BAGnewsNotes

(VF + Miley) x Annie = Kaching Kaching

But why are the media so obsessed with manufactured conflicts involving movie stars and singers and celebrities on the A-thru-D list? What's really happening behind a trend that sandwiches the Cyrus episode between reports of deaths in Iraq and the rising price of gasoline on most major news networks in the United States?

What's happening is this: The politics of distraction meets the careerist strategies of a young female gold mine. When "greed meets the lead," it's yet another example of how pandering kills the news. Those who don't work in communications can't possibly imagine how deeply planned events like the Cyrus photo shoot are, and how constructed these seemingly coincidental controversies can be.
...
Too bad we can't see that each time we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the myriad publicists who help manufacture these controversies, we're not just molesting these girls, we're also killing the idea of the news.

from: Syl Jones: Accidentally, on purpose (StarTribune.com)

I admit, I had no idea who Miley Cyrus was a week ago.

Why I find this shot interesting, however, is not because it echoes the specific image that tainted Hannah Montana, or even because of the social manipulation and political misdirection referred to above.

It's because it captures Annie Leibovitz -- a far more significant cultural icon than this 15-year-old will ever be -- in the act of serving up one more cultural molotov cocktail.

The Miley Cyrus Photo Shoot (video - VF)
Tween Angel (slide show - VF)
Reading The Pictures:  Between Bush's TuTu and Tu Tu's Bush (Shaw - Huffington Post)
Your Turn: Vogue + LaBron (Kong?) + Gisele = Kaching (BNN)

(image: unattributed. Vanity Fair. June 2008)

Your Turn: Vogue + LaBron (Kong?) + Gisele = Kaching

Some say the photo of LeBron James -- in a gorilla-like pose -- perpetuates racial stereotypes.

Men's Fitness editor-in-chief Roy Johnson says: "It's a reminder that as African-Americans, we have come very far to have an African-American male featured on the cover of Vogue, but we have very far to go to continue to educate people within our industry regarding the power of images and the potential impact they can have on their readers."

Jason Whitlock: "Would we be having this discussion if LeBron struck the same pose on the cover of Ebony while holding Selita Ebanks?"

... I think the image is worth our deconstruction, but I don't believe for a second Vogue/Leibovitz didn't know exactly what they were doing.  In spite of his approval (before, and up to this moment), did LeBron get the shape of it?

More images in the shoot (Vogue/style.com)
Is Vogue's "LeBron Kong" Cover Offensive? (Jezebel + more links)
Memo Pad: People Are Talking About... Soon To Be a Ph.D Thesis.. (WWD.com)
If They All Do It... (The Beyonce lightening treatment - BAGnewsNotes)
Selita Ebanks (wikipedia)

(h/t and paragraph 1-3 from Wayne Dickson.)

(image: Annie Leibovitz. 2008. Vogue Magazine)

"Newsweek Doesn't Hate Clinton" - Part 2: Pissed Off At The Press

This is the second post focusing on images from the Mar 17, 2008 issue of Newsweek featuring essays by 13 different women about the Clinton campaign.

(click for full size)

The press will always feel Hillary's fierce, historic mistrust—and who can blame her? ABC's Kate Snow tells me that members of the public often bear down on her when they see her TV mike, cursing her out as a stand-in for Tim Russert, even though he is at NBC. "They feel we're the people taking her down," she said.

Perhaps this explains the Clinton advance team's puzzling decision, discovered when we arrived in Austin, Texas, on Monday afternoon, to have the press file from a men's locker room.  -- Tina Brown, Newsweek, 3/ 17/08

In traveling with the Clinton campaign in Ohio last week, former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor (and self-described "campaign virgin") Tina Brown made passing note of the unique press accommodations in Austin.  Besides the image itself, I'm interested in how it functions in illustrating an essay largely sympathetic to Hillary.

In describing her experience of joining Clinton's traveling press corp, Brown stated that: " It allows you, finally, to see the candidate through the voters' eyes."  As she elaborates, what Brown witnessed, specifically, was how women from the boomer generation were flocking to the campaign as they perceived the attacks on Hillary to be misogynist in nature.

