The Mask of Zorro

The mask of zorro is a symbol of Latin American identity. Zorro is a folk hero of colonial trauma. With two holes for eyes, he cannot be seen by the oppressor, he denies the voyeur. Instead it is he that does the seeing. A man that sees without being seen frustrates the oppressor. He represents the will to rebel and take vengeance on the colonizer for their wrongs on his people. Behind the mask he is protected, and is transformed to something beyond a man, he becomes a myth and legend, but even more extraordinary, and idea. His mask represents a division: he is exiled from himself in order to save himself. He must not show his true identity for his own protection. He can never live fully as himself. The mask is a performance, he performs for others, becomes what they need: heroism, vengeance, strength. The mask is both a shield and a prison. It is protection from emotional exposure. The mask can project the perfected ideals of an emotion without revealing the vulnerability of an emotion. He can avenge his brothers death by killing his murderer, but he cannot grieve his brother’s death. He must be hidden to be free. He is not free to even love or hope or dream, only to project an image. Because a dream can be broken but an image cannot. The mask thus represents the greatest fantasy: not merely to overcome and overthrow, but the fantasy that it can all be done without vulnerability, that life can be made worthwhile without showing the entirety of being human and it’s fragilities. It is the Latino fantasy of the defensive life, the closed life that denies others entry, that tries to attack by defence only.

Wearing his mask long enough he becomes unable to live without it, but also unable to live with it. He becomes confused where the mask starts and himself ends. The mask is a symbol of both defiance and submission. He doesn’t wear the mask out of desire but out of necessity and forced circumstances.

He puts on his mask before he looks in the mirror. He is isolated and cut off from his roots. He wears the mask to hide himself, hide that he is missing a self, then go find the self he is missing, and steal it back from the hands of the oppressor.