How Did Guy Fawkes Become a Symbol of Occupy Wall Street?
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Today is Guy Fawkes Day. In Great Britain, Guy Fawkes Day — and its post-meridian counterpart, Bonfire Night — have been celebrated every Nov. 5 for centuries, since soon after Fawkes’ death in 1605.
In the lead-up to today, a Guy Fawkes mask spawned by the 2006 movie “V for Vendetta” has become the accessory of choice at Occupy Wall Street and similar protests around the world.
So who was Guy Fawkes, and how did he become a symbol of protesters more than 400 years after his death?
Guy Fawkes was a Catholic who, spurred by religious persecution, led a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and bring down England’s Protestant monarchy. He was caught, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and tortured for four days under personal orders from King James I.
He refused to name his co-conspirators, but they were caught anyway. The plotters were tried, found guilty and sentenced to death by being hanged, drawn and quartered.
Annual commemorations of the foiled plot began soon after, as reminders to defend England from other traitors, especially disloyal Catholics. Over time they became a day and night of fun and pranks, with bonfires, fireworks and the burning of children’s effigies of Fawkes. Today kids have swapped effigies for Halloween, leaving just Bonfire Night and its fireworks, according to The Guardian.
In Britain in the early 1980s, artist David Lloyd and writer Alan Moore created the graphic novel “V for Vendetta,” about a masked rebel named V who fights a fascist future British government. Lloyd suggested having the rebel wear a Guy Fawkes costume.
“We shouldn’t burn the chap every 5 November but celebrate his attempt to blow up Parliament!” Lloyd wrote in a 1983 essay titled “Behind the Painted Smile.”
This inverted Fawkes’ image — from traitor to hero fighting an unjust state. It also separated it from religion. The movie adaptation of “V for Vendetta” concocted a finale in which a whole movement of discontents wearing Guy Fawkes costumes watch the Houses of Parliament burn.
The Fawkes mask resembles the man only in having dark hair and a moustache. The mask adds the soul patch, rosy cheeks and charismatic-trickster look.
In 2008 the Fawkes mask was appropriated by the hacker group Anonymous as its public face for a protest against Scientology, according to the BBC. Forbes.com has reported that Anonymous has said it would execute a computer attack on the Mexican drug cartel Zetas today, a date picked for its echo of Guy Fawkes Day.
And a Facebook page with an image of V in Fawkes costume asked “all OCCUPY Protestors to come together on November 5th, 2011, to rally again for our efforts to end corruption and social injustice.”
A final ironic twist: The mask is licensed by Time Warner, which released “V for Vendetta,” so anti-big-corporation protesters buying official versions of the masks are helping enrich an example of the target of their demonstrations.
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Actually a group of conscientious protestors, including anonymous , has reached out and ordered un-licensed masks from an Asian company thus by-passing producing profit for Time Warner.
Posted by: Marie | November 5, 2011, 8:37 am 8:37 am
So the occupiers have outsourced to China? That’s not ironic either.
Posted by: TylerDurden | November 5, 2011, 9:05 am 9:05 am
I’d venture to guess those WB masks are made in China too. Occupiers simply by-pass the markup. And probably get free shipping to boot.
Posted by: Toney | November 5, 2011, 10:07 am 10:07 am
On November 5, 2007, Guy Fawkes Day. The Ron Paul for President fundraising drive raised over $4.2 million in one day, making it at that time the largest one-day Internet political fundraiser ever,
Posted by: David Ryon | November 5, 2011, 10:53 am 10:53 am
Oh, please. Fawkes wasn’t “spurred by religious persecution” — as a soldier of the Roman Catholic church, he fought the Dutch and later raised an Irish army to kill and persecute Protestants. He was spurred by the dream of the destruction of Protestants.
The Gunpowder Plot was intent on placing Elizabeth on the throne to increase the reach of the “Holy Roman Empire” into England, Scotland and Ireland.
Posted by: SHall | November 5, 2011, 11:03 am 11:03 am
It’s as much a disgrace to envision Fawkes as a hero as it is the London Subway bombers or John Wilkes Booth in America, as it were.
Catholics and evangelicals such as Puritans and Presbyterians were restricted in Guy Fawkes’s day, but he and fellow Catholic terrorists uniquely sought to murder legislators in order to restore the likes of a “Bloody Mary” regime, hardly a better order.
Drawing and quartering, long spells in the Tower of London, &tc. were de rigeur for the day, for criminals of all sort. What made these Catholic would-be-murderers different, was that their allies had attempted numerous assassinations against “Protestant” Kings and Queens of England since the break from Rome, with help from the rulers of Catholic Spain, France, and the Pope no less.
