The Tragic Life Of Jawesome & Societies Impossible Beauty Standards

Imagine telling your mom that you want to go out treat or treating dressed like a sentient unflushable turd made up of peanut brittle and corn pops. Throw in an unhinged jaw and two goofy cartoon eyes and what you have, my friend, is what I've come to name Jawesome.

Listen, I may be a tad harsh on these blogs, but most of the time it's for comedic effect. I actually have tremendous respect for anyone who makes anything, because it means that it mattered enough to them to put any effort whatsoever into said thing to create it, and that's more than most people will ever even conceive of going through. A lot of people can't even wash their own dishes in the same night they have dinner. So anyone who creates movies or books or even bad masks deserves at least some small bit of my respect, because they had a dream and they saw it through, even if nobody else was happy about it. That being said, it's the same level of respect one would have for, say, a bank robber. Certainly, you went into a rather difficult task, and you managed to pull it off, but that doesn't in any way make it alright.

Design wise, Jawesome here is actually pretty neat, but that's partially due to the fact that, no matter how stupid your design might be, an unhinged jaw automatically enters into it "cool" territory. Snakes are a great example of that. But I also dig the rather cartoony look the whole thing has to it; looks like it could be straight out of an 80s saturday morning kids show or something. 

Also, aside from the whole "thought it was a fart but turned out it wasn't" color scheme, the palette here color wise is pretty great too. You've got these bulging eyes with that stark purple, and the great teeth surrounded by a nearly identical liner color. There's so much done right here that it almost hurts to say it's mostly wrong. I think what boggles me the most is just trying to imagine what kind of costume this goes with. There's no body attached to this thing, but my mind automatically conjures up images of perhaps a mud monster of some kind? Maybe a fancier mud monster, maybe a mud monster in a tuxedo. Like, sure, he's a horrifying beast of the bog but that doesn't mean he can't be a snappy dresser.

I also like his ridiculous eyebrows, that I feel aren't necessarily intentional and more just an unavoidable side effect of the way the eyes were attached to his head. Had they colored Jawesome in any other color, it might've been great, but this weird pseudo brown gold color mostly reserved for the color of slightly overbunt pancakes just...it just doesn't work with the rest of the design. And it sucks to have to say that, because really, the rest of the design isn't inherently terrible. He's got a happy look to him, so you know he's not downright evil, but he also could theoretically stretch his mouth to swallow you whole if you're rude to him, which makes him sorta evil. He really straddles that fine line of not villainous yet not heroic pretty damn well, and for that I do have to give credit. Well done. I think my personal favorite aspect of this collection of images is specifically the fact that someone owned both this mask and a clothing mannequin. So this brings to light a few theories; the first is that perhaps they are a clothing designer who also made this mask or just happened into its ownership, the second is that they, for whatever reason, happened to have this thing to put the mask on or knew someone who did, and the third, and my personal favorite, it's their moms sewing mannequin. Like, this is straight up some kid who had this mask and needed a place to take quality pictures of it and was like, "Ya know, mom's got that thing she uses for showing off her blouses, that's a good idea!"

Because really, weren't we ALL that kid at one point? I know I was.

Jawesome is a tragic tale, one woven time and time again by storytellers who don't know exactly how stories are told and are a lot less storyteller and a lot more "That one time at a party" guy we all know, wherein a great concept is born, and 75% well executed. And because you can see that 75%, because it's so very clear to us visually, we can also recognize the 25% that went horribly horribly wrong, and that makes us very very sad because we know in our deepest of hearts how great Jawesome could've been.

If only we all still wanted to look so goofy and ridiculous instead of wearing an "Eyes Wide Shut" mask or something from the latest blockbuster every year, then perhaps Jawesome could've lived on. But even with the ever changing culture surrounding masks, I don't think Jawesome would've lived on because there was something fundamentally wrong with him from the get go. He was a concept gone awry, he was the mask that didn't live up to everyone's expectations like the child who was "gifted" in grade school and very quickly declined in mental health and performance (so, ya know, me) to the point where everyone around could tell something was amiss about them.

Jawesome was what he was, and in the end, we can't really ask for more than that from masks, or people, really. I mean, we should ask for more than that from people, because we shouldn't allow people to get away with the garbage they do, but that's a whole other issue altogether. Jawesome's only crime was his design flaw, and he shouldn't be imprisoned in the dungeon of bad masks forever simply because someone didn't know how to properly color code something. It's not his fault he came out a far more grotesque monster than he was supposed to. If anything, we should celebrate Jawesome and his ability to be remembered for the fact that, despite his literal shit coloring, he managed to survive and be stuck on some persons mannequin for these photos, and likely bought by someone too. Someone who'll give him a good home. A home he deserves. A home where, maybe, finally, Jawesome can be loved the way he always deserved to be.

A home where Jawesome is loved no matter how monstrous he may be. That's much more than most of us end up with, I think, sadly.