Disguises

"In October 2012 I made a mistake. I joined a morris team without seeing them perform in public. Lulled by the powers of a facebook post advertising a newly formed Border team who were looking for members and having knowledge into the ways of the morris, this being my second Border team I turned up at a  practice. I got on with the group and became a fully paid up member. Only at my first dance out did I realise that whilst the kit wasn’t a full black face it was definitely more black than I felt comfortable with. Now this isn’t because I’m a member of the PC brigade and I don’t think that we should give up aspects of tradition because of the chance that they might cause offense. The reason for my discomfort is perhaps slightly more pedantic than that."

This article explores the link between minstrelsy and morris dancing and can be accessed for free from The Morris Federation website.

In May 2013, the FSB expelled an American diplomat on the grounds that he was spying for the CIA. Listed among the alleged spy’s suspicious possessions were ‘means of altering appearance’. It was later revealed that this disguise kit contained a variety of wigs and sunglasses. These paraphernalia were so ill-fitting that they seemed to belong in a comedy performance, but they provoked some serious debate. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, former CIA operative, Robert Baer, described the thick-rimmed glasses and stick-on moustaches that he and his colleagues had worn to break up facial contours. The aim of these disguises was to make people remember ‘something other than the face’.
An individual’s identity is bound up in his or face more so than any other body part. Passport photographs, portraits, and other images related to personal identity, tend to feature the face. It is for this reason that criminal photo-fits tend to feature only the head, and why criminals’ disguises concentrate on concealing the face and head. The problem with any mask or facial disguise is that it immediately marks someone out as a wrong-doer. The mere act of wearing a mask may itself be considered morally questionable, as it is a deception of sorts. The ‘mask has come to connote something disingenuous, something false’. It is overtly a disguise. David Napier observes that it is this sense of an incomplete identity that drives audiences to seek out the secret alternative identity hidden underneath. The mask is ‘known to have no inside’ and this ‘invit[es] the audience to peer behind the mask’.
This paper will explore the problem of the mask and its use in disguise. While effective disguise often necessitates the use of a mask (or other artefacts that distort or conceal the face), facial disguises often heighten the observer’s sense of curiosity about the identity beneath. Taking recent and historical examples of physical disguise, the paper will identify why the mask is the cornerstone of disguise, and simultaneously the disguise’s greatest point of vulnerability.

Este trabajo proporciona una visión panorámica de los disfraces y los intercambios de género (femenino/masculino) para plantear una tipología compleja del travestismo. La articulación de la identidad sexual está en el imperativo máximo de un ensayo en el que se entrelazan ética y política. Se postula la vestimenta como algo más que accesorio, algo que representa a la persona en tanto es la encrucijada de sus voliciones y de nuestra imagen individual. El travestismo convoca la utopía de la autorreflexividad, la manipulación y la metamorfosis; hace creer en la posibilidad de que, en ese nuevo rostro adoptado, se puede hallar otra existencia, otra identidad mas interesantes. Remodelar el cuerpo sexuado es táctica de una máscara asumida y representada, de tal manera que el travesti masculino lo hace símbolo de su realidad ex-céntrica y exagerada, ya que hiperboliza, en su caso, las marcas de ser mujer. Sin embargo, cabe señalar también la importancia de analizar y observar las diferentes posibilidades de encuadramiento social y los motivos para encubrirse, de gran utilidad para estudiar las marcas del travesti y sus maniobras dentro de una gama de posibilidades y estrategias. De ahí la necesidad de cuestionar, en primer lugar, el estereotipo de identificar el travestismo como una práctica exclusicamente masculina y la de asociarla con la homosexualidad, para plantear esos ámbitos en los que son aceptados, por ejemplo, el de la fiesta popular y el del carnaval, con su noción de regeneración vital y la subversión de lo oficial. Otro elemento sobre el que se llama la atención es la asociación del travestismo con el ser hermafrodita en su afán de mimetizarse en la apariencia del contrario biológico y cultural, con el fin de exorcizar el binarismo de términos irreconciliables y la restauración de plenitud original, ya sea mediante una androginización de la mujer para subrayar sus rasgos masculinos, ya sea con una efebización del modelo de belleza en el hombre para caracterizar la suavidad y la delicadeza corporal.

In May 2013, the FSB expelled an American diplomat on the grounds that he was spying for the CIA. Listed among the alleged spy’s suspicious possessions were ‘means of altering appearance’. It was later revealed that this disguise kit contained a variety of wigs and sunglasses. These paraphernalia were so ill-fitting that they seemed to belong in a comedy performance, but they provoked some serious debate. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, former CIA operative, Robert Baer, described the thick-rimmed glasses and stick-on moustaches that he and his colleagues had worn to break up facial contours. The aim of these disguises was to make people remember ‘something other than the face’. An individual’s identity is bound up in his or face more so than any other body part. Passport photographs, portraits, and other images related to personal identity, tend to feature the face. It is for this reason that criminal photo-fits tend to feature only the head, and why criminals’ disguises concentrate on concealing the face and head. The problem with any mask or facial disguise is that it immediately marks someone out as a wrong-doer. The mere act of wearing a mask may itself be considered morally questionable, as it is a deception of sorts. The ‘mask has come to connote something disingenuous, something false’. It is overtly a disguise. David Napier observes that it is this sense of an incomplete identity that drives audiences to seek out the secret alternative identity hidden underneath. The mask is ‘known to have no inside’ and this ‘invit[es] the audience to peer behind the mask’. This paper will explore the problem of the mask and its use in disguise. While effective disguise often necessitates the use of a mask (or other artefacts that distort or conceal the face), facial disguises often heighten the observer’s sense of curiosity about the identity beneath. Taking recent and historical examples of physical disguise, the paper will identify why the mask is the cornerstone of disguise, and simultaneously the disguise’s greatest point of vulnerability.Non peer reviewe