Masks as Becoming

I begin covered, masked, and ready to reveal what I can. I deploy this stripping to demonstrate how masks might serve as a means of moving me into different modes of being. I reach for the concealed fictive and theatrical characters I’ve embraced and rejected, for the disguises that became permission-giving, and for the masks of political and personal identity management. Calling upon past responses to my and others’ mask-wearing, I put on display cultural and personal appearances of emerging entanglements.

Even as a child, I knew that Superman’s glasses was an inadequate mask to hide his identity. Nor did the Lone Ranger, Batman, or Zoro’s masks provide much of a disguise. It wasn’t clear to me if they thought they were unrecognizable when they donned their garb. I knew my mother always recognized me when I’d put on their costumes. There was no fooling her. Even so, wearing their masks I could enter their worlds, fight evil forces, become someone I was not. I never chose to be the old-west robbers hidden behind their handkerchiefs or the villains concealed behind their full-face coverings. Nor did I seek to be disfigured beyond recognition, scarred into evil, scaring all who might come my way. My childhood preference was to mask myself into the pure at heart, the righteous who understood the true meaning of justice.

Masked characters have also come to me in my adult years. Some haunt, like Darth Vader whose menacing breathing inside his mask is sufficient for me, a person not in possession of the Force, to surrender to the Dark Lord’s will; like the Invisible Man whose face only appears when wrapped in gauze which demolished all fantasies I had about the appealing potentials of invisibility; or like the Grim Reaper, that familiar symbol, whose dark countenance is never seen. Some frighten by design, like Jason from the Friday the 13th series who slashes his way into my anxieties, and some frighten without intent, like clowns whose features explode into insistence. Some try to entice, like veiled belly dancers who put their gyrations on display to allure; or like participants at a masquerade ball whose mystery serves as a seductive ploy. Some seem foolish, insipid, like Jim Carey’s green masked character in The Mask whose antics, in my stuffy opinion, were not “smokin’”; or like the television program, Masked Singer, where vocal artists go to embarrass themselves.

Encountering fictive and theatrical masked characters allows me to slip into and out of alternative life circumstances, to take what I believe is of use. Their masks become mine as I attend to them. They offer models for my consideration and being. Both tragic or comic figures can pull me in or push me away. In their pretend worlds, I have permission to be who I’m not or who I do not allow myself to be. I doubt that I’m the only man who in an act of pure silliness put his underwear over his head and called himself, “The Underwear Bandit,” or who, after seeing robbers in some film cover their faces with stockings, slipped that thin garment over his head to see how it distorted his features, or who, with the aid of a paper bag or ski mask and his own vocalized dramatic music, imagined being some deranged killer in search of his next victim. And I doubt that I’m the only adult who, costumed for Mardi Gras, a sporting event, a religious ceremony, or a staged character, used a disguise to empower their performance. We become what our masks allow.

I do wonder if the creators of such characters sometimes use them to mask themselves. In my early years of literary education, I was taught to consider how a text generates a sense of an implied author, how readers construct a view of authors based upon a reading of their work that may or may not correspond to the authors’ biography (Booth, 1961). This concept points to the desire to see behind the mask, to see the hidden. What kind of person could write what’s on the page? Audiencing others, seeing the hidden, can lead to dangerous areas, places that we may be reluctant to go. The unknown holds its power and its appeal by resisting revelation. I am taken in by masks, and I relish what I hide and reveal by the masks I do and do not wear.

I remember my mom would not leave the house until, to quote her broadly used words, “I have to put my face on first.” For me, her efforts changed little—she was my mother before and after application, but her public face had an established appearance. I remember too how she would let me save face by blaming inanimate objects for my clumsiness. And I remember how in her final years of living with pain she did her best to mask her discomfort: “I don’t want to be a bother” (Goffman, 1959, 1967; Ting-Toomey, 2005a, 2005b).

Like my mother, I call forth masks with the roles I play, for example, husband, father, brother, academic, U.S. citizen. I keep the mask of privacy, revealing aspects of myself only when I feel safe. I know the risks of sharing, to telling too much to the wrong person at the wrong time. I recognize what I’m allowed to say without caution, without consequences, without worry. Even when I claim to be fully disclosive, I can flirt with the mask of deceit. I also live within the rules of my culture and language, and, for the most part, I accept these laws of masked obedience.

I obey and join the company of all those who wear the recommended masks to prevent the spread of COVID whenever I’m in public or someone comes to my door. I do not trust, even though I’m fully vaccinated and boosted, that I can protect myself and others I might encounter without a mask. Doing what the science confirms is the best way to fight the pandemic, doing what I understand to be my civic duty, doing what I believe is a simple courtesy, my anger grows each time I see someone without a mask. I share membership with the group of vaccinated people who Krugman (2021) describes as living with “the rage of the responsible.”

On a few occasions, I’ve allowed my rage to speak through the KN95 mask I’m wearing. Once, I was sitting in the small waiting room of my cardiologist’s office, when a man entered without a mask. I blurt out without thinking, “Where’s your mask?” He seems surprised it’s not on and quickly apologizes. “So sorry,” he says, “I left it in my car.” He turns around and leaves to gather what hadn’t become a habit. Another time, I was in a grocery store and I encountered a woman with three children, ages from about eight to early teens I would guess, dragging behind her. “For old people like me and for all the people who have compromised conditions,” I said to the woman in the most reasonable and calm voice I can muster, “we would appreciate you and your children wearing masks.” “Well,” she replied, “all of you old people and people with compromised conditions can stay the fuck home.” I stood there trying to decide how to be with people who refuse to wear masks: Should I say something, try to engage them, or should I keep silent, pretend that I think being in public without a mask in the middle of a pandemic is acceptable behavior? Should I try to understand their position, accept the decisions they make as if they aren’t putting lives in danger? Should I just be accountable for myself, forget my obligation as a citizen to act in behalf of the greater good?

Most of the time I live in silent rage, not as much at those who don’t wear masks, but more so at those who offer misinformation for capital or political gain, at those who perpetuate their lies when they know they result in death. At other times, I take my mask off, reveal myself. I speak the truth as I see it, speak openly about my rage, and become the person who speaks softly into the political anger of the day. I speak softly so that I might be heard. I speak the best I can without a mask.

The literal and figurative masks I decide to wear or to reject require ongoing cultural labor and negotiation. In this process, I discover who I am and who I want to be. I mark myself, establish my identity for better or worse. Veiled, I protect my vulnerabilities and I find permission to do what I might not otherwise. Unmasked, I stand naked, exposed, and at times, frightened. I always must decide when it’s safe to go with or without a mask, must determine what might be socially appropriate in a given circumstance, must consider the costs and rewards of putting myself on display.