The Zoot Suit in the Mask

When we were talking about the various images of black rock n roll and the image of the zoot suit, it seems I wasnt the only one who instantly thought of the film 'Back to the Future' and 'The Mask' as examples of interesting portrayal of these themes. The subverted nature in which Jim Carrey's character the mask adopts the overly flamboyant and outgoing and allbeit destructive persona of the mask depicts well the characteristics of the zoot suit gang ideals. The idea behind the mask is that is that by donning the mysterious mask, it releases Stanelys rebellious desires, to be the complete contrast of his noraml self, confident, outrageous and extreme in his actions. This ecompases of course the zoot suit 'look' with the drape pants and jacket and smart hat in a vibrant and radical yellow and his characters behaviour does emanate a riotous pattern similiar to t . My question is was this the filmakers intention to subtly or not so subtly associate this film and its nature with the zoot suit era?? Was it meant to be subliminal in its content? Indeed i had never heard or seen anything about zoot suits at the time when the film came out, (i think i must have been about 7 years old at the time of its release as im sure many of you were) so was this meant to be subliminal message sent out to a young audince, that assocaites this kind of criminal behaviour with nothing but zoo suiters?

With regard to Back to the Future, we have a subverted story that appears to change history to reveal what it would have been like if a white man, nay, a white TEENAGER was actually the creator of rock and roll, discovered by Marvin Berry, Chucks cousin. I think it reestablishes our relationship with Black rock and roll and makes us aware of the way music changes and how people would have reacted if it had been a white man who created it. personally I always because of the general paradoxical nature of this trilogy i just took it as a fun subversive twist in the plot to give it a 'what if' kind of slant.