There may not be a human being currently walking the earth who is as supportive of his fans as Mark Hamill. The Star Wars actor seems to spend as much time visiting kids in hospitals as he does filming movies. He'll also tell you if that Mark Hamill autograph you paid money for in 1983 is legit. He's just a generally awesome human being. Now, the man has done it again, as he's reached out directly to a female cosplayer who wants to attend Comic-Con dressed as Luke Skywalker.
Mark Hamill's tweet came in support of a fan, who tweeted at him, asking for his approval in attending San Diego Comic-Con dressed as Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi era Luke Skywalker, even though she was female. As we've come to expect at this point, Hamill was more than supportive in his response, he loved the idea. Then, he gave the woman her own hashtags, just for fun.
Convention cosplay has become a big deal as thousands of people attend the biggest shows dressed as their favorite characters from movies, TV, or video games. Come San Diego Comic-Con, Twitter will be full of images of great costumes from everybody from the dedicated to the amateur. Gender shouldn't be a barrier to people if they love something enough.
Mark Hamill's twitter account recently broke the one million follower mark so the actor is reaching a fairly substantial audience when he sends out messages like this. Hamill has really embraced his celebrity and tries to do good things with it. If it looks like one of his fans needs support from him, he seems more than happy to give it whenever possible. And why shouldn't he do that? The cosplayer in question looks awesome.
Unfortunately, gender has become something of a hot-button issue within Star Wars due to the fact that the newest entry in the franchise, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, starred a female protagonist who did not see the same merchandising support of her male co-stars. In the end, however, as Mark Hamill says, it's just not really an issue. If you love something, you should be able to show your support for it. With most heroes in movies being men, at some point, it just becomes difficult for women to find enough other women for them to do things like create cosplay.
Have you ever done cosplay for another race or gender, because you just loved that character too much to do anything else? We'd love to hear about it in the comments.
