Unmasking America: Comparative American Studies Special Issue
During the Covid-19 pandemic, responses to the injunction to ‘wear a mask’ reflected tensions over attitudes towards individual freedoms, or lack of, in American culture. For some, masks limited the spread of the virus. They protected the individual and (or over?) others. For some, masks were ineffective medically, and / or an intolerable intrusion into individual rights. Wearing a mask might signify that an individual took the virus seriously and heeded the state (via medical advice, scientific expertise and laws); refusing to wear one might indicate the opposite. Paradoxically, but no less powerfully, for some mask wearing itself presented unexpected freedoms; from the pressure to engage in social norms, to smile for strangers.