Skip to main content

The Masks We Wear


Sometimes I wonder what fuels hobbies or collectors. I myself am both a hobbyist and a collector, and yet I am simply confounded at the hobbies and collectibles that other hobbyist and collectors are involved in. Recently, I've taken to Ebaying a lot of old things because I desperately need the money,
 but in doing so, it's made me search for some pretty weird things, like Swatch's and now masks.

But why would I make a blog about bad masks? Well, it seemed only natural, I mean, I've already got sister blogs "Be Kind, Rewind" about bad VHS box art and "Crackin' Spines" about bad book covers I find in thrift stores, so it just makes sense to start making a blog everytime a new awful interest pops into view. But there's something different about this one, and that's that there's much more to masks than just making fun of them. There's more genuinely cool masks I think than bad ones, there's masks from other cultures, there's a large history behind masks, and, as the movie The Mask here so eloquently points out for us bluntly, "We all wear masks, metaphorically."


I know this is true about myself, definitely.

I'm autistic. I'm disabled. I'm a lesbian. But I can get away with coming across as neurotypical and able bodied and straight thanks to the fact that I'm fairly high functional, and my disability is minimal and near invisible, and I look, to society, like a heterosexual woman, because I'm extremely feminine. So couple that with masking all the trauma I've dealt with in life day to day, especially when around other people and especially strangers, yeah...there's a bit of a personal angle with this one, not gonna lie.

 That being said, we are still here to discuss bad masks. I just wanted there to be some sort of introductory piece before we got to the fun stuff, so that's why this post exists. I hope this clears some things up, and I hope you enjoy the beauties that I've come to find for you. Trust me, they're wonderfully grotesque and I love them as if they were my own horribly disfigured children.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Over The Marrow & Through The Blood

Kids! Get your masks on! We're almost at Grandmas! You know, it surprises me just how many different monster designs have been created over the years, and I think it says something about the elasticity of what a "monster" can be that there's been so many unique takes on the concept. For instance, a monster can be a fully black mass with white hot glowing eyes, or a monster could be a tall creature with elongated limbs and sharp teeth that glint in the moonlight, or a monster can be a girl you take out multiple times who in the end ghosts you because despite saying she was looking for love what she was actually looking for was to make herself feel better at the expense of someone else (LAUREN), but no matter what your definition of a monster may be, one thing is certain: there will always be a new version of a monster. But so rarely do we get a monster that looks more like it's going to bake you cookies and tell you stories about the old days than actually do you h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dr. Latexstein & His Rubber Brain Of Doom

Why does every single mad scientist look the same? Why's there no variety in this field? Dr. Robotnik, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Horrible, Professor Membrane, you name a mad scientist and immediately an image is conjured in your head, right? Specifically the goggles. They ALL have these goggles. What is it about these goggles? Where did this trope come from, because I, for the life of me, cannot figure it out. Needless to say, that's what we're dealing with today. And, as with most mad scientists, this guy is one ugly son of a bitch. That's another problem isn't it? They're all typically very unattractive. Big bushy mustaches, enormous noses, their brains popping out of their fluff of electrified hair. Oh wait, that's just Dr. Latexsten here. Yeah, you might be surprised to learn that - especially since you can't see it in the main photo for this post - you can actually see his brain. Wanna see his brain? It's pretty cool. Who doesn't wanna see a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Acting Our Age: Youth Culture & The Elderly As Masks

There's, on the surface (and, I suppose, underneath too) not really much to say about this mask in terms of it's design and it's spooky factor. It's not really bad, it's not really amazing, it's not really much of anything, but there is one thing I want to discuss and that's something I sort of touched on in my Grandpa Jones post, which is the concept of aging. For some reason, for as long as I can remember, there's been one particular type of Halloween mask that has been around, and that is the old person mask. Sometimes it's more grotesque, other times it's not really all that interesting, and sometimes, like here, it's sort of disheveled but still rather tame. And this doesn't stop at just masks, this goes all the way to the film industry where they age people using makeup to make them look older. This just...it sort of rubs me the wrong way. We live in a culture of youth. Everything always has to be new, or else it isn't ne...
Post a Comment
Read more