Have you ever noticed that you are different people in different situations? Or, that sometimes
people you know act differently when you encounter them at different times?
Karl Marx had an idea for this – it was that we are constantly playing roles. He imagined this roles in terms of class – namely, the rise of the Proletariat vs the Bourgeoise. In either – you could be imagined as the oppressor, or the oppressed. But, there’s more to this idea of playing roles.
Indeed, our mate William Shakespeare said it best when he penned, ‘All the world’s a stage’. If you’re looking for the conceptual term for this, it is ‘Theatrum Mundi’ – essentially, it images the entire world as a stage, where upon people are simply characters. As characters, conflict arises and the action of our lives forms the drama, or comedy or tragedy of the stage. From the Elizabethan point of view, God was certainly the author – yet a rising trend towards Renaissance Humanism would give way to the idea of individual agency.
Four hundred years later, in a post-Christian context, the idea is still relevant – except that the majority of people imagine themselves in their own performance, where they themselves are the playwright, and costume designer, and make-up artist, and theatre critic, and so forth.
Yet, the role of playwright needs to be informed by something – and that’s where cultural tropes and stereotypes and cultural expectations come into play.
Let’s say for instance a person becomes pregnant and has a child – they take on the label of mother. It is a title imbued with all kinds of ideas and expectations, which that person names has to enact: care giver, maternal protector, comforter etc. There are also expectations that come with the role, these might include being the disciplinarian or the saviour – the child hurts themselves, you tell them it’s OK, or they hit their sibling with a rock, they have a consequence. This should all sound fairly standard – but that’s because ‘How to be a mother’ could be a textbook role.
But think for a minute, how about other roles? For each of the roles below – you would imagine the person’s role, not the person.
- Policeman – yep.
- Politician – yep.
- Primary school teacher – yep.
This raises the question – are we ‘roles’, or are we individual people? Do we move from role to role in our own lives? – It has certainly been said that Life’s but a poor player / that struts and frets his hour upon the stage (Shakespeare again, not me).
In my own life, I move between lots of different roles in both my professional and personal lives. The word ‘lives’ was quite deliberately written out there. And, in each of these ‘lives’ – we play whichever character is necessary. These characters will change, depending on the current performance on your own imagined stage:
Think of your own experience growing up: dutiful son, moody son.
Thinking again of your own experience growing up: competitive brother, overprotective brother.
With that being the case, I wonder if the 'Character' from a film we could all most relate to is 'The Mask'.
The story, quite briefly, centres on the character of Stanley Ipkiss, played by Jim Carey. Carey's character is a timid kind of guy, but he's caring and cooperative and likes to please others. Yet, this isn't really 'who' he is - I'm talking about at his core - it is rather the social role he has developed in order to relate to other people.
Yet, he finds the titular 'Mask' floating in the river - he's taken by it's novelty - and then, he puts it on. He instantly changes into a green faced beast of man - an alter ego, if you will, emerges - his inner self is unleashed.
For those who know the script of this film, you would say, 'Yes - but that's because he found the evil mask of the god Loki, God of Mischief'. But - underneath the mask, that's the point. The person is the same, but by putting on a mask - in this case, fine, it's a literal mask - he is able to play a different role than the character had previously taken on.
Sometimes, we need to fight - and we can figuratively pull out whatever guns we need to in order to address a situation.
Whereas at other times, we wear our hearts on our sleeve and embrace compassion and love for others.
At the conclusion of the film, having played with policeman and mobsters - The Stanley Ipkiss character stands on the bridge, telling his love interest Tina (played by Cameron Diaz) that he chooses to play himself, throwing the Loki mask off the bridge and getting his kiss:
And that's it - the character who I most identify with is 'The Mask' - in recognition that we all play different roles in different situations. Sometimes we play the balance between the supporting actor, or taking central stage as Carey demonstrated, and at other times, we simply become different people. It very much evokes Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, no?
And, in a final thought, I remember after watching the film taking on one of the more memorable phrases from the film, did you guys ever come out with, 'Sssssmokin'?
This post was in response to the CineTV competition: Which Film Character are you most like?
You can find the post here.