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13 Things 2008
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]
For this project I was fortunate enough to have been able to interview Michael Dean about his masked Halloween experience. He wore an “evil clown” mask which he had bought from a local store for the purpose of Halloween. This is the story he told me:
He and his friends decided to set up a Guerilla Haunted House. During the day on Halloween they filled their backpacks with various costume attire (all of them wore masks) and roamed around campus setting up spook centers. One of these chosen places was the elevator in List.
Several people entered and exited the elevator, mildly frightened by the few guys wearing masks. Then someone they knew entered the elevator. The spectator was able to identify most of the masked men, except for Michael Dean. When the elevator stopped on the bottom floor Michael saw his opportunity. He followed the spectator in a crouched walk, to fit with the character of the mask. Michael told me that he kept completely silent because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his current character or anonymity if he spoke and broke the illusion. Michael basically followed the spectator to the door of the building at which point he turned around as he waited by the elevator. Meanwhile a second spectator was also waiting for the elevator. Michael proceeded to have a conversation with this spectator, never speaking, only laughing menacingly and responding in a physical manner. I imagine that this silence must have been quite disconcerting; especially in a public building that anybody can enter.
The first spectator was totally thrown off by Michael’s silence. In this way Michael made him less afraid of the “scary clown” the mask portrayed and more afraid of what the mask concealed. Because his mask is a mass production it "asserts no other identity, yet the altered appearance of the wearer acieved menace whether or not the viewer feels personally theartened"(Mack 1994). This is a perfect example of the Halloween mask acting as a concealing agent to keep the anonymity of the performer and mediate a new relationship between two people who represent strangers, even though they already may have a relationship within normal society.
The Life History of Michael Dean's Mask
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