The ancient Israelites understood the power of the image. While we
interpret the second commandment prohibiting the crafting of “graven images” as
an ordinance against fashioning objects of worship, several scholars believe
that it might have been more far reaching. In some eras and regions, the
creation of any sort of likeness seems to have been discouraged. Furthermore, according to Professor Carl
S. Ehrlich, the Greek philosopher Plato opposed “certain artistic pursuits . .
. since they distracted from the search for truth.”
Today digital photograph is our universal art form of choice; we live in a world awash in images of all sorts. Seeing is believing. We document and share on social media everything from our breakfast cereal to the exchange of wedding vows to appendectomy scars. Before his most recent self-destruct, half of the city of New York was ready to vote into office a man who’d texted strangers photos of his private parts.
Today digital photograph is our universal art form of choice; we live in a world awash in images of all sorts. Seeing is believing. We document and share on social media everything from our breakfast cereal to the exchange of wedding vows to appendectomy scars. Before his most recent self-destruct, half of the city of New York was ready to vote into office a man who’d texted strangers photos of his private parts.
Bombarded with pictures, we get a rush from the hypnotic onslaught and
require more and more. And having
seen it all, we might dismiss the sway of any single one, even something truly
gripping and unique. We’re above it. We’re rational beings, after all.
That’s what they’re counting on, the media manipulators who grab onto
our hearts and minds and wallets through our eyes, that we refuse to
acknowledge the influence a powerful image can have on our emotions and
perceptions. Consider for a moment how some images become lodged in the mind:
the logo for Arm and Hammer, for example, or the font used on a bottle of Febreze,
to say nothing of a few unforgettable scenes from Pulp Fiction or The Exorcist.
Lord Byron as a teenager.
Or perhaps not Lord Byron at all.
In August, Rolling Stone Magazine published “Jahar’s World,” an in-depth
profile by Janet Reitman of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of two brothers
accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and
injured scores, many grievously. The article attempts to explain how “a charming kid with a
bright future” became a “monster.” In soft-focus, Jahar, identified as “The
Bomber” and staring guilelessly into the camera, appears on the magazine’s cover.
It is an arresting photograph, an apparent self-portrait taken from
Tsarnaev’s Twitter profile. Whatever toying with shadow and the play of light
might have done, the result is affecting and effective. Its appearance on newsstands brought
about an uproar, in Boston and beyond.
The editors of the Rolling Stone responded, yet failed to address the
heart of the controversy. They focused on the content of the article itself,
which they rightly declare as falling “within the traditions of journalism and
the Rolling Stone’s long standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage
of the most important political and cultural issues of our day.”
They continue: “The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the
same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us
to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete
understanding of how a tragedy like this happens.”
However, that isn’t the issue. I
read of no objections to the article itself, which seems to this reader very thorough
in its coverage if ultimately incomplete in the portrait it provides. This is
not the author’s fault; the story of the younger Tsarnaev brother is still
unfolding. The anger arose from the art. The decision to use Jahar’s image on the cover – an exalted,
coveted position occupied by celebrities -- was roundly criticized.
But even more, I think it was the
sort of image the editors employed that so inflamed the outrage: indistinct
and dreamy, a portrait of visual poetry that lends a tragic, romanticized air
to the subject. The Jahar on the
Rolling Stone cover is beautiful and damned. He’s Lord Byron with a bomb – mad,
bad, and dangerous to know.
What’s taken place with this cover is the crafting of the glamorization
we claim to abhor: the potent mingling of taboos – the marriage of sex and
violence. Witness the fanatical
young women who attended Jahar’s court appearance and who maintain a number of “Free
Jahar” social media sites, one of which claims some 80,000 followers.
It was disingenuous to suggest, as banter on the airways after the
publication did, that the cover art was simply meant to illustrate the article
inside. If that were its primary
purpose, it would have appeared along with the text. Its chief function of
course was to sell magazines, which indeed it did. The August issue of Rolling
Stone sold twice the typical number of copies. Editorially, then, adorning the
cover with a dreamy photo of the tousle-haired, beautiful boy was brilliant. Google “Boston bomber” and that likeness
is among the very first to appear.
The young man who killed my husband had also been a beautiful boy. His high school yearbook photo
accompanied one of the many articles in the Hartford Courant’s Pulitzer Prize
winning coverage of the 1998 shootings at the Connecticut Lottery. Even in my
anguish, I remember thinking what a handsome kid he had been, with his dark
eyes and hair, his unclouded expression, a picture of American promise. I am the mother of a son. I could
imagine another woman’s pride in and love for the adored child still somewhere
inside the troubled young adult.
That yearbook photo was of course genuine; it caught the young man as he
was, at one moment in time. At another point, he would have appeared otherwise,
captured perhaps on a security camera some years later, with a shaved head,
brandishing a bloodied knife or his altogether efficient Glock.
Both representations could be
called accurate. But both are incomplete, and neither is quite the truth. The cover portrait of the Boston bomber
with its softened features in high, flattering contrast is in effect the
flipside of a gruesome shot of the carnage he’s accused of committing. The
later we would immediately decry. Stripped
of context, the hazy photo is repugnant as well, a different sort of terror
porn.
How many will read the Rolling Stone article and discuss the argument it
supports, that young Jahar was at heart a normal kid “failed by his family” and
in part society? It’s an excellent piece, and one could contend that number, whatever
it is, is too small though clearly far more than might have been, had not the
provocative photo been so cleverly utilized. Perhaps his trial -- and his growing fan base -- will force us to examine the twists
and turns of the path he walked toward the marathon finish line.
In all likelihood, though, and all too soon, the lessons of “Jahar’s
World” will be largely forgotten. The controversy over the cover photo will, too, fade. But the striking image of the beautiful
boy carries with it all the heartbreak and eroticism it needs to live
forever.
This column appears in the September 2013 issue of The North Star Monthly, which has won awards for its features and photography. Check out their site:
