Behind the Mask: Femininity as Fabrication, Performance, and Identity Crisis

Programmed by: Gabby Seiglie

What does it mean to be a woman when femininity itself can be a performance of sorts? Behind the Mask highlights a variety of movies where women use their femininity as a tool for distortion rather than a fixed identity. At first, this “mask” is a choice, until it becomes a requirement — the women in these films wearing it can no longer determine where the mask ends and their own identities begin. Through Gone Girl and Desperately Seeking Susan we may understand femininity as a form of fabrication of both the past and the future. Womanhood becomes nothing other than performance and a lie in Black Swan and The Substance. And later, by exploring Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and 3 Women we can better understand how this characteristic of femininity can become nothing more than an escape from current reality. The use of this “tool” may emerge as a combined result of social and internal pressures, making it difficult to decipher how much of these traits are created by the characters’ own volition. Behind the Mask explores this space between who these women are, who they are expected to be, and who they might become when they attempt to take control of their own identities using other people’s expectations. It also shows the consequences of this deception — the women who put on these “masks” struggle to find the balance between their authentic identities and their public personas, eventually understanding that maintaining these facades come at a price.