The two faces of Guy of Gisborne : self-image and social truth in "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" (c. 1475)

The rivalry between Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne has been re-enacted for over five-hundred years on stage, in literature, and on film and television. The men are two sides of a coin, with Robin embodying the ideals of masculinity and chivalry in each respective period and its culture, and with Gisborne embodying their opposites. This duality is often represented superficially in modern media: for instance, the film "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (1991) pits a black-toothed, greasy-haired Michael Wincott against the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Kevin Costner. Gisborne is frequently characterised as the could-have-been Robin Hood, the man just as dashing and athletic as his on-screen counterpart, with casting pairings drawing this out, from the Golden Age good looks of Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in 1938, to the rugged, high-street chic of Jonas Armstrong and Richard Armitage in 2006. In These adaptations, Robin is typically a nobleman reduced to an outlaw, from riches to rags, yet he embraces his fall from grace to fight the injustices of the England of the late twelfth century. Gisborne is the man who replaces him, a cruel landlord of Locksley and Huntingdon, and a crueller bailiff for the Sheriff of Nottingham, a dogsbody to the corrupt elite of which he himself is a part. Gisborne is Robin’s dark mirror image.