"Vendetta" mask becomes symbol of Occupy protests

A protester with the "Occupy Seattle" movement wears a Guy Fawkes mask and takes a photo with a mobile phone as he demonstrates, in downtown Seattle, Oct. 15, 2011.

/ AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK - Look at a photo or news clip from around the world of Occupy protests and you'll likely spot a handful of demonstrators wearing masks of a cartoon-like man with a pointy beard, closed-mouth smile and mysterious eyes.

The mask is a stylized version of Guy Fawkes, an Englishman who tried to bomb the British Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605.

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"They're very meaningful masks," said Alexandra Ricciardelli, who was rolling cigarettes on a table outside her tent in New York's Zuccotti Park two days before the anniversary of Fawkes' failed bombing attempt.

"It's not about bombing anything; it's about being anonymous - and peaceful."

To the 20-year-old from Keyport, N.J., the Fawkes mask "is about being against The Man - the power that keeps you down."

But history books didn't lead to the mask's popularity: "V for Vendetta" did.

The nearly 30-year-old graphic novel, which became a movie in 2005, features a violent, anarchist antihero known as "V," who fashions himself as a modern Guy Fawkes. His rebellion against a fascist government has become a touchstone for young protesters in mostly western countries.

While Warner Brothers holds the licensing rights to the Guy Fawkes mask, several protesters said they were using foreign-made copies to circumvent the corporation.

Yet whether the inspiration is the comic, the movie or the historical figure, the imagery - co-opted today by everyone from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the hacker group Anonymous - carries stronger connotations than some of the Occupy protesters seem to understand.

While Fawkes' image has been romanticized over the past 400 years, he was a criminal who tried to blow up a government building. It would be hard to imagine Americans one day wearing Timothy McVeigh masks to protest the government or corporate greed.

Lewis Call, an assistant history professor at California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo, said the masked protesters are adopting a powerful symbol that has shifted meaning through the centuries.

"You can seize hold of it for any political purpose you want," he said. "That's the real power of it."

Fawkes was a Catholic insurrectionist who was executed for the bombing attempt. In the years immediately following his execution, Nov. 5 was England's official celebration for defeating Fawkes, said Call, who has written about the nexus of Fawkes, "V for Vendetta" and modern-day protests.

Call said over the next three centuries, people in England started using Fawkes' image in different ways. Some used Fawkes as a symbol for putting limits on state power. Others held him up as a freedom fighter.

Then came Alan Moore's comic book, a nihilistic story set in a futuristic England. And the movie. People began thinking of him as a libertarian or even anarchist hero.

"Gradually over the centuries, the meaning of Guy Fawkes has dramatically changed," said Call. "The reputation of Guy Fawkes has been recuperated. Before he was originally seen as a terrorist trying to destroy England. Now he's seen more as a freedom fighter, a fighter for individual liberty against an oppressive regime. The political meaning of that figure has transformed."

Nearly two years after the film "V for Vendetta" was released, the hacker group Anonymous wore the Guy Fawkes masks depicted in the movie during protests against the Church of Scientology. Then came Wikileaks and the Occupy movement.

At Zuccotti Park in New York, the Guy Fawkes masks have been worn over the past month by Occupy protesters ranging from self-proclaimed anarchists to drummers to those impersonating "zombie" bankers. Few wore them Thursday afternoon because of the arrests of masked activists. But they weren't gone - just hidden.

One was in the left hand of 32-year-old Jason J. Cross - right under a protest sign. He had 20 more stashed in his tent, to be sold at $5 apiece.

"I had 10 here yesterday, and I sold out!" he said.

Cross said he'd purchased 100 of the Chinese-made masks online.

"The origins of this mask comes from the idea of rising up against the government," he said. "Guy Fawkes represents the fact that the people have the real power."

A man at the Occupy London protests on a recent day said the mask has become a potent symbol.

"It's unifying the world under one symbol," said the 33-year-old man who asked not to be named because he claimed to be a member of a group accused of hacking into government and corporate computer systems.

"People hide behind the masks, put the masks on and their identity is hidden. Therefore they can do a lot more than they would if they didn't have the masks," he said, after emerging sleepy-eyed from his tent.

The London protester said his brethren are trying to counter Warner Bros.' control of the imagery.

He claims that Anonymous UK has imported 1,000 copies from China, and the distribution goes "straight into the pockets of the Anonymous beer fund rather than the Warner Brothers. Much better."

Hudson Williams Eynon, a protester in Seattle's Westlake Plaza, said the mask is not the only corporate product the Occupy movement is using. Smart phones, cameras and Internet service are used to organize. It is something unavoidable, he said.

"There's a lot of inherent ironies in protesting corporations in a corporate world," Williams Eynon said in early October.

[steveaustin1971]

So funny... most of the people that "claim" to be anons recently don't even know the truth and the MSM certainly doesn't get it, but at the risk of making some enemies... here is the truth: Google Epic Fail Guy... THAT is why anon adopted the Fawkes mask... it was a troll ffs... soooo daaamn fuunnnyy.

