- character, image, mimesis -

image (n.) - from Old French image "image, likeness"; from imitari "to copy, imitate". 

Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. It is usually said the contest was held in Monte Carlo or Switzerland, and that he came in second or third. Chaplin did indeed fare poorly in a Chaplin look-alike contest, but the competition took place in a San Francisco theater. His final standing is not recorded, although it was noted that he "failed even to make the finals." 

"Things that try to look like things often look more like things than things. Well known fact." (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)

According to Benjamin, the fundamental mode of mimesis is nothing other than the compulsion to become Other. It results from the magical effect of merging copy and contact with imitation and performance, combining the urge to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction with the compulsion to become and behave like something else. 

"Mimesis - a separation of the self from itself - is effective only by concealing the split by its product - a mask. One can act only by stepping into the light, into language; and it is there that appearance - the self as other, as sign - is forced into being." (Lacan)

"I would have made IMITATION OF LIFE, any case, for the title"
(Douglas Sirk)