Thursday, September 5, 2013

The politics of the image

Today you read about and listened to people debating the ethics of publishing a "selfie" photo of the Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. At issue is the question of glorifying, or at the least humanizing a monstrous act.  Does this image make us reflect on the fact that "the boogie man" can be among us, he does not necessarily stand apart and call attention to himslef by projecting a monstrous image.  Or, on the contrary, does it create a barrier to reflection by being so controversial that we may react with visceral outrage , not caring to explore the issue of images when so many lives have been destroyed.  Today you will reflect on what you have read and listened by exploring the issue yourself.  Take a stand and join your voice is discussing the politics of the image.

Meanwhile, take a look at some iconic Rolling Stone covers of the past.












 

Now how does Tsarvaev fit within the framework of these images?

For a look at famous covers, click here
Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2013 at 4:07 PM

    Reaction to Rolling Stone Cover Mag.

    Waiting on a line at the grocery store, I usually look at the cover magazine. Every day, week or month, they made new edition of boring magazine who are talking about celebrity life, as if we care. I think I never saw, in real life, a Rolling Stone magazine, maybe because they don't sell this kind of magazine in grocery store in Québec. But in those day, thanks to the Internet, I can see their cover on websites. Let's bring me to the real subject 'The Bomber of Boston' Rolling Stone cover magazine, a normal cover; this young guy could have been a star of the new Rock N'Roll band I don't know yet, he could be on drug like other pop star. Looking at some other Rolling Stone cover, I realize picture of young man look like all the same, or almost. Take the one of Dave Grohl ' f*ck you ' He surely can be a dangerous serial killer, or tho he look like mentally affected. David Bowie, a cigarette between the lips, look like a rebel, this picture could have been taken while he was in prison. Jim Morrison; doesn't he look like that ' Terrorist ' Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ? A simple picture, that could have been taken by his mom in his basement. Red Hot Chili Peppers, nude dancer ? I think you already got my point there. I didn't talk about the cover with girl, but just a quick look made me think that the Rolling Stone magazine is a kind of cheap porn magazine.

    At the first look, the picture of this young boy look like all kind of other cover that magazine publish. If you are like me and turned off your tv when you realize the news were just talking about this ' terrorist attack ' in Boston, you probably didn't know who this young man was. I'm not sure if I got this right, but some people are complaining about the 'glorification' all the attention gave to him. In my opinion, talking about him, during a month in the news, every day, gave him more attention, then a cover magazine. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not so familiar with the Rolling Stone magazine, but I do, read the news everyday.

    According to all this, I would say the problem may be not the picture, because the picture itself is normal looking on this magazine. The problem is surely ' who ' is on this picture. But I think there are bunch of pictures that shouldn't be on news paper. And I think it's a pretty picture.

    I also looked quickly at the article, a beautiful piece of paper, telling the story of a young boy, related by people who knew him as a sweet young man. I think the point of this article was to show people, ' monster' can be everywhere , sometimes you can't predict when they will shown , they can live normal life and one day, explode.

    - Vanessa

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)