Why does life inside a mascot suit suddenly seem so appealing?
Amid the current geopolitical chaos, world leaders have turned to all sorts of guises as they try to navigate an uncertain world order. The uniform of choice for our editor in chief? It might…
Are you a man under 150cm in height, who’s never molested a child and can wiggle your bottom in time to the music? If so, things are looking up for you today (well, at this height, perhaps looking up is always a given). On Thursday in Madrid, I sat next to a man – we’ll call him Nicholas – who told me about some marketing work that he had once done in Florida that involved hiring people to slip themselves into mascot costumes and parade around trade fairs.
Locating potential human innards proved quite the task. While the costumes were often petite, they were also heavy; and if there were going to be children in the room, the person being, say, a rabbit or giant tortilla, needed a special licence to prove that they had been police vetted. Plus, this was Florida, where demand was high because of the likes of Walt Disney World being in the state and offering premium gigs to potential Goofys and Plutos.
Oh, and then there are all the organisations that take care of mascot-worker rights, such as the National Mascot Association (NAM), which I have now looked up and see that it has the motto: Fuzzier Together, Safer Together. Can you imagine how much fun the annual general meeting must be? “I’ll take one final question from Pauline the Pineapple but then over to you Mr Chunk-o-Cheese.”
Anyway, it meant, explained Nicholas, that many of the mascots were raking it in. The minimum fee is apparently $100 an hour and let’s just say that some of these small, sturdy, bottom-wiggling performers insist on being paid in cash. It begs the question: how would a tax official ever track down any miscreant? You could hardly put out an alert to all your agents for anyone that they happened to see dressed as a hot dog or bottle of tequila.
I was in Madrid because we were hosting a cocktail party at the Mandarin Oriental Ritz for Fitur, the international tourism fair (where there were apparently lots of Spanish mascots running amok – I even saw a giant gorilla on Gran Vía). The party was a lot of fun and various attendees told me about why I should visit Angola, Guatemala’s push to attract visitors beyond the Spanish-speaking world and why I need to spend more time in Menorca (all ears). But I was also brought up to speed on Boro.
Sunday’s high-speed train crash in southern Spain saw 45 people lose their lives and even though the investigation into what happened is ongoing, it has already become a political blame game. Rightly, there’s intense anger. Amid all of this, one small story had, it seemed, gained an incredible following throughout the week: the story of a woman on the train, Ana García, who had escaped bruised and battered from the wreckage but minus one important thing: her dog, Boro. García’s plea to help find her hound took off in the media and as people anxiously awaited news, animal rescue organisations stepped in and the police promised to assist. Then, on Thursday, Boro was found and, judging from video clips shown of him reuniting with his owner, was rather surprised at all the fuss.
Also at dinner on Thursday was our Adelaide-born Madrid correspondent Liam Aldous, who revealed that, in his youth, he had a successful stint in marketing, including dressing up as a detective as part of a shop promotion. It didn’t go well – people thought that he was accusing them of shoplifting. He also told us about a job that involved dressing up as a huge, to use his term, “satisfier”. He insisted that this was a stimulating gig taken by “a friend”. Whoever it was, I hope they get invited to NAM’s AGM. “Whoever’s making that buzzing sound, can they stop now please.”
It’s been some week, some month, in which our leaders have sported all sorts of guises – strongman, diplomat, Canadian – as they try to navigate a wobbling world order. But I don’t know many who have triumphed on the satisfier front. The smiles, as they often are in times of great upheaval and grief, have been left for the small stories of triumph – tiny moments when good things come to pass – such as when Boro came home.
And me? I’m thinking that life inside a mascot suit might be a comforting place to be. So, when Tyler asks for volunteers to don Monocle’s Monochan outfit at the next Christmas Market, I might just accept (as long as he agrees to my Mascot Union’s demands).