[helloworld_77]

I just kissed my computer screen...thank you.

[sharky77]

Too bad these people lack an understanding of history. Frankly, they should don a mask of Timothy McVeigh, he is/was the modern day Guido "Guy" Fawkes. If only these people knew the truth. So they don a mask of a man that was a would be assassin, and tried to blow up Parliament in England, a Government building. Reminds me of Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Federal building in Oklahoma City. Not to mention the fact Fawkes also wanted to instill a Catholic Theocracy, to replace the Protestant Theocracy. And of course the KKK also wear hoods to cover their faces. BRAVO OWS!!! You are now in the same league as terrorists and racists.

[Benkarkis]

"By the way, I also notice a lot of conservatives laughing as they gut American education through some unfounded fear and hatred of teachers and our education system."

American education is not being gutted. The problem is - how many non productive majors can this country support? Do you want to hire more Sociology and History Professors? More political science majors? The only jobs are back in College where 99 percent of the educators are Democrats. Why would the Republicans support that, makes sense to me.

[danapointdad]

"""It's not about bombing anything; it's about being anonymous - and peaceful."""

why the need to be anonymous if you are peaceful? seems contradictory, and not honest to me.

[eastofeden]

Since when does the word "anonymous" an acronym for "peaceful"?
Since when does "peaceful" relate to "honest"?
It doesn't sound contradictory at all.

You, however, sound like an incoherent bigot. Please think before you speak.

[Benkarkis]

Loved that movie. now it's spoiled.

If life is so miserable who has been feeding and clothing these thousands of people for 3 weeks?

I do support your right to protest but underneath all this it reminds me of the UMASS Revolutionary Student Brigade from the 1970s.

[Oblablah]

A protest is a protest and you let yourself be heard- these people have now become a nuisance and annoyance.I live 4 blocks away, and the filth, noise and smells are simply disgusting, the 4 heroin heads I have seen stumbling down broadway from this group as well which I have never seen down in that neck of the woods dont help the matter, let alone the homeless and ex cons that have moved in. They harass you, pan handle and complain if you dont give them enough. If you this is the movement then you will get nowhere fast.
Bankers are bankers, and why are they the chosen ones? The government bailed them out and should be to blame for most of this not the banks. Their greed and salary's? What about the execs from Oil, Autos, Athletics, Technology, thievery going on in the green energy, and on and on. They are no different then the others, that is the comical point. I just want to know who is in charge of the $500K they have take in and where it really coming from?

[Zann-Zel]

Isn't this a free market? If the banks want our business back they'll start treating us like real people with real lives rather than just a source of money for them.

[julianpenrod]

This invokes, however, a very serious issue which underlies the Occupy movement and all other previous such movements, and may have been a key to the fact that none of them succeeded as their devotees wished.
You can talk about the "Vendetta" mask being a symbol for the movement, just as it also seems to be being used by the Anonymous hackers group, as well, but consider something. Every mask bought puts money in the pocket of the corporation that makes the mask, increases the coffers of Warner Brothers Studios who produced the movie and DC Comics who published the comic book initially. The system, society, is very deeply wired so that just about everything ties in somehow into corporate control, it makes them money, it infringes on some law that allows them to assault you or can be countered by some machination theyn undertake!
When the demonstrators are through buying corporate produced and copyright protected masks to protest the corporations, incidentally, while wearing corporate made clothing, writing placards with corporate manufactured materials, eating corporate grown and distributed food, what do they expect? If they really think the corporations will roll over they may be heading for a huge fall. If they think some concrete action may be needed as the next step, they should consider some facts.
What if they recommended not putting money into banks to try to rein them in? Increasingly, corporations from airlines to hotels to restaurants are refusing to accept cash, demanding checks or credit cards! What about simply recommending people stop buying from corporations overall? The corporations immediately impacted, likely more vanity and luxury providers, would then resort to skyrocketing their prices through the roof and related corporations, not targeted because they provided more "staples", using the "interceonnectedness" of the economy, would say that they need to charge more so they can afford the services and goods of the primarily attacked corporations. To say nothing of their relying on such facets as members of the "rank and file" suffering if the corporations they work for are hit with financial shortfalls. And do you really think government would cut back on, say, property taxes because "rank and file" members working for corrupt corporations are seeing their salaries draconianly rtrimmed?
And consider, too, what few talk about, namely the fact that, if they see their place in society threatened, the corporations will simply buy a "war", like the "war on 'terror'", to drive the society into a rut of fear and privation!
Apparently too much trust, by to many, and too little self reliance, by too many, has led society to where it is today, so endangered by corporations losing what version of "good will" they exhibit. For many, to remove the influence of the corporations is to reduce them to spineless wrecks, all but utterly incapable of fending for themselves, inside a corporately designed urban set up intended to reduce or remove opportunities for someone to fend solely, or even just largely, for themselves!