Thursday, October 31, 2013

Free Expression Through Photographs


Rolling Stone is not a magazine to shy against controversy nor should they get the flack that they receive from the public. The publication is not meant to be the “national source of political and substantial news.” This is not meant in a derogatory way in any means. The magazine was produced as a tool to publish news of the counter culture in America quite some time ago. In contrast to by-the-book articles, Rolling Stone included unfiltered articles. One very strong example is Hunter S. Thompson. Mr. Thompson is the focus of movies such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Rum Diaries.
Hunter S. Thompson spoke whatever the hell he thought, and Rolling Stone is a publication that does the same. Featuring a cover story of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, is not an unusual inclusion for the magazine nor should it be any more controversial than a number of other photographs that have graced the front-pages of American magazines, pictures of various villainous figures mean-mugging the population for the world to see.

This specific instance of a travesty projected on a glossy piece of paper for the public to digest might have seemed too close to home, but then what isn’t for a person of major notoriety, whether positive or negative, to be plastered everywhere? By this I mean other images have been etched in the people’s minds forever that might seem more drastic than this man. There has been a violent dictator named as “Person of the Year,” another tyrant forever engrained on a publication and a man that was sought for crimes against humanity for over a decade. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8489016/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-bin-Laden-to-join-Hitler-Saddam-on-Time-cover.html   

Yet, this cover seems to draw the ire of many more people. Yes, there are people that have been devastated by the Boston Marathon catastrophe. Consider this: how many people were affected by these other “cover stars”? Rolling Stone has every right to produce this image on their cover. “Don’t like [it]…Don’t buy the magazine” (Policinski, Senior Vice President/Executive Director, First Amendment Center).

The other front-page images that I have included are from other, more politically based magazines like Time. I enjoy Rolling Stone, but I am more into the magazine for the music articles. I do read the political portions and take in the information, but I do not take it as the best source of world-changing material. Ultimately, these articles are editorials (the included “pH” scale of topics really is great).
If a company wants to ban a publication from its shelves, that is the company’s own prerogative. It might benefit the magazine and negatively affect the store. The point of the story is not to glorify Mr. Tsarnaev but to tell a story that informs those that are interested in reading something different than “mainstream” accounts of a subject. The same goes for the other men splashed all over the media before that are not meant to worship their ideals; these photographs were significant to the present time they were published.

Editing a picture to produce a certain result is the actual negative connotation. I don’t to berate Time, but the periodical drastically altered a photo of O.J. Simpson for a menacing effect. I don’t think anyone flinched at this alteration except other editors. http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19940627,00.html

The issue of Rolling Stone that came out in July should have just been as widely distributed and accepted as ones that have included worldwide terrorists, totalitarian rulers with no boundaries or serial killers that glorified their deaths more than any explanation of why.

2 comments:

  1. While I absolutely agree with the majority of your post's arguments, I think an extremely important point that was missed is the fact that Rolling Stone magazine's readership has declined over the past few years and this cover was, really, an attempt to reclaim its market. If Rolling Stone really wanted to print a story that was both fair to the bombers and fair to the victims, it would have used another photo that, well, does not attract as much sexual attention...

    In this Boston Globe's article (http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2013/07/17/rolling-stone-tsarnaev-cover-legitimizes-glamour-shot-carried-his-head/YpNSDtiLxPFJNoEfQgkMdN/story.html), the writer describes the error on behalf of Rolling Stone that is cause for serious concern about the "selfie" picture that Tsarnaev took that would then become the cover of the magazine in July.


    "In Tsarnaev’s selfie, he stares just off the camera’s eye-line with an opaque but calm expression. A tangle of hair falls over one eye; it’s very possible he worked for a minute or two to get that lock just so. The faintest ghost of a smile hovers around the corners of his mouth. He’s slumped against a white wall, wearing a white Armani Exchange T-shirt whose letters cluster like artful scribbles. He is the picture, literally, of a relaxed, sincere, slightly mysterious young dude. As Howling Wolf and Jim Morrison both sang, “The men don’t know, but the little girls understand.”

    My question is, why DIDN'T Rolling Stone use the photos released by police throughout the duration of the bombings and the events preceding? It would seem more appropriate alongside a story that describes his turning from a normal teenage boy to a terrorist. Why choose a photo that captures the attention through his "good looks" and mysterious expression? I think Rolling Stone knew exactly what it was doing and I think it was selfishly done and should therefore absolutely be open to criticism for the direction it chose to lead its readers. Controversy might be Rolling Stone's forte, but I think that more harm than good was done by selecting that photo to stare into the eyes of the nation that the bombs harmfully affected.

    The content within the article has little importance past the front cover. The cover, in my opinion and I'm sure the majority of Boston's opinion, was a marketing attempt to attract readership and gain money. Little to no feeling was put into the selection of the photo that would attract attention to its intended audience. Rolling Stone is 100% entitled to print a story about arguably the most important news story of the year, but should not have exploited the situation to produce more readership and up its profit.

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  2. I agree that there have been far worst covers in the history of Rolling Stone but I would think that because the time between the bombing and the publication was not far from each other, that it created a stir in negative emotions. Despite the 102 percent increase in sales; which brings me to Hannah’s point. According to The Hollywood Reporter and using retailer point-of-sale data from the Magazine information Network, they reported that Rolling Stone had doubled the magazine sales from the same week in 2012. Rolling Stone’s readership was indeed declining and if depicting the bomber as more of a “sex” symbol rather than the terrible person he is. For this reason I believe people were more upset than if the picture was lets say a mug shot or photo of him handcuffed.

    I found it interesting that the story was more about protecting the boy and blaming his family and other people in his life rather than allowing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev assume the repercussions for what he had done. Although Rolling Stone claimed, “… it is important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens.” To me, this insisted that what was done, was not a conscious or complete thought. That somehow this bomber was not responsible for bombing the people. I find it hard to believe, despite many conspiracy theorists, that the bombing was NOT an action of terrorism and that it was all a misunderstanding.

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