MASKED BRIGADE

BY: Michael Arkin

The image of Britney Spears’ boyfriend, Sam Ashari, jogging shirtless, wearing what appears to be an athletic cup in place of a mask, made me wonder when America’s justified obsession with masks will end. Given the social distancing guidelines mandated by many states and governments around the world, it’s safe to assume that we will see new and inventive masks for months, perhaps even years, to come.

In the midst of the pandemic which Madonna, in her rose-petaled milk bath declared, “is the great equalizer,” the new status symbol is the N95. In short supply, (the FDA recommends it only for health care professionals), the mask, touted for its superior filtration, is the luxury item that only a few can get their obsessively washed and gloved hands on. In the supply and demand COVID19 culture where an 8 oz bottle of hand sanitizer sells for upwards of $25, the ultimate let ‘em eat cake indicator is the designer face mask, including bejeweled and sequined versions like the one that Billie Eilish wore to the Grammys back in January. They’re bound to be what all the smart starlets will be wearing on next year’s red carpet. Looks like the rest of us will just have to do with surgical masks, the old ‘blue hanky left’ type of kerchief, bandanas and what has become the McCall’s pattern of the modern age – the homemade mask.

 

Not to be outdone, Disney just announced a line of reusable cloth face coverings for children and adults that features some of their most popular characters. Aside from donating 1 million masks to “children and families in underserved and vulnerable communities across the U.S.” the mouse house will also donate up to $1 million of US sales profits to MedShare, a non-profit organization that delivers medical supplies and equipment to needy hospitals worldwide. Looks like the rest of us will just have to do with surgical masks, the old ‘blue hanky left’ type of kerchief, bandanas and what has become the McCall’s pattern of the modern age – the homemade mask.

All this talk about masks made me curious about their history. Turns out, the oldest one ever discovered dates back to Africa 7000 BC. Back then they were used to communicate with ancestral and animal spirits. 4000 years later the Egyptians had two uses for them. The first was as a death mask. Apparently, after mummification, the disembodied soul needed help in recognizing the body it was trying to return to. A mummy wearing a mask with the owner’s face painted on it was probably more effective than a tasteful sign indicating ‘Your Soul Goes Here’. Like their modern-day counterparts, the Egyptians were not a one-size-fits-all society, and one’s social status determined whether your death mask was made of gold, wood or cartonnage, a forerunner of paper maché made from linen and papyrus. When they weren’t wearing masks to flag down their lost souls, ancient Eqyptians wore them as part of religious rituals. The most popular ones resembled animal heads or one of the 2000 gods they worshipped. That’s changed in the last 4000 years. According to 5Bestsellers.com, the top selling Halloween mask is Pennywise, the evil dancing clown from Stephen King’s novel, It. The #2 top seller is based on an equally terrifying character, Donald Trump.

In ancient Rome, masks served multiple purposes. In funeral marches family members would don oversized ones depicting their ancestors, but just the mention of a Roman mask conjures up images of Russell Crowe in his Oscar-winning role of Maximus in the film Gladiator.

Like Maximus, some of our most enduring images of masks come from popular culture. Take Zorro, for example. Created in 1919 by pulp writer Johnston McCulley, the dashing Robin Hood of the American west has been portrayed by 21 masked actors including Tyrone Power, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and George Hamilton.

Playboy billionaire by day and Caped Crusader by night, Batman gives Zorro a run for his money as one of the most iconic masked characters of all time. Played on the small screen by Adam West, and in the movies by George Clooney, Val Kilmner, Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck and soon by Robert Pattison, the character conceals his true identity in a muscled batsuit, replete with its signature bat-eared mask.

 

Batman’s nemesis, Catwoman, was purr-fectly portrayed on TV by Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and Lee Meriwether before a succession of masked-villainesses including Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway brought the provocatively disguised pussy to the big screen.

When Venetians started celebrating Carnival in the 13th century, it marked the only time that the upper and lower classes could mingle together, all behind the safety of elaborately adorned masks. With their identities concealed, the revelers were free to play out their most ribald fantasies — kind of like the infamous party scene in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise. And while Tom got to wear a mask, his co-star and then wife, Nicole Kidman, just got to sleep with one.

Perhaps inspired by the Venetians and the sense of abandon that wearing a mask provides, in 1966, when people still went to parties to have fun instead of to work the room, author Truman Capote threw what has since been deemed the party of the century. Personifying the lyric “Where the underworld can meet the elite”, Capote’s 540 masked guests were forced to surrender their anonymity when they were formally announced upon entering the crammed Grand Ballroom of New York’s Plaza Hotel. Deborah Davis who literally wrote the book on The Party of the Century said, “There was something wildly democratic in the notion of inviting these very famous people to a party and then telling them to hide their faces.” But even masked, it would be hard to hide the identities of the guest of honor, Katherine Graham, and Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow, Andy Warhol, Lee Radziwill, Candice Bergen, Rose Kennedy, Tallulah Bankhead, Babe Paley, and Gloria Vanderbilt among many others.

 

Going from the sublime to the horrific, Halloween, the film that inspired a long line of slasher sequels, introduced us to mass murderer, Michael Myers, best known for his expressionless mask and the trail of death he leaves behind. A perennial Halloween costume favorite, the mask, originally cast from actor William Shatner’s face, has permitted several actors to step into the role, sometimes even in the same film. The franchise, which inspired video games, books, comics, and naturally, masks, has grossed more than $620 million at the worldwide box office.

Long before Wes Craven made us want to shriek from the evil doings of his Ghostface character, a costume designer named Brigitte Sleierten, toiling away at the Fun World Costume Company, created one of the most iconic masks of all time. Inspired by Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream, the mask, which made its film debut in Craven’s 1996 classic, Scream, has gone on to become the most worn Halloween mask in the United States, living up to its sales tagline: ‘The Icon of Halloween’.

 

Rounding out the masked brigade of terror is the character Jason Voorhees, who, in the original Friday the 13th movie, menaces Camp Crystal Lake by killing off its young counselors one by one. The film spawned 11 sequels, a TV show, and over one hundred licensed products.

When did Halloween masks became the exclusive realm of superheroes and evil doers? Where are the sweet, innocent dime store masks like the ones Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? In the film, Ms. Hepburn and Mr. Peppard go shoplifting and wind up stealing two masks, a Mr. Jinx cat for her and a Huckleberry Hound for him. Trivia lovers will note that the Huckleberry Hound mask is a tip of the hat to the iconic line, “My Huckleberry Friend” in Henry Mancini’s Oscar-winning Moon River and that the cat mask represents Cat, Golighty’s pet, that she refers to as the “Poor slob without a name.” Mr. Jinx is not the only mask that the Ms. Golightly character wears in the film. Early in the film, she wakes up looking camera-ready having slept through the night in a Tiffany-blue sleep mask, replete with rhinestone eyelashes.

 

The list goes on and on and on, from the masks worn to hide the shame and insecurity of the titular character in The Phantom of the Opera and Richard Harrow’s war-ravaged visage in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, to the tauntingly phallic ones in A Clockwork Orange. Let’s not forget the ones resembling US Presidents worn by the cast in the recent remake of Point Break.

 

Masks have been part of the human experience since the dawn of civilization. Now, as our species meets its greatest challenge, the one of survival, they take on an even greater importance. Do all of us a favor, wear one.