The Internet Is Rallying Behind Two Awesome ‘Wonder Woman’ Cosplayers From Sri Lanka

Wonder Woman inspired audiences everywhere with her first solo film earlier this summer. And now, her message of love has had some real-life effects – particularly with two cosplayers from Sri Lanka.

Amaya Suriyapperuma and Seshani Cooray recently dressed up as the DC Comics heroine at Sri Lanka’s Lanka Comic Con. The college students and lifelong friends were disappointed to discover that their cosplays were being mocked on Facebook, with trolls arguing that they were ‘too skinny’ to be wearing Wonder Woman’s costume.

“When I came out of the premier of Wonder Woman in Sri Lanka, I knew that this is the character I want to cosplay,” Suriyapperuma told the Hindustan Times, “because the film didn’t focus on the superhuman’s gender, and the character believed in fighting hate with love. On day one of Lanka Comic Con, which was also my birthday, I dressed up as Wonder Woman, and went back home feeling so happy. But the next day, just before I had to take to the stage, dressed up as another character, one of my friends sent me a meme of my picture and I was shocked. People were commenting on my skinny frame. I had never been face-to-face with cyber bullying of this scale.”

“[Amaya’s] body was being compared to mine,” added Cooray, “and I couldn’t do anything.”

But when their photo made its way to Twitter, in a tweet you can see below, the conversation quickly changed…

Outpouring of Love

In the three days since Suriyapperuma and Cooray’s picture was first shared on Twitter, the photo has since garnered almost fifty thousand retweets and likes. Wonder Woman fans quickly rallied behind both women, complimenting their cosplays and even photoshopping them into the film’s promotional material.

According to Cooray, the outpouring of love completely caught her by surprise.

“I thought I will never cosplay again,” Cooray explained, “but then someone told me that people not just in Sri Lanka but across the world have come out in support of us and are re-tweeting our picture.”

But perhaps the most impactful response came from Wonder Woman‘s director Patty Jenkins, who announced that the girls were “great, strong and beautiful.”

“When I was informed that Patty Jenkins [had] tweeted our picture and praised our efforts,” Cooray revealed, “I joined Twitter and read the post again and again to get back my confidence.”

Following fans recently speaking out against James Cameron’s misogynistic comments about the film, the heartwarming response to this photo is just the latest display of Wonder Woman‘s impact.

Before You Go

Wonder Woman has an 86.52 ComicBook.com Composite Score and a 4.33 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Rating, making it the fourth-highest ranked comic book movie of all time among ComicBook.com readers. Let us know what you think of Wonder Woman by giving the movie your own personal ComicBook.com User Rating below.

In Wonder Woman, before she was Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, Diana meets an American pilot (Chris Pine) who tells her about the massive conflict that’s raging in the outside world. Convinced that she can stop the threat, Diana leaves her home for the first time. Fighting alongside men in a war to end all wars, she finally discovers her full powers and true destiny.