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 new and thus isn't interesting. The things that were interesting enough to still be discussed after they're gone are only considered interesting because they were good enough to be remembered, not because they're new. We live in a culture, especially as a woman, that values youth above all else. The most sought after group to advertise to age wise is the 18-34 crowd, and a lot of what's been the best stuff on television in the last few years have, oddly enough, been kids shows, far outshining shows "made for adults". Serious dramas. Serialized sitcoms. Whatever it is, most have been beaten out by a simple cartoon here and there, because, when done right, they can appeal to all ages. Watching two twin siblings solve a mystery involving horrific trickster gods from another dimension has the appeal to be interesting to all age groups, but not every kid wants to watch a courtroom procedural, you feel me?

Women even go so far as to use facial masks to de-age themselves; we plaster ourselves in makeup to look younger, more vibrant, and while I'm not putting anyone down for doing any of that, and I do it myself, it only further solidifies as absolutely entangled this country is with the concept of youth.

The children are either our future, or their the ones trying to ruin the future. There's no middle ground, sadly. As someone who's 30, this has become extremely clear to me. But you might be asking what all of this has to do with a mask I found for sale on ebay? Well, the whole concept of old people masks is just unsettling and kind of cruel, to be frank with you.

I mean, we're taught to respect our elders from a young age, mostly because by teaching us that they're trying to indoctrinate us into respecting any type of authority figure no matter who they are, and age is so often interconnected with the concepts of wisdom and experience, and yet here we are, making their lives, the culmination of their years on this planet, a mask to "scare" people with? It's such a strange disconnect.

I understand everyone has a fear of aging, or damn near everyone, but to dress up as old people, to make masks and then buy said masks and wear them pretending to be old people, it seems so cold hearted, and yet in a way, it's laughing in the face of the recognition of our own mortality. It's us as a culture recognizing something that frightens the hell out of us and then saying "well, we may as well point and make fun of it so that it frightens us less!" and I can sort of understand respect that. And while I'm no advocate for authority figures, especially the ones of late, there's still a small part of me, as someone who grew up dearly loving her grandparents, that feels like maybe we shouldn't be saying that old people are scary and ugly and gross? I mean, people talk about ageism all the time, and yet they'll slap on a balding mask and a half wig of grey hair and create fake wrinkles from makeup and still make light of the age of others. It's...it's confusing and contradictory, I guess. And while I don't like using terms like ageism, sounding like a pseudo armchair psychologist from the internet, it is actually the appropriate term to use here, I think.

A mask, to me, in the classical sense, should represent something horrific, something otherworldly, something monstrous. That isn't to say that a lot of the older people in charge of things right now aren't all those things, because, well, they are. They're eldritch horrors from another dimension dedicated to destroying our world and lives. But I still feel like masks should be of creatures from nightmares, and while, certainly, many of our boomer parents and out of touch politicians are straight out of our nightmares, that isn't the same thing, you dig? A gargoyle, a gremlin, a zombie, whatever, these are things that we should be wearing masks of. These are things that are, in one sense of another, creepy and mask worthy. But age? I don't know man, it's a complicated issue. And for whatever reason, it's these ones (like the one pictured in this post) that bother me the most. If you wear an old person mask that's at least ridiculously designed and sort of gross, then okay, it's more of a depiction of a ghoul or something. You can sort of let it slide. But just a mask of a regular old person? That just feels downright cruel to me.

I'm part of a minority. I'm queer, I'm disabled, I'm autistic. I'm part of MANY minorities, actually, and yet I don't want people to make what makes me, things I've got no control over, much like age, into a costume and parade around in it, so I can only imagine that a lot of old people feel the same way. And there's plenty of old people who've done really nothing wrong to deserve it too. That's the worst part. There's plenty of kindly, open minded old people who've grown through their lives and learned to be better humans or were just good humans in general, who don't deserve to see their age, something they cannot control and probably are unhappy about themselves, being reflected back at them as a "creature of the night".

With all that being said, I just hope this is something that stays in the past of masks. We don't need old people masks, because one day we'll all BE old people, and while it's fun and relatively healthy to make light of that fact, it shouldn't be done at the expense of actual old people who cannot get their health taken seriously or get a job simply because they're old or poor or lack in education. Also these are fantastic photos, and I love how beautiful everything is with this mask smack dab in the middle of it. Figured I had to throw something in, review wise.