This is why heretofore no educated Brit, be he Church of England, Presbyterian, or even none but the most vicious Catholic, would envision Guy Fawkes as hero.
{Good on you “Shall”
Posted by: James Randall Adamakis | November 5, 2011, 11:26 am 11:26 am
I love how the Marxist twenty-something buffoon in this picture couldn’t spellcheck his own sign. He needs to spend a little less time on ideology and a tad more on grammar.
Posted by: Michael | November 5, 2011, 11:37 am 11:37 am
I love how the Tea Party pretended to be against big government and profiteering and now hates the Occupy Wall Street Poster who really are.
And these masks have been a part of civil protests in Asia, particularly Hong Kong, for several years now.
Posted by: MIchael Too | November 5, 2011, 12:17 pm 12:17 pm
Ah, the only handouts Republicans like remain handouts to the rich.
Posted by: Guido Fox | November 5, 2011, 12:18 pm 12:18 pm
How can you tell he’s a marxist?
FWIW, brought up as a Catholic, I was never allowed to celebrate ‘the burning of Catholics’.
It wasn’t just Guy Fawkes, there was a reign of terror against Catholics for quite a while after the GunPowder Plot.
Posted by: Stewart | November 5, 2011, 12:27 pm 12:27 pm
So what replaces capitalism? What do these protesters want? Anarchy? Marxism (like that’s been good for human rights and other freedoms). Even the Chinese have fat cats now. One of them’s selling masks!
Posted by: ENAR | November 5, 2011, 12:56 pm 12:56 pm
It is a manifestation of war faitque getting into the nation.
Humans are not designed to be prepetually fighting wars .
Posted by: Harinder | November 5, 2011, 1:25 pm 1:25 pm
As to why OWS is using the mask, it’s because (as the recent violence has indicated) they’re running out of ideas to keep a unified movement going. Even though they claim that they are the 99%, they actually are only a small number of dissatisfied individuals among the 99%. There is nothing that 99% of any general population will like or support.
Posted by: Publius | November 5, 2011, 1:47 pm 1:47 pm
There’s no historical parallel. Hipsters saw the movie five years ago (when they were happily feeding the beast they rail against now) and bought the mask. If this movement took place in the 90′s they’d all be wearing “Scream” masks. This, like the Summer of Love, is just the media attempting to give political legitimacy to what is merely a cultural fad.
Posted by: Ed | November 5, 2011, 1:48 pm 1:48 pm
I’d much rather see the protesters wear a mask of Patrick Henry the Voice of Liberty or a US Flag mask to represent democracy in action or a Fr. Bastille mask as the protest is more akin to the Fr. Revolution. The protesters should be sure to wear unlicensed masks to not give any profit to Time Warner and avoid at all costs anything marked “Made in China.”
Posted by: Debbie | November 5, 2011, 2:12 pm 2:12 pm
The demonstrators are completely misinterpreting the mask as a symbol. Originally it stood for the overthrow of totalitarianism and advocated a government with the consent of the people. Now the Occupy movement is turning it into the exact opposite, a bastion to overthrow capitalism. Its tragic. I’d reckon that Warner Brothers could sue the movement for slander and win if they tried.
Posted by: Henry | November 5, 2011, 2:26 pm 2:26 pm
The irony to me is that the mask looks somewhat like the Joker in Batman. since the OWS is becoming an anticapitalist bunch of losers, maybe it’s fitting for them to look like a bunch of jokers.
They should remember the story of the acorns. One acorn wanted to be a giant oak tree and buried it self to prepare for that career. Its neighbor acorn said, I’ll sit around, enjoy myself and wait for nature to take its course. And nature turned the first acorn into a giant oak tree and the other turned into squirrel skat.
Posted by: Heron77 | November 5, 2011, 2:30 pm 2:30 pm
These people need to do something more constructive. Interesting that I have not heard one comment from White House on condemning some of these OWS protests that have turned violent. Hmmmm…Silent speaks volumues.
Posted by: Rocko | November 5, 2011, 2:30 pm 2:30 pm
ENAR: “So what replaces capitalism? ”
Free enterprise. (There IS a difference). And a return to the American Dream wherein someone COULD work hard and play by the rules and achieve a middle-class standard of living and retire with a decent pension. Where they could reasonably hope that their children would enjoy a higher standard of living than they did. Remember that?
