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Discussion: Rolling Stone's cover: Important & Necessary?
ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/31/2012
Posts: 12,510
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Rolling Stone's cover: Important & Necessary?
I came across this article, which says that Rolling Stone's cover is actually a very good move on their part, and talks about how we make criminals out to be subhuman.
Quote:
The Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Rolling Stone Cover Picture is Not Only Important, It's Necessary
Following the controversial Rolling Stone magazine cover featuring Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the person accused of setting off two bombs at the Boston Marathon, social and mass media exploded in condemnation. People wondered how someone suspected of terrorism could be featured on the front of a widely distributed magazine, and likened his picture to an old Jim Morrison cover, saying Rolling Stone was trying to turn Tsarnaev into a rock star.
Boston punk rock band Dropkick Murphys tweeted that Rolling Stone should be ashamed, and should have put a picture of one of the victims rather than this "loser scum bag." CVS and Walgreens both stated that they will not be selling this issue of the magazine in their stores. All of these responses are rather predictable, but maybe not the most thought out.
As John Judis of The New Republic puts it, the cover picture depicts Tsarnaev as exotically attractive, and its corresponding article attempts to reconcile a high school student who was thought of as exotically attractive with the criminal who murdered three people, injured hundreds, and caused immeasurable mayhem. And that is precisely the problem.
Americans do not want to see this terrorist as exotically attractive. They do not want to see him as a human at all. It is much easier and more comfortable to remove any humanity from Tsarnaev, and paint him as a one-dimensional monster. Maybe that's what he turned into, but it is undeniable that he was the product of 19 years of individual experience through his family and friends, just like any other human. This cover picture, and even more so the article, depicting him as a normal, pot-smoking, punk of a kid challenges our desire to dehumanize him, and this is why it spurred such a vitriolic response.
Unfortunately, while our tendency to dehumanize criminals is not limited to high-profile terrorism, it does seem to be recurring pattern. Censoring criminals' backstories and refusing to see social causes for crime probably helps contribute to America's outrageous incarceration rates and despicable prison conditions. However, it is when the perpetrator is labeled as a terrorist, or even more so an Islamic terrorist, that all potential for understanding vanishes. This is best exemplified by former President George W. Bush's claim, following the September 11 attacks, that they attacked us because they "hate our freedoms," a claim as laughable as it is misinformed.
Since then, actual efforts to explain acts of terrorism have been met with disgust and censure. The problem comes when critics conflate efforts to explain with attempts to justify. No one worth listening to is trying to justify or glorify Tsarnaev's bombings, or the 9/11 attacks. But is it not worth examining why these people were driven to such horrendous deeds? In an example provided by former CIA agent Barry Eisler, if you were to walk down the street and spit in the face of everyone that passed you by, it is conceivable to assume people's responses would range from ignoring you to potentially shooting you with a gun. While spitting in someone's face by no means justifies the latter response, there is a clear causal relationship.
It is precisely this type of examination that Americans seem so reluctant to engage in. While it is likely true that there is nothing different society could have done to stop Tsarnaev from turning into a monster, it is at least worth examining the social pressures that caused him to do so. If we bury our heads in the sand, and ignore the most troubled amongst us, we have no hope of ever foreseeing the next Tsarnaev, or James Holmes, or Seung-Hui Cho, or stopping the epidemic of gun violence that plagues people other than middle class whites.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best, naturally: "Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition."
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Link: http://www.policymic.com/articles/55...it-s-necessary
Bolded the parts I thought were most important. So, what do you think? Does the cover really portray how we turn a blind eye to what causes people to commit crimes like the one he committed and dehumanize terrorists and criminals, or is it just plain wrong to have him on the cover?
I have to admit, my views on the issue have changed a bit after reading this.
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Member Since: 12/19/2011
Posts: 2,955
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I understand the point of this and I have no problem with the content of the article. If they want to talk about his life and what went wrong and who he was before this--fine. But I still find it inappropriate to put him on the cover of Rolling Stone. It's more so due to the actual publication. I also think it's more about glamorizing him and making him into a celebrity...not so much about giving him a human side. That's not what bugs me. They can display his sense of humanity all they want, but there's a difference between that and glamorization which is definitely what they were doing with that cover.
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Member Since: 1/1/2013
Posts: 13,978
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Yeah, no. Putting him on the cover just makes it seem like they're trying to make him look like a rock star. They're glamorizing a terrorist! I mean this would've been no different than putting Osama Bin Laden on the cover of Rolling Stone a month after the twin towers went down. I think it was a huge mistake of them to do this, and I'm glad all of these stores are saying they won't display the issue in their store.
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Member Since: 3/15/2013
Posts: 587
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I would agree with their statements, but why would Rolling Stone choose to cover the one terrorist who is marginally attractive and has a fan following? What bothers me about it is that they're choosing to glamorize a criminal who's white and kind-of attractive, but would they do the same to a different terrorist like Bin Laden. They never expanded what happened to him or what his background was.
There's a distinct difference between humanizing criminals and choosing select criminals to glamorize.
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Member Since: 8/31/2012
Posts: 13,110
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Absolutely necessary. People need to see that people can be evil no matter how good, normal, or innocent they look. This is AS relevant as the black-stereoptyping discussion because it applies to prejudice. Black men, Muslims wearing burqas/turbans, etc are prejudiced everyday, and they have not done anything wrong. Whereas this kid, who looks like an attractive, innocent, young man, is more dangerous than them all.
Risky & Brave on Rolling Stone's part. And fits well into the discussion post-Zimmer/Martin trial
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Member Since: 3/15/2013
Posts: 32,106
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Quote:
Originally posted by Penk
Yeah, no. Putting him on the cover just makes it seem like they're trying to make him look like a rock star. They're glamorizing a terrorist! I mean this would've been no different than putting Osama Bin Laden on the cover of Rolling Stone a month after the twin towers went down. I think it was a huge mistake of them to do this, and I'm glad all of these stores are saying they won't display the issue in their store.
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But Bin Laden wasn't a 20 years old boy who seemed modelic and was loved by lots of people
If I were on Rolling Stone, I would have done the same, I mean, sit the f down, they're not praising him!
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 12/7/2011
Posts: 27,655
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I don't why people are mad at Rolling Stones, but they're sharing the image on every single social media site. 
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