There have been several opinion pieces published recently
taking the position that Rolling Stone magazine’s decision to put a certain
photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its next cover, in which an article by Janet Reitman
examining the bombing suspect appears, is commendable, explainable or, at the
very least, should not offend us any more than we are already offended by
Tsarnaev’s murderous acts at the Boston Marathon this year. (Jesse Singal (Boston Globe Opinion, July 18,
2013); David Weinberger (CNN Opinion, July 19, 2013); Yvonne Abraham (Boston
Globe Metro, July 20, 2013).) For anyone
who missed it, the upcoming cover displays
a close-up photograph of Tsarnaev, in which he stares directly at the camera in
sepia tones. His hair looks artfully
mussed, his T-shirt could be from Abercrombie and Fitch, and his expression
looks smug; borderline sultry.
It is accompanied by the following coverline: “THE BOMBER: How a Popular, Promising Student
Was Failed by His Family, Fell into Radical Islam, and Became a Monster.”
The opinions and arguments expressed by these authors are
persuasive, even to someone like me who was just shy of finishing the marathon when
the bombs went off, my family across the street from the second explosion. In sum (and not to conflate them; they are
each nuanced pieces with slightly different angles, and I’m sure there are more
out there than I cite), their main point is that Rolling Stone’s decision to portray
Tsarnaev on the cover as a “normal” teenager highlights the real danger
presented by the terroristic world in which we live; that the fact he does not look like the “monster” he is (as evidenced by
the cover photo) puts the terrifying into terrorist. They further stress (and with this I agree)
that labeling our enemies simply as “monsters” or “terrorists” glosses over the
ambivalence in many of these individuals and the path they took to terror. That in order to understand fully how this event
could occur, which is central both to our humanity and to our national safety,
we must explore this ambiguity and its shades of gray. The ultimate suggestion is that the
juxtaposition of Tsarnaev’s inviting image on the cover with the label of
“monster” in the coverline is at the core of the paradox that we so
desperately need to solve.
These arguments fail for the following simple reason: Most “normal” teenagers do not have their
photos on the cover of Rolling Stone. Even
accepting the assumption that what unnerves us about a terrorist like Tsarnaev
is his unexceptional appearance, the only reason he is the subject of a feature
article in Rolling Stone magazine is because he decided, with his brother, to
take two pressure-cooker bombs and detonate them at the finish line of one of
the most historic and revered road races in the United States. While I do not fault Reitman's decision to
investigate Tsarnaev’s background, or the subsequent debate as to how the cover
photo might relate to her piece, it is misguided to suggest that letting
Tsarnaev’s image reside in such an iconic space, and particularly in such a
flattering light, is necessary to make the point that the face of terrorism has
changed, or necessary to ignite responsible debate about our country’s
potentially dangerous presumptions regarding who fits the profile of a
terrorist. The cover photo is not a reflection of Tsarnaev as a “normal” teenager who somehow became a terrorist; it elevates
him to a celebrity, plain and simple.
The defense, explanation, or acceptance, of Rolling Stone’s cover
offered by these various opinion pieces seeks to connect the editors’ choice and
placement of that particular photo on the cover to the underlying article’s warning
that we may not know terrorists when we see them. They may, in fact, look “normal” – even seductive
(danger can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, after all). But is that really the most important message
from all of this? Don’t we already know
that we were blindsided? And, if we are
going to engage in an admittedly important dialogue around our nation’s and
culture’s current approach to profiling and understanding terrorists, particularly
those internal to our country, is the take-away really that we should be on
alert for someone who looks like he came from a photo shoot? When I think of the many other angles and
creative choices available to the editors at Rolling Stone I can’t help but be
disappointed – no, outraged. Perhaps
Rolling Stone has gotten what it wanted in terms of publicity and notoriety, in
the arguable furtherance of demonstrating that even terrorists can look like
cover models. But I’m not sure those who
decided to publish the photo understand the collateral damage of that “win” to
those of us who were there. Because
after three months of not thinking about the individuals who wreaked havoc on
my family and so many others that day (they were, to me, bit actors in play;
not worthy of being listed in the credits; extras; the prop knife in Act I that
you see on stage and know it foreshadows tragedy in Act III…), I now can’t stop
seeing their faces. And I fear that Ms. Abraham’s
assertion in her piece that “it’s not like this cover image, which most of us
have seen before, is going to change anybody’s mind about Tsarnaev and what he
did”, sadly underestimates the celebrity culture in which we live.
So while I acknowledge that these authors have articulated some
of the best arguments to explain Rolling Stone’s choice, I remain convinced
that the editors of Rolling Stone deserve every second of backlash and
boycott. And even if we are “strong
enough” to see this terrorist glorified on the cover, as one piece suggests in questioning
certain businesses’ decision not to carry the issue, we’re also strong enough to
tell Rolling Stone, loudly and repeatedly:
Shame on you. You misjudged, you
miscalculated, and you let marketing greed influence editorial integrity. You have unnecessarily re-traumatized the
survivors of this attack, all for publicity in the guise of nuanced journalism. And expressing our outrage about Rolling
Stone’s decision in no way undercuts or avoids the important conversation
around the ambiguous grays of terrorism.
Because sometimes the wolf really does come in sheep’s
clothing; and needs to be disrobed.
