Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The inner lives of mascots: "miming happiness and sweating"

East meets West: Looks like a Fu-Man-Chu with boots to me

From the Gannet Statesman-Journal
By K. Williams Brown

My feelings about mascots are complicated. On the upside, it's a very elaborate costume that costs thousands of dollars, which is awesome. On the downside, they're basically expressionless mimes. And a lot of them are human-looking animals, which is weird and upsetting. Plus, many of them are sort of smelly — a very sour scent — and you can't look them in the eye.

I hadn't really thought much about mascots one way or the other before Wednesday, when a friend dressed up as a pineapple. He was a cheerful and gracious pineapple, but unfortunately for him, it was very, very warm inside the costume.

Trying to have a conversation with your friend who is dressed as a piece of fruit is disorienting — you don't know if you should make eye contact with the pineapple's eyes or where the person's eyes are. And, of course, inside of each mascot is someone's friend, gazing out silently, miming happiness and sweating.

No comments:

Post a Comment