Friday, October 8, 2010

The REAL Guy Fawkes

Is everyone familiar with this guy?

Remember, remember the 5th of November. Right? He is believed to be a symbol for all anarchists out there and anti-establishment types. He rebelled against the tyranny of his 17th century rulers and attempted to blow up the British Parliament building. Pretty awesome huh? For all the wrong reasons.....

The Guy Fawkes mask is culturally popular because of the cult hit movie V for Vendetta. In the movie, the protagonist, V, represents an individual who is championing the citizens rights whether they like it or not. By the end of the movie he has overthrown the establishment and, assuming, put in place a peoples government. All in the name of the famous Guy Fawkes' attempt on the 5th of November. 

However, Guy Fawkes was in fact trying to be a martyr for the rise of the catholic church. He was a fighter from Spain who infiltrated England in order to usher in a new age of catholic rule on the country. So we can all thank Alan Moore for this newer depiction of Fawkes, but don't forget what he actually stood for, which is the catholic establishment of the time.

19 comments:

  1. I noticed there's a Fawkes mask hanging in one of the political office buildings here downtown. I should give the guys in the office a bag of fries or something!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aww. Thanks for ruining him for me :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. that's interesting - i guess most people these days only know him from the film... me included :p

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting. I suppose Hollywood recognized the possibilities that lie behind the mask, and realized that a Catholic pitch just would generate the revenue, so they altered it to attract a wider audience.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I know him only from the film too =/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow I havent seen that film in ages!

    ReplyDelete
  7. yep it's funny how people will aimlessly follow something like this without knowing the facts about it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've been researching about him the other day... interesting guy for sure

    ReplyDelete
  9. awesome, supporting!

    ReplyDelete
  10. God that mask always creeps me out..

    ReplyDelete
  11. I laughed so hard, and I can't thank you enough for mentioning this.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow, I never knew all of this before. Thanks for the cool facts.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hah nice info. I heard half of the story, but didn't know some of that.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I really want to have the mask. I think it looks pretty neat regardless of its origins.

    ReplyDelete