"Newsweek Doesn't Hate Clinton" - Part 1: Girls Cheating On Hillary

This is the first in a series of posts focusing
on images from the Mar 17, 2008 issue of
Newsweek featuring essays by 13 different
women about the Clinton campaign.

I'm not sure why Jessica Bennett's article in the latest Newsweek is titled "Am I Betraying the ‘Sisterhood’?"  In light of the rhetorical question, the last line of the piece speaks of her "womanly satisfaction" with each Hillary victory.

The title does, however, speaks to (or rather, for) the alleged guilt of Bennett's "millennial sisters" who have "been sold on the Obama rock-star brand."  "I voted for Obama and I felt like I was cheating on Hillary," a friend confessed to the author just last week.

Writes Tina Brown in a sister article in the same issue:

What saddens boomer women who love Hillary is that their twenty-something daughters don't share their view of her heroic role. Instead they've been swept up by that new Barack magic. It's not their fault, and not Hillary's, either. The very scar tissue that older women see as proof of her determination just embarrasses their daughters, killing off for them all the insouciant elation that ought to come with girl power in the White House.

Bennett's article and its thesis (much like Tina Brown's dovetailing observation) makes the accompanying image that much more interesting.  Sandwiched between two older women (reflective of Hillary's most "loyal" constituency), we see two younger women in matching head bands engrossed in conversation.  The woman on the left stares at Hillary with her head down and out of the shadows, while the other seems to be giving the first woman an earful.

In the context of the article, the image -- less like than a political photo than a shot conveying a more cinematic quality -- reads as two women, turncoats to their gender, dishing on Hillary.  Applying the opprobrium of guilt and "cheating," Newsweek equates marital fidelity with gender loyalty.  Except, in this image, at least, it's even worse.  Her "twenty-something daughters" are not just going behind her back, but defying Hillary to her face.

Am I Betraying the ‘Sisterhood’? (Bennett/Newsweek)
The Hillary Issue (Newsweek)

(image: Win McNamee / Getty Images.  via newsweek.com)

Outside Heath Ledger's Apartment

(click for larger size)

"For the illusion of credibility, it had to be framed as a tribute to a legacy,
instead of about earning money and ratings."

Deviating a bit from our usual, Peter van Agtmael forwarded these images to The BAG.  (If you remember, Peter offered us photos, two months back, of soldier's graffiti from a U.S. staging facility in Kuwait.)  As Peter relates:

These are pictures I snapped outside Heath Ledger's apartment on the night of his death. By the time I got there, the media hubbub had died down a bit, but I think these still represent the bizarre scene that ensued.

In this first image, with the photographers gathered, I could see this being made to look bigger than it was.  But this memorial of flowers was just a small tribute set up by one person -- like something you might see on the roadside for the victim of a car crash.  Because this was not an event of public grieving, the little memorial speaks to that.

Overall, there hasn't been much appreciation for the guy, and there has been little celebration for his work as an actor.  If anything, it seems there has been much more of an interest in his toxicology test.  Its been a pretty negative, if unsurprising reflection on media and humanity.

I think this second photo is the best one I took that night.  Posing for a picture, these two girls are clearly smirking but pretending to cry.

*** ** ***

Part of the reason I decided to go down to photograph the scene was a certain feeling of bitterness.  Last year, I shot a story about the life and death of a friend, a young army medic I met in Baghdad, who died of a drug overdose.  The circumstances of his death were equally ambiguous, but there is no doubt that his life was a mess, with severe PTSD from two tours to iraq coupled with the disintegration of his marriage.

When I heard about Ledger, the two stories seemed to fuse in my mind, saying something about how lives are valued in this country.

>> If you have questions or comments for Peter, he'll be available to respond in the discussion thread. <<

(images: © Peter van Agtmael/Polaris Images.  New York.  January 2008.  Used by permission.)

Iron My Shirt

It wasn't until Josh Marshall called out the "shirt incident," along with Hillary's emotional reaction to a group of women, as the week's two defining events, that I paid more attention to this picture.  If the incident was unsettling when I saw it on television, looking back from now, it is abundantly clear how explosively offensive it is.

