I watched The Mask for the first time not too long ago. Honestly, I didn’t really like it, but I wanted to give it a chance, so I gave it some reflection. I couldn’t come up with any clear answer as to a lesson learned, a moral told, a character grown, anything...was there even a lesson or moral in mind when writing and directing the film, anyways? Thinking back on it, the film really is not very realistic, obviously. I mean, the guy puts on a mask and turns into an ultra powerful, undefeatable cartoon character, and it was clearly advertised this way. But what if that mask is just a metaphor? What if none of the events that happen with the mask on actually happened outside of Stanley’s mind? When you put it that way, the whole thing comes off as some sort of delusional, wet-dream.
Just hear me out on this one; there is actually a lot of evidence to support this theory. To begin, we can clearly see that Stanley is awkward with women, and generally embarrassed by his own demeanor. After a day at work ogling and objectifying Tina, the love interest, he goes home to watch cartoons that make light of the very same behavior he displayed earlier, reinforcing what he believes to be entirely innocent. When Stanley falls asleep that night, we are introduced to more of his insecurities. He doesn’t make enough money to buy a nice sports car, or a nice suit, and because of that (thinks, he), he doesn’t have the kind of confidence to pick up a sexy lady like Tina. Note that Tina, in this scene, is again being objectified, compared with his materialistic desires of a nice car and suit, Tina is just another object to be obtained to solidify Stanley’s idea of success.
After the first incident with the mask, we are introduced to Dr. Neuman via a televised interview. In it, he expresses the core belief of his new book, that “...we all wear masks metaphorically speaking. We suppress the id, our darkest desires, and adopt a more socially acceptable image.”. Seeing this, Stanley totally overlooks the message, and thinks Dr. Neuman may be able to help prove that this mask is actually taking control over his body, and taking on a personality of its own. Of course the doctor, being a psychiatrist, sees through this. This mask is Stanley’s ideal outward persona, and he promptly recommends in a kind, albeit understandably patronizing manner, that Stanley get some help so he can learn to find a healthy balance between this masked personality and his inner desires.
Stanley is later arrested as he is found to be the masked man causing endless havoc in his city, to put it lightly. So Tina visits him in jail, and thanks him for “being the only guy to treat me like a person, and not some party favor”, which is just completely untrue as seen above. These sound like the words that a “hopeless romantic” like Stanley would daydream the object of their fixation saying to them before planting a kiss on his heroic lips. Barf. I’m sorry, I cannot stand this scene haha. It has to be the most delusional and unrealistic part of the movie, and the guy TURNS INTO A CARTOON CHARACTER BY PUTTING ON A MASK.
Phew, anyways, after Stanley manages to break out of jail with the help of his dog…*sigh*, he goes to defeat the bad guy at a club on casino night? Okay, this is a smaller gripe, but I used to work at a casino. Those things are heeeavily regulated beyond what the average moviegoer might believe (which is why it’s such a silly little gripe I have), but still, that just goes to reinforce my thought that this is a dream. And here’s why. A man like Stanley can’t just have a heroic final boss fight in his wet dream just ANYWHERE. It has to be something cool, like a club, or even better, a club on casino night! YEAH, now we’re talking.
Okay, now that I got that out, the bigger problem here is that Stanley then proceeds to murder multiple men. Not to mention the gang member he killed earlier on in the movie. Stanley just up and decided to take justice in his own hands and decided that these men needed to die, and he got off scot free for it. It’d be one thing if a cop or a wealthy man got away with this, that’s realistic, but Stanley has no social status or money, and they just let him go without investigation or trial. Even said cops and wealthy white men usually go to trial out of formality.
So as I said, this comes of as a completely unrealistic wet dream. Stanley gets to do what he wants, and gets what he wants with no consequence. I’m pretty convinced at this point that everything after the events of meeting Tina at work are just a dream, and so there need not be a lesson learned here. Perhaps the lesson is that even “nice guys” can be assholes, and that may never change...but honestly they probably just made it with the express purpose to make money and to look cool, let’s be real.
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