Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
The hidden agenda
There are whispers of a possible reboot of the Zorro franchise, that evergreen tale of a masked bandit who swoops in to save the day. Zorro made his first appearance in Johnston McCulley’s bestselling 1919 book, The Curse of Capistrano. He was a cinematic hit by 1920, with Douglas Fairbanks starring in The Mark of Zorro.
So many masked-crusader tropes can be traced back to this character. The immense wealth and secret identity (Zorro is Don Diego de la Vega, the only son of a rich landowner). The costume, an all-black cape and mask. The mission to defend commoners in a corrupt state (in his case, California).
There are also shades of grey linked to this particular kind of hero. In cinema, the mask often indicates not just a hidden identity, but a sense of menace. It’s what sets Batman apart from all-American good guys such as Superman and Captain America.
In more recent decades, the mask has taken on new meaning. It’s been worn by nutty ne’er-do-wells such as Stanley Ipkiss. By mind-twisters such as the order-issuing rabbit in the psychological thriller Donnie Darko (2001). By villains in horror franchises from Halloween (1978 onwards) to Friday the 13th (1980) and Scream (1996). Take a trip back in time, through the many facets of this storytelling device.
Quintessential hero
In The Princess Bride (1987), the farmhand Westley (Cary Elwes) is driven by the singular ambition of winning back Buttercup (Robin Wright), the love of his life. He leaves the farm to seek his fortune, is attacked by pirates and left for dead; lives on to become a warrior and scholar. He absorbs everything the world can teach him because it might prove useful in his quest. And when he returns to the fictional land of Florin, he represents perfection wrapped in mystique, because no one sees his face. Westley stands apart, among the masked, as the righteous hero of a fantasy-adventure that is also deeply romantic, funny, and cinematically superb. “It’s just that masks are terribly comfortable,” Westley says, at one point, tongue-in-cheek. “I think everyone will [wear] them in the future.”
Agent of chaos
In The Mask (1994; starring Jim Carrey),
Stanley Ipkiss leads a rather beleaguered existence as a bank teller, until he finds a mask containing within it the spirit of the Norse god Loki. Wearing the mask transforms Ipkiss into a daredevil, a greenheaded trickster, a force of mythological proportions with a wicked sense of humour.
It also launches within him a tug-of-war that slowly changes how he sees the world, and his place within it. The whirlwind of a film (based on the Dark Horse comic books by Doug Mahnke and John Arcudi) is, amid all the extravagant drama, a layered fable about what lies hidden within the Everyperson, and what a world of power with no consequences might look like.
Similar themes abound in the worlds of superheroes, particularly in the DC universe. Christopher Nolan’s films on the dark knight (2005-12) do most justice to the ways in which a mask can consume a man. Nolan turns the billionaire playboy-vigilante Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) into a symbol of the shadowy nature of vigilantism, particularly when fuelled by the potent combination of privilege and dysfunction. Gotham City becomes the increasingly darkened setting of a war to reshape the world, fought alone, by a man who is slowly losing the battle between his fading conscience and his mounting rage.
Enemy territory
Alan Moore’s Watchmen graphic novels (1986-87), and the 2009 Zack Snyder film of the same name, are rooted in an alternate 1985 America at the height of the Cold War. An age of superheroes has ended; they have been outlawed because of their violent methods. Some continue to work with the government covertly. The story’s anti-hero, Rorschach, operates outside the law. When a former comrade is killed, he sets out to investigate, and warn the others.
All the while, Rorschach wears a moving inkblot mask, in a persona he created when he was still the young vigilante Walter Kovacs. Over the years, the mask has taken over. The moving inkblot is how he sees himself, as he seethes through the world, dispensing an absolutist’s interpretation of justice.
In the 2019 HBO series, the story moves to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in an alternate 2019. White supremacists have misinterpreted Rorschach’s journal to fit their agenda, and are waging war against minorities and the police. After a particularly brutal massacre that targets the latter, the force must be rebuilt, and new instructions are issued: conceal your profession, cover your face while on the job. Everyone’s a vigilante now.