(If you haven't seen it, by the way, I strongly urge that you watch the video.  As people register what happened, notice the strong visceral and unified reaction of the audience to this blatant act of sexism.)

Because of the historical significance of the incident, and the fact the image, at least in media space, has as much veracity as the real thing, I thought it was worth calling out a few elements:

American New Year

The power of this New Years Eve newswire image comes from the fact it so obviously references the famous "Times Square Kiss."  Where it goes from there, however, is wide open.

Because Alfred Eisenstaedt's iconic photo symbolizes America's WWII victory, this pic seems a (way too) subtle reminder not to forget about Iraq.  In its muted quality -- running hard against the grain of the typical abandonment accompanying the Times Square ball drop -- the pic seems to also comment on the national mood -- perhaps more cautious, more tempered, more concerned right now.  At the same time, in its sobriety and conservatism, it has the flavor of a Mike Huckabee holiday card.

It might be hard to tell from this selection (always looking for the best pic and a little trouble), but The BAG faces '08 full of fight, commitment and optimism.  Best wishes to all!

Times Square Kiss (Digital Journalist)

(image: Katie Orlinsky/Reuters.  Times Square. December 31, 2007. via YahooNews)

Aja, Aja, Aja, Aja, OBollywood

What you have to like about something like this is the suggestion that America -- after years of xenophobia -- might possibly find a way to embrace diversity, pluralism and multiculturalism. 

(video: Barack OBollywood via Salon via YouTube via CamPain2008)

Belvedere

Guest post by Susan Murray

A brand-new shiny car, buried half a century ago in a time capsule, was recently revealed in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma's statehood. People had hoped to find a pristine, gold '57 Plymouth Belvedere. Instead, they discovered a rust-covered relic. The capsule had been infiltrated by water and the car was ruined, keys hardened into the ignition.

I have followed this story closely in major news outlets and on blogs. It is generally presented as a fluff piece, which isn't really surprising. Except that the imagery ought to raise bigger questions.

As Aaron Donovan, writer for streetsblog.com, points out in his piece An Old Car Interred:

What was an asset in 1957 has become an enormous national liability. Fifty years ago, the oil fields of Oklahoma were awash with ever increasing amounts of oil and the United States produced more oil than any other nation in the world. We didn't have to import a drop. Nobody had ever heard of the terms global warming or climate change.

It's Not A Hand Gun, It's Military: Fleet Week #3

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Girls and guns. Kids and guns. Teens, sex and guns.

Today, I offer the last in a series of posts featuring images by photojournalist Nina Berman of this year's Fleet Week naval extravaganza in NYC.

In the first post, I noted the public's unremarkable response to American militarism and the public display of weaponry.  In the second post, I focused on military recruitment and race.  Today, I'm interested in a more narrow aspect of these gun-saturated images, which is the prevalence of hand guns in these exhibitions.

I was interested in how these three images, all emphasizing the hand gun, have a slightly different pull.  In image #1, are we witnessing a loss of innocence, or, in our violence-saturated culture, simply the lack of it?  In #2, factoring those facial expressions; the girl's "girlish" and incredible "Go Nuts" top; the face paint (kids love face paint); and the fingers on the triggers, I'm wondering, is this the new cover of the American family album?  And, in #3, besides the appeal to gangster chic, there is no escaping the double entendre of "a boy's equipment."

Granted, the military came to NY for a (PR) show of hardware.  And who could deny that the small arms weapon is a necessary implement in any military arsenal.  What I'm curious about, however, is how -- just weeks after the Virginia Tech shootings (and the lost opportunity to have a public debate about hand guns) -- neither the military, the police, nor the anti-gun Mayor seemed to have much reservation about discouraging the public (no just looking?), and especially, children, from getting their hands on a piece.

>>If you have questions or comments for Nina, she is available to answer in the discussion thread<<

Other Fleet Week posts:
Asking Questions About America: Fleet Week #1
Black Boys With Guns: Fleet Week #2

Nina Berman website.
Nina's Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq website/purchase

(image: Nina Berman/Redux. NYC, New York, May 25, 2007.  Used by permission)