The Dark Side of Cosplay
Last weekend the National Football League celebrated their “Salute to Service” designed to align with US Veterans Day on November 11th*. The most visually striking element of the NFL’s observation was teams donning gear based on patterns from US military combat uniforms. This is nothing more than well-funded cosplay. Cosplay can lead people to identity too literally with their fantasy. If the fantasy is Luke Skywalker, not a problem. If the fantasy is a Special Forces soldier…the outcome could be darker.
Cosplay is a billion-dollar industry. Arguably, there is something to be said about the mental health of adults who spend so much time pretending to be someone(thing) else, but that’s not my focus here…not exactly. My concern is that members of the modern American militia movement are cosplayers with guns — and a lot of grievance and resentment — and not a lot of maturity. When corporate America joins this mass-delusion they are knowingly pouring gas on a fire. The NFL’s “Salute to Service” week is a good example. Masquerading as patriotism, the NFL has deeply imbedded nationalistic imagery and iconography into its brand.
Look at images of militia groups, kitted-out in military gear as near to their fantasy as they can get — down to patches, insignia, and rank. They are buoyed by the delusion that their militia movements have constitutional grounds. They do not. There is ample historical precedent for cosplay gone bad. Italian black shirts, German brown shirts, Mao suits, Gilets Jaune…. It is symbolism and tribalism. This is not normal in the US. In the past…from the US Civil War through Vietnam…nobody dressed up as a military member to honor their service. This is a phenomenon that is perhaps 20 years old. Roughly aligning with the internet and the rise of ubiquitous comic universes.
The fetishization of military service began in the 1980s as a well-intentioned effort to redress the injustices visited upon veterans of the Vietnam War. It gained steam with the relatively bloodless and successful operations Desert Shield / Desert Storm. Politicians like Ronald Reagan leaned in hard because it was easy storytelling. 9/11 shifted the entire affair into hyper-drive. And here we are. We live in a “Thank You for Your Service” world.
The NFL is helping to stoke a hyper-nationalized subset of our society that is well-armed, immature, and angry. As a nation we need to step away from an overly martial public discourse. Military service is, and should remain, a very small part of our society. Less than 1% serve, yet the influence of military service is massively out of balance with this fact. Responsible corporate actors should not use nationalistic imagery, presented as patriotism, in thinly veiled business development programs. Honoring military service should return to what it has been for most of the history of this country; modest, respectful and brief.
* Veteran’s Day (in the US) is derivative of Remembrance Day in Europe which acknowledges the armistice that ended WW I. The armistice took effect on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918.
