Race,” both have a drag-racing theme. [Just for you Chico].

RuPaul is basically the first original Drag Queen…there is no other like her..she is the God..of drag queens..basically.. **Bow Down**

“you’re born naked and the rest is drag”-RuPaul

How does this relate to Asian/American Pop culture? Drag queens that have been on the show range in ethnicities..Some of the most known from the show are in fact Asian!

Raja Gemini is Indonesian and won a season of RuPauls Drag Race.

Jujubee is Laotian and had appeared on 2 seasons.

Ongina is Filipino and was on season 1

Manila Luzon is Filipino..can you tell by the name?? She appeared in season 3 as first runner up.

Here’s some education for yah!