From ‘V’ to OWS: One Mask’s Story
Occupy Wall Street protesters have worn it, as have Anonymous hactivists, chief WikiLeaker Julian Assange and that guy who shared the screen with a shorn Natalie Portman in "V for Vendetta" (that would be Hugo Weaving, who also appears in another cult conspiracy movie, "The Matrix") But where did the dapper and sinister (more).
Occupy Wall Street protesters have worn it, as have Anonymous hactivists, chief WikiLeaker Julian Assange and that guy who shared the screen with a shorn Natalie Portman in “V for Vendetta” (that would be Hugo Weaving, who also appears in another cult conspiracy movie, “The Matrix”). But where did the dapper and sinister mask of Guy Fawkes’ face come from? The BBC knows all, tells all below. –KA
Rock Solid JournalismBBC:
Early in the book V destroys the Houses of Parliament by blowing it up, something Fawkes had planned and failed to do in 1605.
British graphic novel artist David Lloyd is the man who created the original image of the mask for a comic strip written by Alan Moore. Lloyd compares its use by protesters to the way Alberto Korda’s famous photograph of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara became a fashionable symbol for young people across the world.
“The Guy Fawkes mask has now become a common brand and a convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny – and I’m happy with people using it, it seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way,” he says.
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