We began losing it about 30 years ago, as unions were busted and attacked, wages staganated and even declined (except for CEOS), the top few percent saw their top tax rate slashed from 80% or so down to the current 35%, the national debt began to soar, Wall Street and big business was largely deregulated, pensions were raided, government programs benefitting most of us were slashed or eliminated or privatized, our manufacturing base was bought up, dismantled and sold off, our jobs began going overseas, corporate profits climbed (and their tax payments fell), etc…(i.e. Reagan on).
We want to stop the race to the bottom, where are told we must “compete” with workers in China and India (which would entail what? Living on $1 or $2 an hour?). We want to rebuild our infrastructure, maintain our social saftey nets, put ourselves back to work at living wage jobs, and make America a leader again (not a pool of cheap labor and consumers for the multi-nationals to tap into as needed). We don’t want rent-a cops or teachers working at for-profit schools making minimum wage with no benefits. We think such people deserve to earn a middle-class income.
We are tied of being told we are “broke” and must make sacrifices to our already strapped quality of life while the large corporations and the top few percent rake in record profits/income and SIT on trillions in cash and eliminate or outsource tens of thousands of jobs.
I don’t think that’s esp. radical OR too much to ask.
Posted by: Raven | November 5, 2011, 2:58 pm 2:58 pm
Did Time Warner issue subprime mortgages, sell them as prime mortgages or otherwise crash the economy? Didn’t think so. The movement isn’t against capitalism or big corporations. It’s against lying, cheating and stealing. That’s why it’s targeting Wall Street.
Posted by: James Geluso | November 5, 2011, 4:33 pm 4:33 pm
because it looks like he doesn’t have a brain….
Posted by: watash60 | November 5, 2011, 5:20 pm 5:20 pm
Nice that even the media is turning on these people.
Posted by: keredte | November 5, 2011, 8:07 pm 8:07 pm
“Nice that even the media is turning on these people.” My opinion is that even most of the OWS people didn’t know the story behind the mask they wear, and the claiming that their movement has nothing to do with the violence associated with it in the graphic novel and movie just illustrates the inability of OWS to establish a true identity. What’s the point of adopting a symbol and yet disavowing the essence of what the symbol represents? Even when presenting information of this sort to the public, the media are keeping these people in the public eye, however marginally. That’s pretty much all the OWS wants.
Posted by: Publius | November 5, 2011, 10:17 pm 10:17 pm
Guy Fawkes, the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions….. that was what we used to say in England back in the day. And there is a certain truth to it.
But V fior Vendetta….. what a god-awful film. A lot of gratuitous violence, a silly, hackneyed story line, a plot based on some ancient manichean premise that comes nowhere close to reflecting even a potential reality. Pure nonsense made to keep people’s brains in slumber.
Posted by: Marton R | November 6, 2011, 2:14 am 2:14 am
MARTON- the film is based off of a book, dont blame the directors and cast. Also, the speeches and quotes in there are some of the best I know of.
Posted by: Henry | November 6, 2011, 3:01 am 3:01 am
The movie V for Vindetta was really awful. Thank goodness I didn’t spend much on the DVD and it went straight from viewing to the trash can.
Posted by: Julio | November 6, 2011, 3:35 am 3:35 am
Thanks for spoiling the ending of V For Vendetta.
Posted by: Mike | November 6, 2011, 5:54 am 5:54 am
Bottom line: the OWS crowd has morphed into a bunch of disgruntled folks milling about with no direction except the feeling that they should direct anger at rich people and corporations. They are now a mob with mob mentality. They don’t understand the history surrounding Guy Fawkes and they didn’t even understand the point of the V For Vendetta movie–whether you liked the movie or not, or Guy Fawkes, the point of both is that they were fighting to bring down what they felt was tyranny. I’m an Gen X’er and even I understand that we must have successful businesses and thriving capitalism here in the USA if we want things to get better. No President is perfect–but OWS needs to change to Occupy Government. Our misdirected government leadership (prior and current) is placing so many taxes, tariffs, regulations, limits, barriers to start-up, etc. that a smart business has to go overseas to lower their overhead. Don’t hate business for doing what it naturally wants to do–make a profit. That’s why they are called “businesses” and not “charities”. Folks, we have to make America a place companies want to be based and operate. It is so simple. Put people to work–the more people work, the more people pay taxes and spend money. The less the gov’t has to raise tax rates or payout welfare benefits. So–make America a place that’s friendly to business–not the 2nd highest tax rate on corporations in the entire world. Keep your eyes on the prize people.
