Thank You Mask Man

I really am not sure what this clip was trying to get at on a deep level but I will give it a shot. The first comment I thought Bruce might have been making is the tendency for people to make any situation about themselves. In the beginning of the clip, the characters are thankful and surprised that the Mask Man is so “selfless” and such a “beautiful person”—he takes out the garbage, cleans up the yard, and all without accepting any type of thank you gift. However, the characters soon become angry, no longer seeing his actions as selfless, but now as “snobby.” The characters lose sight of the fact that what is important is that the Mask Man is helping them and become obsessed with this failure to recognize their “thank you’s”. It is almost like they want recognition of their recognition of his actions.

Also, I thought this clip may have been commenting on how quickly public reaction can change, which I think is increasingly pertinent in today’s society. The characters go from idolizing Mask Man to thinking he is rude, to calling him a “fag” and running him out of town. This parallels how quickly the tabloid headlines change from running beautiful pictures of someone and praising them, to running the least flattering pictures of the same celebrity and criticizing them as crazy and in need of rehab.