(dynamic music)
- There are very few prominent black cosplayers.
I definitely feel like
a minority within a minority sometimes.
(dynamic music)
Cosplay literally stands for costume play,
so it's individuals who dress up in costumes.
You get to embody the characters.
It's almost like making an action figure of yourself.
My name is Jourdan Barnett.
By day, I'm a web content manager,
but by night, I'm Deadshot.
For me, cosplay is a creative outlet.
I'm not an artist, I can't draw,
but I love to build, I love to craft,
do things with my hands.
Each costume is an art piece.
Cosplayers know me as Blerd Vision.
Blerd literally stands for black nerd.
Within the cosplay community in general,
I feel accepted,
but the majority of the characters I cosplay
were originally Caucasian characters.
I definitely feel the racial tension.
Even with my Flash cosplay,
people thought at first I was a Reverse-Flash.
I'm clearly not like that character you think I am,
so why assume I’m the villain?
It's really disconcerting when you love a character,
but because you don't actually look like the character,
people will kind of judge you for that.
For me and the people that I associate with,
it's more about what you love.
And if you love the character,
play that character.
Comic books in general
are starting to push characters in the direction
of being more diverse.
Whether it be gay, straight, black, white,
whatever it is,
they're changing the old guard of heroes
to a more modern version of them.
So it should be a reflection of, like,
what our society looks like today.
Hopefully in the future,
that actually changes people's mentalities
toward these characters and what you can be.
It's a powerful thing when you can look at a character
and go that's me.
It gives you the idea that you actually do anything,
if you actually can identify with someone
that can do anything.
(contemporary ambient music)