Posted by: D-Wat | November 6, 2011, 3:44 pm 3:44 pm
This article contains some inaccuracies. “spurred by religious persecution” – well, to some extent, but Guy Fawkes himself may have been spurred more by the money he was promised by his employers for his services. He was, after all, a mercenary soldier who had gained his knowledge of explosives from his long military service in the army of the King of Spain. “led a plot” – OH, NO, HE DIDN’T! Guy Fawkes was only brought into the conspiracy at a late stage by the aristocratic Catholics in charge of planning a coup d’etat. “to blow up the Houses of Parliament and bring down England’s Protestant monarchy” – but, although the King and the Prince of Wales and several other senior Princes were to be killed, the plan was that the youngest member of the royal family, little Princess Elizabeth, should be crowned as Queen after her father and older brothers had ll been killed. The conspirators figured they could control little Queen Elizabeth II as a puppet monarch.
Posted by: Dave Coull | November 6, 2011, 5:20 pm 5:20 pm
IT IS interesting that Fawke’s original intent was about religion/politics, not consumerism. He wanted a catholic on the throne and not a protestant. So I’m not so sure he’s really a national hero, really. He had religious/dogma motivations. All this seems to have been lost or forgotten, and now he’s a mascot of sorts for OWS and whatever they are trying to acheive. And I’m prettyy sure most of the OWS folks could care less about religion. As with most of pop culture, the context gets lost and new meanings are placed on old symbols in an attempt to borrow their power without honoring their real purposes.
Posted by: Wavey | November 9, 2011, 2:24 pm 2:24 pm
In response to MIKE, sure, capitalism is a good system…when it actually works. Why should the govenment be Friendly to big businesses? The government is there to protect and make life better for it’s citizens!
How much money do you need? 1 million? 5? 10? 50? When will you have more than you could ever need?
These CEO’s aren’t making that much in a lifetime, they make that in a couple of months! What the hell do they do with it? Do they put it back into their business to create more jobs? NO! They hoarde it!
So why in the world should the government make them pay less and earn more?!
It doesn’t make sense.
No, we shouldn’t persecute businesses and make them unable to make money. But we should prevent those corporations from giving their CEO’s bonuses! That money should be used to make jobs for Americans! Also, if a corporation sends ANY MORE jobs overseas they should be sued by the government and the CEO’s should be put in jail for further contributing to the failing of our economy!!!!!
Also, the protestors not just attacking corpoations and capitalism, they are attacking Corruption. Corruption in the government. But that corruption is fueled by these corporations. They buy politicians. It is that simple. They buy the law-makers and get them to make laws that ONLY benefit them!
The government has ceased representing the people and now represents the corporations!
Posted by: Dustin | November 10, 2011, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm
tl;dr: it comes from a not-particularly-sensical habit of 4-chan users.
Posted by: Bryan Elliott | November 15, 2011, 8:29 pm 8:29 pm
I sincerely doubt anyone wearing the mask at OWS realizes the connection to Fawkes. They are wearing it because of the movie, V for Vendetta. Only a few history majors would have heard about Fawkes in this country.
Posted by: ann | November 18, 2011, 9:05 am 9:05 am
It’s really the movie character who is being adopted as a hero and not Guy Fawkes, whose history the movie partially adopted. However, it is ironic that they’re buying (stealing) counterfeit/bootleg masks to assist in their fight against stealing.
Posted by: Doug | November 21, 2011, 3:26 pm 3:26 pm
I made my own mask, who said I was going to support anyone?
Posted by: Smart Guy | November 28, 2011, 5:45 pm 5:45 pm
RE: “In response to MIKE, sure, capitalism is a good system…when it actually works. Why should the govenment be Friendly to big businesses? The government is there to protect and make life better for it’s citizens!
How much money do you need? 1 million? 5? 10? 50? When will you have more than you could ever need?
These CEO’s aren’t making that much in a lifetime, they make that in a couple of months! What the hell do they do with it? Do they put it back into their business to create more jobs? NO! They hoarde it!
So why in the world should the government make them pay less and earn more?!
It doesn’t make sense.
No, we shouldn’t persecute businesses and make them unable to make money. But we should prevent those corporations from giving their CEO’s bonuses! That money should be used to make jobs for Americans! Also, if a corporation sends ANY MORE jobs overseas they should be sued by the government and the CEO’s should be put in jail for further contributing to the failing of our economy!!!!!
Also, the protestors not just attacking corpoations and capitalism, they are attacking Corruption. Corruption in the government. But that corruption is fueled by these corporations. They buy politicians. It is that simple. They buy the law-makers and get them to make laws that ONLY benefit them!
The government has ceased representing the people and now represents the corporations!”
