Masks. Who doesn’t love them? Besides the cops, I mean. And bank tellers. Basically, anybody involved in law enforcement or against the redistribution of wealth. But without masks, who are we? Just a bunch of drunken college and university students out for a good time and in need of some cool refreshments via water cannons or machete-wielding harbingers of doom that will tear out your liver in an attempt to quell an insatiable blood-lust?
Masks are iconic symbols of a world that demands accountability. They provide a sense of security and shelter for those that feel their needs might just be greater than the needs of the common good, despite what the common good believe. Plus, if you are seriously grotesque it gives people something to remember you by. Would you rather be remembered as ‘that guy with no face’ or ‘that guy with the mask’? No question about it. Masks are cool, they define who we are or who we want to be and people can make a killing (literally and figuratively) wearing or selling them.
Here are 9 masks made famous through cinema.
Note: This list does not take into account the actual movie Mask, which was about a disfigured boy who had Cher as a mother, nor is it contain iconic super hero masks such as Batman’s and Spider-Man’s, due to their original popularity coming through comics and children playing dress-up.
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12 Comments
Think you’re confusing the name Michael Myers with Mike Myers. Which is easily done in fairness.
is this supposed to be in order? I love V and everything but how is that more iconic and well known than the Jason mask?
it makes sense when you think about it; iconic being defined as an important symbol or image that is the object of great attention. While Jason is probably more popular to a certain age-group that knows it’s horror, Guy Fawkes represents an entire unknown and innumerable amount of socially-conscious people that hide behind that Anonymous identity. When a news outlet posts a picture of a Guy Fawkes mask, you generally have an automatic idea what the story is about.
Great list,hilarious reading.
Hannibal Lecter’s mask would have made it an even 10.
Where’s the Predator mask? I think that’s way more iconic than “The Mask” mask…
@gerald, thanks for having my back; the key word in the title is iconic.
In keeping with the idea of the other masks suggested; my immediate thoughts are that the Predator’s isn’t a mask per se but more a space helmet and that Hannibal’s mask, while definitely an iconic image from the film isn’t really iconic of the person. He doesn’t choose to wear it unlike the others so it’s not really a mask but a defensive restraint used by others. He just happens to make it very creepy. But you made me have to think about it so thanks.
“my immediate thoughts are that the Predator’s isn’t a mask per se but more a space helmet”
Surely this means that Darth Vader shouldn’t be on the list either??
What about Hannibal Lector!
if not the plastic mask, which, right…he didn’t choose to wear… then that cops’s face… his actual face..which Hannibal did choose to wear. :)
But again, although quite awesome and messed up, does not fit the definition of the word iconic. He used it to escape, not to define who he was.
The mask in Vanilla Sky??
You claim that a group of non brits made the Guy Fawkes mask what it is today through V. I think you may be forgetting that V for Vendetta was a graphic novel written and drawn by Englishmen Alan Moore and David Lloyd. Although i get the impression that you are likley totally aware of this but it wouldnt have made your point work.
This is fun but okay…
Darth Vader is a helmet but also a mask and if you go back and read that entry, i already stated the reasons why it’s a mask; the predator’s helmet isn’t ‘hiding’ something unlike Darth Vader’s. He’s a predator, with or without the helmet. Make sense?
Vanilla Sky (which i loved)the mask i don’t immediately think as being iconic, but i could give it the benefit of the doubt if i saw it more in pop culture or at halloween parties.
@ chris- thanks for mentioning that about the true English roots of V, but like you sort of said, the point of the article was it was a mask made (more) famous through cinema.