Very few cultural symbols in world history have transcended the boundaries of cinema or art to become a language of real political resistance. Alongside the face of Che Guevara, the Guy Fawkes mask, or the red flag, the visage of Salvador Dalí has recently joined that symbolic canon. The ‘Dali mask culture’ that emerged globally after the release of Money Heist (La Casa de Papel) is not merely the popularity of a web series. Rather, it represents a complex cultural manifestation of political disillusionment, economic inequality, youth alienation, and media-driven emotional politics in the digital age.
There was a time when masks symbolised crime and fear. In contemporary political culture, however, the mask has evolved into a language of anonymous resistance. French philosopher Michel Foucault argued that the modern state seeks not only to discipline the human body, but also to regulate identity itself. In that sense, covering one’s face is not simply an act of concealment; it is a rejection of state-imposed identity. The Dali mask functions precisely in this symbolic space. When thousands of people take to the streets wearing the same mask, individual identities dissolve into a collective resistant consciousness.
The man behind the mask, Salvador Dalí, was himself a cultural rebel. Born in Catalonia, Spain, in 1904, Dalí became the most iconic figure of the Surrealist movement. Surrealism emerged as an intellectual rebellion against post-World War I despair and the failures of capitalist civilisation. In Dalí’s famous painting The Persistence of Memory, the melting clocks challenge conventional notions of time and reality. His artistic philosophy insisted that the subconscious mind – dreams, fears, and repressed desires – constitutes the truest form of reality. Dalí himself thus became a living symbol of resistance against ‘normalcy.’
Money Heist deliberately chose Dalí as its central iconography because the series’s philosophical core is itself a symbolic rebellion against modern economic power structures. Professor Sergio Marquina and his team infiltrate the Royal Mint of Spain to print money. In doing so, the series raises a deeply political question: if the state possesses the authority to print unlimited currency, why does the same act become criminal when performed by ordinary people? This question fundamentally destabilises the moral legitimacy of capitalist financial systems.
Following the release of Money Heist, the Dali mask began appearing in protests worldwide. During the anti-government demonstrations in Chile in 2019, thousands of young protesters confronted police while wearing the mask. In Lebanon’s economic crisis protests, demonstrators marched through the streets singing Bella Ciao. The same imagery surfaced during France’s Yellow Vest Movement, among unemployed youth protests in Iraq, and in student demonstrations across Colombia. Sociologists have described this phenomenon as ‘globalised resistance aesthetics’ – a shared visual grammar of resistance produced through digital culture.
During the Second World War, workers, peasants, and guerrilla fighters resisting Mussolini’s fascist regime sang Bella Ciao as an anthem of liberation. Over time, it became a symbol of leftist movements, labour struggles, and student activism throughout Europe. When Money Heist employs Bella Ciao, it ceases to function merely as emotional background music; it evokes the historical memory of anti-fascist resistance. In doing so, the series unconsciously assumes a political identity of its own.
From the perspective of communication studies, the popularity of Money Heist can be explained through Parasocial Interaction Theory. Introduced in 1956 by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, the theory suggests that audiences develop one-sided emotional relationships with media characters. Over prolonged exposure, viewers begin to feel as though they personally know those characters. In the OTT era, this relationship has become even more intense due to binge-watching culture. As a result, characters such as the Professor, Berlin, Tokyo, and Nairobi begin to feel almost real to audiences across the world.
This is precisely where the antihero philosophy of Money Heist becomes so powerful. Classical heroes were morally flawless. Contemporary audiences, however, no longer seek perfection; they are drawn instead to fractured, conflicted, and morally ambiguous individuals. According to Carl Jung’s theory of the ‘Shadow Archetype,’ every human being harbours a repressed dark self that longs to transgress social norms. Antiheroes embody that hidden psychological dimension. Thus, when audiences watch Berlin or even the Joker, they recognise reflections of their own suppressed rage, alienation, and rebellion. This tendency intensified after the COVID-19 lockdowns. During prolonged isolation, unemployment, psychological stress, and social uncertainty, younger generations increasingly gravitated toward OTT platforms. Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and HBO became more than entertainment providers; they evolved into emotional refuges for a disconnected world. During lockdown, people became isolated from physical social realities and formed deeper attachments to fictional characters. Consequently, web series characters began to feel more ‘real’ than ever before.
Another important framework here is Media Dependency Theory. According to this theory, periods of social instability increase people’s dependence on mass media. In the post-pandemic era, many individuals lost faith in traditional political and social institutions and began seeking meaning within virtual narratives. Money Heist filled that vacuum because it did not merely entertain audiences; it also offered them a ‘fantasy of resistance.’
The most transformative feature of OTT culture is its ability to globalise local narratives. Previously, it would have been unimaginable for a Spanish-language series to achieve equal popularity in Bangladesh, India, Türkiye, Brazil, or Africa. Yet digital platforms have dissolved linguistic boundaries. Emotion has become the new universal language. Consequently, Spain’s economic anxieties, political repression, and social frustrations came to feel deeply relatable to young audiences worldwide.
Cultural theorists describe this process as ‘platform capitalism,’ whereby corporations such as Netflix do not merely distribute content; they shape emotional desires, political imagination, and cultural taste itself. Money Heist stands as one of the clearest examples of this new world order. It simultaneously manufactures anti-capitalist symbolism while commodifying that symbolism for global consumption. The Dali mask is therefore both a symbol of rebellion and a product of consumer culture.
Yet one truth ultimately remains unchanged. Human beings are not always drawn to perfect heroes. They are attracted to wounded, incomplete, and emotionally fractured characters because reality itself is imperfect. Thus, when young people wear the Dali mask and sing Bella Ciao, they are not necessarily aspiring to become criminals. Rather, they are expressing a deeper sentiment: that the rules governing this world are not always just.
And therein lies the greatest achievement of Money Heist. The series teaches its audience that, sometimes, the so-called ‘villains’ are the most profoundly human figures of all.
The writer is an Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of Chittagong. Email: [email protected]
