The August issue of Rolling Stone magazine depicts the alleged Boston Marathon Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a “selfie” which had been originally posted to his Facebook page. The cover has had a lot of controversy surrounding it due to the fact that people feel the photo is a glorification of the 19 year old, and the terrible acts he committed during the marathon, which left 3 dead and 264 injured, according to Wikipedia. I find it interesting that the same photo was publish in a New York Times article and no one found it to be offensive then, but the writer of this current article, Fred Ritchin made a great point of saying that the placement of the iconic Rolling Stone logo is what made the difference. The placement of the logo made the young man look like a rock star, and if one did not know that the person on the cover is suspected of being a terrorist, they would perceive him of being a rock star as well.
When I first saw the cover I immediately understood what Rolling Stone was trying to do, they were trying to say that the face of terror can be anyone. The face of terror can be of a 19 year old young man, with long curly hair, and barely enough facial hair to connect into a full beard. The face of terror does not have to be in distorted light, and the face appearing to be menacing. We have to get rid of our preconceived notions of what terror looks like. No one saw that the problem with the cover was not the photograph used, but the prejudice of the people viewing the photograph. We have sit and ask ourselves, What does a terrorist really look like? Apparently, a terrorist can look like a rock star no matter what we would like to believe.
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Professor Sandra Cheng
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An excellent reading on how there really is no prescribed type for a villain. You present a good counterpoint to the criticism.