General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's a photo, not a tribute: Protest over Rolling Stone cover is hard to fathom
I'm surprised that so many people would like to censure a magazine because of a cover photo. George W. Bush appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, where was the outrage over that decision, and we all know what he did.
Rolling Stone has brought us brilliant writers with brilliant stories. Michael Hastings with The Runaway General, profiling Stanley McChrystal, which led to the general resigning, Matt Taibbi with exposing Wall Street, and others, but I digress.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a monster, murderer and terrorist, no doubt about it, but the cover photo and resulting article is an exposé of a deranged mind of a young person.
Rolling Stone is not trying to glorify a terrorist, on the contrary, it's trying to expose the mind of a mad man, who, what, why and when.
Except for those feckless types who insist that newspapers and magazines should publish only upbeat things, everyone seems to get the idea. After all, how many times were photos of Osama bin Laden and Charlie Manson on the covers of news magazines and the front pages of newspapers? Time Magazine featured Adolf Hitler on its cover a number of times during World War II.
So the bitter controversy over the publication of a photo Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged in the Boston Marathon bombings, on the cover of Rolling Stone caught a lot of people by surprise.
Some people, including, apparently, many in the Boston area, think the cover somehow "glorifies" a terrorist. The critics include Boston Mayor Tom Menino. According to Fox News, he dashed off a letter to Rolling Stone's publisher saying the magazine "rewards a terrorist with celebrity treatment."
More
corkhead
(6,119 posts)He looks like Jim Morrison too, in the later "L.A. Woman" days
seriously, I agree and I am disappointed by how many have been sucked into being a pawn in an attempt to bring down Rolling Stone by the PTB media elite.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)There has always been indignant sputtering outrage over stuff like that. Just not always so much from people who imagine themselves to be liberals.
TheCowsCameHome
(40,168 posts)unless it's an offical morgue photo.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)This hypothesis seems to have great explanatory power.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Gonna buy five copies for my mutha,
Gonna see my smiling face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone, on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
So Bush goes form being a nude model of self portraits to the Cover of the Rolling Stone. I'll be he bought five copies for Barbara.
I have too many other concerns of importance to worry about where Bush's mug gets posted.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)tradition of missing the entire point of written and filmed materials, even pop songs and taking great offense at them, calling for banning and the works. No city in America has the history of hysterical censorship and banning of materials that Boston does. The term 'Banned in Boston' goes back to colonial times. Boston banned Hemingway, Odets, Sinclair, you name it, they banned it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_in_Boston
I'll leave you with Phil and Don Everly with a song that was Banned in Boston.
Warpy
(111,267 posts)and a date insisted we see it in Boston.
It was not the same movie. It had been hacked to pieces to be shown in Boston.
Things loosened up while I was there and the censors no longer run the city.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)they were in the NY Times or the Boston Globe, we are well advised to consider that history which endured for centuries and is not at all gone and ask, what work does Rolling Stone do which conservative types in Boston might wish did not exist? That photo was on the Cover of the NY Times, no less. Boston had nary a hair out of place about that.
It is selective fury from a city that banned The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman, Naked Lunch by William Burroughs (who later wrote for Rolling Stone) and on and on.
Warpy
(111,267 posts)They disqualified themselves as potential friends right out of the gate.
wercal
(1,370 posts)Rolling Stone is not trying to glorify a terrorist, on the contrary, it's trying to expose the mind of a mad man, who, what, why and when
change to:
Rolling Stone is not trying to glorify a terrorist, on the contrary, it's trying to sell magazines by printing a deliberately provacative cover.
There is no high minded journalistic purpose to the cover. The article could have been printed just the same, with any variety of different covers - but they chose an air-brushed glamour shot. Why? Covers sell magazines - pretty faces, intrigue, and in this case shock.
I'm not mad at them. They're trying to sell magazines...and the editors get to live with themselves and their decisions.
But Come On! Don't preach that there is some higher meaning to the cover.
Warpy
(111,267 posts)with the police capture pictures that were released a week or so after the issue hit the news stands, but no one had leaked the "after" picture yet.
surrealAmerican
(11,361 posts)... that Disney movies held great truths. Good looking people are heroes, ugly people are villains. They don't want those preconceptions to be challenged.
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)He could be any of our children's friend. You never know what lurks behind the face.
If they bothered to read the article, they might get it.
What does a MONSTER look like? Oh, yeah.
RC
(25,592 posts)So much more exciting.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)the insides, not so much.