What’s wrong with this picture?
At the end of last year, while perusing Time Magazine, I was shocked to come across these heads.
Seymour Chwast’s illustrations for the article “How America Decides” from 17 December 2007 issue of Time
Moments after registering this unpleasant surprise, I wondered if I wasn’t over reacting. I emailed the image to a substantial number of people, asking in a neutral and sociological-survey-worthy tone if they didn’t notice anything odd about the portraits. The response I received was almost as alarming as the images: most people did not notice what I noticed. Of the minority who did see what I saw, only a handful were as irritated as I was. According to this test, I was indeed over reacting!
Still, I want to think that the illustrator didn’t do it on purpose. I have to think that the editor who passed on it was having a particularly clueless day. I need to make excuses for this image, because, all politics aside, this is a transparent (and shameless) example of a pervasive problem in Western society and most world cultures.
Then again, if Chwast had done it on purpose, would that mean the images qualify as art? Is his work really all that different from the one below?
Edouard Manet’s Luncheon On The Grass 1863
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CATEGORIES: - Philosophy - On feminism - Featuring artists - Reviews -
Ryan Phelps...
Well, Manet just seems like a fairly normal testosterone-laden man. Luncheon On The Grass might be one of his fantasies: lunching with a naked woman. Pure conjecture though.
As far as Hilary looking naked, it would almost have to come from a picture, because nobody would want to think of Hilary naked. It doesn’t offend me the way it does you, but it does strike me as odd.
Never attribute to malice that which stupidity will suffice to explain.
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