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His Face Is Unmistakable. It Is the Face of Protest.
All around the world, protesters wear Guy Fawkes masks to conceal their identity in service of a cause.
Ms. Barrett is a photo editor in the Opinion section.
Lately it seems like everyone has something to protest. The streets are filled with the noise of dissent, from marchers demanding democracy in Hong Kong to demonstrators insisting on economic equality in Chile to climate activists chanting worldwide. Oddly, wherever they take place and whatever their particular grievance, these movements all claim a failed 17th-century British insurgent as their symbolic confederate.
In 1605, a small group plotted to assassinate King James I, who they felt had not done enough, quickly enough, for the country’s Catholics. Known as the Gunpowder Plot, the plan was to kill James, his family and supporters during the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament. Guy Fawkes, an agitator for Catholic causes, was responsible for guarding the barrels of explosives that had been hidden in the cellar of the House of Lords. The plot, and Fawkes, were discovered before the explosives were detonated. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and through torture revealed the names of his co-conspirators. All those captured were hanged for treason except Fawkes, who ignobly fell while climbing to the gallows and broke his neck. The anniversary of the plot’s discovery, Nov. 5, was soon made an official holiday and has been celebrated ever since by lighting bonfires and burning Fawkes in effigy.
Since the Victorian era, it has been common for people to dress up as Fawkes himself, often wearing a stylized mask with an upturned mustache, thin goatee and arched eyebrows. But he didn’t break into the global mainstream until 1988, nearly 400 years later, when Alan Moore and David Lloyd published “V for Vendetta,” a comic series featuring Guy Fawkes as the ultimate antihero in a future, fascist England.
In an article that appeared during the original run of “V for Vendetta,” Mr. Moore credits the idea to base V on Fawkes to Mr. Lloyd, who wrote: “Why don’t we portray him as a resurrected Guy Fawkes, complete with one of those papier-mâché masks, in a cape and conical hat? He’d look really bizarre and it would give Guy Fawkes the image he’s deserved all these years. We shouldn’t burn the chap every Nov. 5th but celebrate his attempt to blow up Parliament!” The book, and the movie that followed in 2006, single-handedly and through a torque of the legend, foisted a new Guy Fawkes, now known as V, into the popular and political culture, just as a new generation of protest movements was getting started.
The mask of V is unmistakable. Its brows, mustache and thin goatee are drawn as if by fist and black marker on an alabaster face. It is now the face of protest, largely anti-government but not exclusively. It’s a face that demands attention, an unsettling visage floating in the sea of yellow vests, umbrellas and black hoods.
Sara Barrett is a photo editor in the Opinion section.
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