On The Cover Of The Rolling Stone

[dales]

[Rick]

Stalin was on the cover of both Life and Time.

Tooooooo much PCness any more...

[Guinevere]

Boston is in a bit of an uproar about this, and there is an alternative cover floating around on Facebook with the faces of the four who died.

While I get and appreciate the first amendment right, it just cuts too close to home for me. But then, its also my first amendment right to express my opinions about same. The story itself is fine, but I think the cover goes a bit far in objectifying/sexifying/glorifying a terrorist. If this were a similarly styled photo of Mohammed Atta, how would you feel about the cover?

If you could have seen the scene when he was in federal court here last week --- there were a gaggle of young (idiot) females wearing shirts with his face on them and protesting his innocence. Apparently he's getting letters by the dozen from similarly addled-brained girls. Ugh.

[Scooter]

To me the cover is entirely in keeping with the point of the article i.e. how do we reconcile the fact that this person who for all intents and purposes seemed perfectly normal turned out to be a "monster" (which is the word they use right on the cover, so much for "glamorizing" him).

[Guinevere]

And do you think the people walking past the magazine rack are going to see the big rock-n-roll photo or the little word "monster" in the bottom corner?

[Scooter]

I think people walking by the photo need to get used to the fact that this guy is news and that his photo is going to be in the press quite a bit over the next couple of years or however long it takes to try and (presumably) convict him, and that there is not going to be any way of avoiding that short of becoming hermits.

And the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" probably applies in this case in a more literal sense than it is typically used.

[Gob]

Who does he remind me of?

[Gob]

Not quite.

[dales]

Adolf Hitler?

[Scooter]

I think there was another Jim Morrison cover that had a pose that looked very similar to this cover.

[dales]

Charles M. Manson?

[Gob]

Not a RS cover.

[Gob]

Analysis
Nick Bryant BBC News, New York

Had this picture appeared on the front cover of a news magazine, like Time or Newsweek, there would not have been a social media backlash. Indeed, the same portrait featured prominently on the front page of the New York Times in May without controversy. Rolling Stone is different because it's done so much over the decades to shape American popular and celebrity culture.

To some, then, a bomb suspect is being depicted as a cultural icon. The sepia-tinted photograph, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appears rather dreamy and vacant, looks like a relic from the 70s. Again, it has fuelled criticisms that the magazine is softening, even glamorising, his alleged crimes.

This controversy also says a lot about the state of the American magazine market, and the pressure on publications to produce eye-catching and newsy images. This week Newsweek spliced together the portraits of the Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, the man acquitted last weekend of his murder. Bloomberg's Businessweek depicted a hedge-fund manager with a graph coming from his groin that intentionally looked phallic.

[Sue U]

Never mind all that, what about Robin Thicke dropping what will surely be this summer's defining No. 1 pop hit?

[Econoline]

Gee, if only Doctor Hook had known how easy it was.


Damn you, Dale...I've had that song playing in my head all evening now.

[rubato]

Gee, if only Doctor Hook had known how easy it was.


Damn you, Dale...I've had that song playing in my head all evening now.

Shel Silverstein

He wrote their other hit too. "Sylvia's Mother"



Yrs,
Rubato

[rubato]

They're doing a service. We are better off for being reminded that beauty comes all by itself. Like genius. It does not make you good or wise or anything else.

Osama was a very compelling-looking man too. He had very beautiful eyes.

Character is told by our actions. We need to have that point hammered home more than obscured. They're just wrong to whine about this.



Yrs,
Rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

Never purchased nor read an issue of Rolling Stone. Not gonna start now no matter who's on the cover.

[liberty]

Boston is in a bit of an uproar about this, and there is an alternative cover floating around on Facebook with the faces of the four who died.

While I get and appreciate the first amendment right, it just cuts too close to home for me. But then, its also my first amendment right to express my opinions about same. The story itself is fine, but I think the cover goes a bit far in objectifying/sexifying/glorifying a terrorist. If this were a similarly styled photo of Mohammed Atta, how would you feel about the cover?

If you could have seen the scene when he was in federal court here last week --- there were a gaggle of young (idiot) females wearing shirts with his face on them and protesting his innocence. Apparently he's getting letters by the dozen from similarly addled-brained girls. Ugh.

Now Guin look at that face and tell me that he is not a cute kid; are going to tell me that someone that innocent looking could possible be a terrerorist bomber? The girls are right he has got to be innocent.

[liberty]

We are better off for being reminded that beauty comes all by itself. Like genius. It does not make you good or wise or anything else.


Yrs,
Rubato

He is right.