If you want to make as much money as the wealthy in this country, you can! Quit wasting your time on message boards and “occupying” the streets though. Come up with a great idea and business model and try and make some money. That’s what these other wealthy people have done. They are being rewarded for their hard work and brilliance. America would be nothing without corporations, and corporations need to pay hefty sums to their Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officers because those people make all of the tough decisions. If you were as intelligent or innovative as Jeff Bezos, Meg Whitman, Robert Tillman and many others who have earned their companies millions. If a company wants to pay an employee for a service, the government has no place telling them how much they can be payed. The company will go bankrupt if they overpay their CEO and do not make enough money in return, that’s how capitalism does work, but there cannot be government intervention in private affairs like worker pay and no “bailouts” as that saves bad companies.
By the way, the whole, “But we should prevent those corporations from giving their CEO’s bonuses! That money should be used to make jobs for Americans! Also, if a corporation sends ANY MORE jobs overseas they should be sued by the government and the CEO’s should be put in jail for further contributing to the failing of our economy!!!!!” is ludicrous. I hope you are just joking around or trying to get a rise from a normal viewer because if you actually believe what you are saying, then you do not have any sense of reality. America was built on the idea of free enterprise, and what you claimed here has no place in America. We are not communists, and if we were, you would not have even a quarter of the standard of living you have now.
Posted by: David Williams | December 3, 2011, 5:42 am 5:42 am
This whole idea of V for Vendetta is probably the reason for the masks because it is such a hit among the same type of people who protest CEO’s while surfing the web on their Apple computers and driving around in their Subarus, but V was protesting an intrusive government who did not value individual freedoms. V had the sentiment that only God should be able to take away and give people their rights, not the government. So the Occupy people who want the government to take away the right for companies to pay CEO’s their “fair share” as I call it, should re-watch the movie and reevaluate what the character is all about. Obviously, he wants the government to be smaller and less intrusive, but this character is definitely being misconstrued because of misunderstanding of character intentions, not his actual message.
Posted by: Jack Miller | December 3, 2011, 5:50 am 5:50 am
Puh’leeese, yourself! Not Elizabeth, but Mary! If you’re gonna post, at least keep your monarchs straight.
Posted by: Sue Snyder | December 6, 2011, 2:32 pm 2:32 pm
The mask isnt a symbol of OWS, its the symbol of anon. ABC, your dumb.
Posted by: Anon | December 6, 2011, 8:29 pm 8:29 pm
Hi dear, me and my mom are also watch funny videos but after I completed my homework Hi kids, you all must watch funny videos, but remember that first study then enjoyment ok.
Posted by: Ike Hiebert | December 10, 2011, 10:27 am 10:27 am
Hi, after reading this awesome article i am also happy to share my experience here with friends.
Posted by: Demetria Plessner | December 10, 2011, 2:47 pm 2:47 pm
I’m sure they didn’t purchase from TW, however if they did it would be fabulously ironic…a bit like selling your product which in turn leads to your ultimate downfall perhaps…it all depends on how you look at things.
Posted by: MultiDimensionalThinker | December 20, 2011, 11:01 am 11:01 am
I imagine that individual is out of work and able to protest because he can’t spell “their”…but i’m sure there are CEO’s who have difficulty spelling common words as well.
Posted by: James | January 12, 2012, 3:52 pm 3:52 pm
The only part of this article I disagree with is the comment about “a Guy Fawkes mask spawned by the 2006 movie “V for Vendetta” has become the accessory of choice at Occupy Wall Street and similar protests around the world.” The mask was “spawned” from the famous series of comics drawn by Alan Moore (author of “Watchmen”), not the movie based on those comics.
Posted by: Philip | January 25, 2012, 7:19 pm 7:19 pm
In my previous comment, “The only part of this article I disagree with is the comment about “a Guy Fawkes mask spawned by the 2006 movie “V for Vendetta” has become the accessory of choice at Occupy Wall Street and similar protests around the world.” The mask was “spawned” from the famous series of comics drawn by Alan Moore (author of “Watchmen”), not the movie based on those comics,” I misspoke. The comics were drawn by David Lloyd, written by Alan Moore.
Posted by: Philip | January 25, 2012, 7:22 pm 7:22 pm
RE: Phillip. The idea behind a Guy Fawkes mask has been around FAR longer than the GN V for Vendetta. On Guy Fawkes night an effigy of Guy Fawkes is/was burned. Often children would make the effigy out of clothes and newspaper and affix a mask of his likeness. THAT is where the mask originates. OWS wears it because many of the protesters like to think they are in anonymous, when in truth, anon is less an organized group and more an internet-wide ideal.
Posted by: Morohtar Reyener | March 28, 2012, 6:35 am 6:35 am