Excuse Me If I’m Not Ready to Unmask

In Rob Reiner’s 1987 cult comedy, The Princess Bride, Fezzik asks the mysterious man in black a question as they scuffle atop the Cliffs of Insanity: “Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid or something like that?” “Oh no,” replies the masked stranger, secretly a humble stable boy. “It’s just that they’re terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.”

This quote, from one of the world’s most quotable movies, got passed around a lot last spring, in the early days of the coronavirus...