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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
November/December 2020 57
costumes protected them from ghosts whose
big night out it is. Over the centuries and as
Hallowe’en has travelled the world as a me
-
dium of disposable US cultural hegemony they
have embraced another role as entertainment
- fancy dress for children’s fun.
In a post-modern twist they have also been
used to symbolise evil – as with evil clowns,
the Joker in Batman movies, the ‘Gimp’ in Pulp
Fiction or Frank Booth in ‘Blue Velvet’.
Masks are an artifice in many horror films to
conceal the identities of a killer. Notable ex
-
amples include Jason Voorhees of the Friday
the 13th series, Jigsaw Killer from Saw, Ghost
-
face of the Scream series, and Michael Myers
in the Halloween series.
Which illustrates how complex masks are.
What else grounds a celebration of the resur
-
rection, children’s glee and film horror, and
can cause pitch fighting on the streets of the
capitals of the world, driven by aversion to
their compulsory use?
There’s a good bit of theory about masks,
certainly the heaviest of which is ‘The Way
of the Masks’ (1975) in which Belgian-born
anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, sets out
to demonstrate, through a case study, that
masks worn by certain native Americans can
-
not be interpreted in themselves as separate
objects but, as with myths, must be returned to
their transformation set: the set of masks and
their associated myths in which each echoes
and transforms the others. “My hypothesis”,
Levi Strauss laid down, “will be proven right
if, in the last analysis, we can
perceive between the origin
myths of each type of mask,
transformational relations ho
-
mologous to those that, from
a purely plastic point of view.
prevail among themselves”.
Since he was a structuralist we
won’t have to find out if his hy
-
pothesis was indeed proven.
Or even necessarily under
-
stand what he meant.
Belgians seem to have a
thing for masks. Surrealist
René Magritte fetishised them
The Lovers ”is a series of
at least four pieces in which
Magritte features smothered
lovers. The skin-on-skin plea
-
sure is absent. The act is repugnant—kissing
through cloth
Magritte’s ‘in search of lost self’ shows that
human emotions can be adopted and dropped
like a mask – or an umbrella.
Perhaps the Belgian penchant for surrealism
grounds its place at the heart of the EU, that
centre of bureaucratic absurdity.
Belgium naturally made the widespread
wearing of masks compulsory in the pandem
-
ic, as soon as it could (before beating a dra-
CULTURE
The mask
By David Langwallner
Wear it your own way
The Lovers (left)
The Serch (below)
A
MASK IS an
object normally
worn on the
face, typically
for protection
(physical or
spiritual) of the
wearer or of
another.
Althouh it is dicult to see that masks will
ever be seen the same after Covid-, we can
see from our abortive imminent Hallowe’en,
that masks are not always compelled and
protective.
They can also be used for disguise or enter
-
tainment.
Sometimes they straddle purposes.
Hallowe’en is the eve of the resurrection of
souls.
People believed that wearing masks and
58 November/December 2020
matic retreat).
On the other hand the bureaucracy-busting
nation of shopkeepers of England detests the
wearing of masks. The best mask-avoiders are
English. According to YouGov data in July just
38% of Britons said they wear masks in public
places. You can’t imagine the Queen in a mask.
Dominic Cummings would sooner wear a beret.
By comparison, 88% of people in Spain and
83% in Italy said they did so. Meanwhile, 90%
of people in Singapore wear masks in public,
as do 82% in China. Many in the far East didn’t
even need a pandemic, or any other apparent
reason, to wear a mask.
In Britain masks are associated with war-
time anti-gas behemoths and emergency.
Here’s a congerie of children during World War
II.
Anything associated with the Second World
War has a special place in the jingoist hearts
of many English people and is not to be worn
lightly.
Masks are also associated with crime, vio
-
lence and terrorism. Isis are masters of mask
use. They made it more dicult for a drone to
pick out the perpetrators of unspeakable on-
line violence, in a crowd.
The IRA loved a balaclava. For a para
-
military they’re intimidatory as they be-
speak immunity. The term was applied
retrospectively to knitted headgear sent
from home and worn by many British
troops at the battle of that name in 1854
during the Crimean War.
The earliest known
masks come from the
Judaean Desert in Israel
about 9,000 years ago.
They are not the first
masks ; merely the earliest
ones we know of. Older masks
were almost certainly made
of perishable matter: leather,
feathers, pigments such as
ochre, or plant remains, and
used for camouflage, and beau
-
tification. Neanderthals may
have worn masks 60,000 years
ago.
Mask experts get very caught
up in the issue whether make-up constitute
maskery.
Masks of course are deceivers: per
-
formers in Ancient Greek theatre and in
traditional Japanese Noh drama wore
masks. In medieval Europe, masks were
used in mystery and miracle plays to
portray allegorical creatures, and the
performer representing God frequently
wore a gold or gilt mask.
Masks represent much more than
you’d think. Men are inexplicably hostile
to them. But only as protection from dis
-
ease, not when used as spiritual protec-
tion or for entertainment purposes. So men
are overall less inclined to don masks in public
than women. Real men don’t wear masks.
Trump/Pence loathe them and only wear
them because if they don’t there’s a chance
they die. There are indications that men are
more likely to feel negative emotions (such as
shame) and stigma for wearing masks.
Masks can be religious designators and sup
-
pressers of female sexuality.
And masks can conceal sexual exploitation,
role concealment and debauchery.
Dennis Hopper’s sinister mask in Blue Velvet
Britin
Noh drama
SinisterLothes it
Religious designtor nd
suppressor of sexulity
IRAISIS
gave him cover for sexual violence.
Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut shows
how Venetian masks conceal a multitude of in
-
famies or role play, and far from suppressing
sexuality, can be a licence for debauchery.
Leonard Cohen could aord to be coy about
masks:
If you want a lover
I’ll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I’ll wear a mask for you
If you want a partner, take my hand, or
If you want to strike me down in anger
Here I stand
I’m your man.
But ultimately masks serve sterility and
cleanliness by covering mucous organs. Fa
-
cism not Fascism. Wear yours.
David Langwallner is a London-based barris-
ter, and founder of Ireland’s Innocence Project.
