The 'Mask' and the Sapeurs

 The main character of the movie "Mask", other are than the supernatural powers he attains, was based upon actual human beings that exist on the face of the earth. These humans represent the worst example of voluntary physical, mental,cultural and linguistic subjugation that the population of the former colony continues to live in. 

The brutal colonisers were the Belgians and the French. The cost paid by the country was division into two. Loss of language, culture and religion and loss of about 60% of the population, more so because King Leopold of Belgium had a fetish for watching mountains made of limbs of black local population.

The people are called 'Sapes'/'Sapeurs' or 'La Sape'.
It all started when France was occupied by Germany during WW-II. A government in exile was formed in Brazzaville, Congo, that was still a French colony.
The French masters would give food and their discarded clothes, instead of money, to the local blacks for doing menial jobs in their homes. And then started this movement 'La Sape' which is a French slang suggesting 'attire'. In the present day Sapes or  'Sapeurs' have given a defination to the word "Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes" (literally "Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People"). And surprisingly, the Sapeure movement is spreading in other parts of Africa, including Uganda, South Africa etc., where the re-sellers of discarded European clothes have observed a growing demand for the clothing of popular labels.
So never be surprised to come across gaudily attired group of or lone swaggering man in the heat, dust and shanty areas of Congo, Angola, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and other countries, taking a pride in the slavery of their forefathers. A slavery imposed upon them by Europeans.