UNDER THE MASK

I am an observer of life. I observe people (not in a “Special Victims Unit” way) and mentally record what makes them tick, say what escapes their lips and attempt to peel away all the layers of masks that we all wear. I wear them, you do too. My work mask, my polite grocery store line mask, my I’m a patient person but I’m about three hot seconds from losing my cool mask. We all have our individually strapped-on, perfectly fit masks that we have spent the majority of our lives creating and perfecting. These masks protect us from the big bad wolves out there, but they also enable us to broadcast to others the image and vibe that we wish to portray, especially if, its as far from the truth as can be.

Some people’s masks look like they bought them from the clearance bin at Party City after Halloween, poorly constructed, worn and torn, allowing those of us with more than two brain cells bashing together to realize that this person is not being honest with their intentions. We call them “fake”, “shallow “, “ politicians.” You know, people with a blatantly obvious alternative motivation. Now others have a P.H.D. in Mask Construction with a Masters in Mask application and delivery. These are the people that intrigue me. Some of these people also turn out to be sociopathic serial killers, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

It’s a Pandora’s box of creative fodder for the writer. If you are a T.V. or Netflix watcher you might have noticed a trend that has occurred in the last decade with shows that have become very popular. The protagonist of a multitude of shows ( i.e. Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Dexter, Shameless) would normally not be the character suitable for the audience to be relating to and ultimately rooting for. The layers of the character, the many masks the character is able to juggle, ultimately outshines the blatant faults and devious behavior that is portrayed. People love complexity, drama, and life or death stakes for entertainment. The nastier the character that we can find endearing in some way the better. So Bob killed his whole family, runs with a gang, and targets old ladies in the park for his dungeon in his basement, he is also going to night school to become a geriatric doctor, takes care of his ailing mother with Alzheimer’s while financially supporting his gay neighbor who is struggling with expensive HIV meds; therefore, Bob comes out on top, the audience gives him a hall pass and looks the other way when he is offing random people in alleyways.

Complexity: it is what we are, and it is what we relate to. There are universal themes that we as humans all relate to such as love, loss, success, heartbreak and family struggle. Then very specific story-lines written on top of these universal themes enabling the audience to cry over that curious case of Benjamin Button, although we have not experienced the lost love of a partner aging in reverse. Our job as a writer is to make the unimaginable realistic, the horrifying admirable, the loser the hero, and the villain relatable. This is a seemingly difficult task. It Is what keeps my man purse full of pens and my notebooks chuck-full of random ideas to hopefully one day become part of a completely outrageous storyline that a grandma in Detroit binge watches while loosening her belt for another bag of pork rinds.