October 17, 2005
The greatest magazine cover of the last 40 years.
Beating out National Geographic's blue-eyed Aghan girl, Vanity Fair's naked, pregnant Demi Moore, and that Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover that everyone loves, according to the American Society of Magazine Editors. I don't disagree. It is entirely original and endlessly fascinating.
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40 comments:
Boomer self-centeredness truly knows no end.
This is the lastest example of cultural narcissism from cultural groups dominated by Baby Boomers who jave no shame in promoting personal touchstones into a "universal" pantheon, recently exemplified by the AFI "greatest" lists, Rolling Stones' lists, etc ad nauseum.
They had to confine their survey to the last 40 years, at least 25 of which saw the nadir of American taste and aesthetic sensibilities.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono are the perfect poster children for this ahistorical survey of preening self-regard.
The Afghan girl had my vote. What a pure glimpse at someone. McCurry is a wonderful photographer as his other work illustrates, if this one wasn't enough.
Just looking at that picture evokes such thought of action. Yoko and Lennon ... what a particularly sad choice.
Question. If it wasn't essentially a deathbed photo, would it even make the top 10?
You can smell the massive insecuity in baby boomers who do endless baby boomer lists about how relevant and historically signifigant baby boomers are.
They're trying to muscle history into agreeing with them. It's kind of sad.
Wow, I guess you guys don't like the photo as much as I do. I admit their is something creepy about John's infantile devotion to his wife who is just lying there very self-composed, but it's also fascinating.
As a boomer myself, I find it truly pathetic how subsequent generations, owing to their own self-centered narcissism, refuse to recognize our greatness.
Nevertheless, regarding that cover, there only three things to say. Eewww. Ick. And yecchhh.
I agree with Ann Althouse - creepy, that fetal curl of John Lennon; fascinating, the swirls, curves and lines of their bodies together.
Boomers are responsible for many great things, not least of which is... punk.
Also, neither John nor (especially!) Yoko is a boomer.
Nonetheless, this cover and it's enshrinement typify a certain disregard for the past that is really a defining characteristic of the "Me Generation" sensibility that surrounds so much boomer culture. Comparing this cover to say, one of the great Life magazine photo covers, or the great fashion covers of Vogue and Harper's Bazzar of the mid century, or the great illustrated covers of the 20's and 30's, it's blindingly obvious what utter shite it truly is.
As I mentioned earlier in reference to punk, the boomers who came of age in the 70's rebelled against the bloat and smugness of their older peers. Most importantly, they were just as adamant about downplaying their own significance, refusing to be beatified into obnoxious rock dinosaurdom.
(Dylan resisted this with his preference for Hank WIlliams over his ow work and that of his peers, and McCartney's lifelong homage to Buddy Holly does as well. But they aren't boomers, either!)
I can agree with several of the comments here about what Jeff termed boomer "cultural narcissism" and an implication that the cultural be-all and end-all occurred within that generation. In spades!
But.
I'm ALSO finding this conversation very reminiscent of those that crop up fairly frequently over Time magazine's choice of person of the year. Why? Because there does sometimes seem to be a tendency to conflate the designating of something as the most remarkable (etc.) with bestowing approval (etc.) on the subject, per se.
I don't deny that the reason this photograph is so famous (and therefore was considered for this recent designation) is due to the subject. But to my way of thinking, that doesn't take away from the compelling nature of this photograph. Call me odd, but I truly believe that I would find this photograph, as a photograph, deeply compelling and marvelous even if the subjects were Jane Doe and Jack Buck (and despite its creepiness--maybe because of).
Of course, given that I DO know about the subjects, there's even more that's compelling. There are just so many layers to this photo (starting from the fact that John has no "physical" layers between us and him and him and OKO, while she does). And it does capture, quite neatly, some significant aspects of a particular era in time, whether those aspects and that era are laudable or not.
I could give a whole bunch of reasons why I find this fascinating, but I'm probably going on too long as it is.
And just for the record, I'm not someone who is inherently a John OR Yoko fan, not then and now now. I thought he had a mean streak a mile wide (remember how he liked to draw ungenerous, nasty sketches of people with some sort of physical issue?) and that his wife was insufferably tone-deaf (musically and otherwise).
But, wow! That picture ... I'm with you, Ann, endlessly fascinating and, at least at the time, entirely original, as you put it.
Instead of any number of photos of an exuberant John Lennon we are left with the best photo being of the pathetic John Lennon. Definetely agree with the "creepy" comment.
My first choice is the Afghan girl and my second that NYcentric picture of NYC. Even though I am of the right age, I wouldn't put the Ono/Lennon picture in my top 50.
Let me suggest that the reason that the Ono/Lennon cover is so popular with that crowd (and may be with Ann), is that the Beatles, esp. Lennon, were icons of the early Baby Boomers - esp. the women (it wasn't the guys who were screaming, it was the girls - a lot of us guys didn't really like them that much, until later, after they had broken up).
So, I would suggest that if you also asked the same group of people the question of how important do you think Lennon was to our generation, you would get a high correlation between those who thought him very important and that the cover was very important.
Final note - yes, Lennon was not a Baby Boomer - but he was/is a Baby Boomer icon, which is what is important here.
Never was a huge Lennon fan so the picture to me is an bad choice for all-timer.
Anne - reading the responses indicates you sure have the knack for posting really interesting stuff (90% of time) that truly energizes your readers OR post really odd stuff (10% of time) that makes them scratch their heads and say in one way or another ...."and your point is?"
They overlooked the fresh and original photo of a topless Paris Hilton on this month's Vanity Fair?
Although the pic has a certain artsiness I wonder how it would be ranked if the couple were unknown?
But being a germ-aphob I find a somewhat repellant.
And I do not really GET the Beatle idolatry thing .....
I'm a big Beatles fan, but I would never confuse anything done bt Annie Liebowitz with great art... assuming she did any of the actual work inolved in this cover.
She is well known among photo students here as someone who is technically illiterate and depends on the expertise of her talented and uncreited assistants for making her celebrity friends look good.
I honestly wouldn't choose anything done by my contemporaries over the work of the masters of the early-to-mid 20th century art and photography.
The art directors of the 60's threw the baby out with the bathwater, dooming my generation to a childhood surrounded by ugly photography, typesetting, design, illustration, you name it. Those bastards should be pilloried in the public square and made an example of for the benefit of future generations.
Why are Xers like myself (and to a much, much less extent) Yers so resentful?
I think a lot of us got to watch our divorced parents date. /shudder
The Afghan girl was haunting, but if it was up to me I would have chosen the cartoon aerial map of New York City that The New Yorker ran shortly after 9-11. It showed Manhattan and Brooklyn broken up into neighborhoods with jagged boundaries, and vaguely central-Asian-sounding names, like "Gaymenistan" and "Lesbikhs" and "Smalldogwalkers." I cut it out and hung it up on my window; it reminded me of humor's healing power.
Does anybody read magazines anymore?
Here is a link to the entire list of 40: http://www.magazine.org/editorial/13730.cfm
My favorite of them all:
http://nile.doceus.com/editorial/40-40-images/14-%20New%20Yorker12-10-01.jpg
Matt: I prefer the 60s era Sixteen montages during the Herman's Hermits/Monkees era.
MD: Your teacher reminds me of that teacher on "Bevis and Butt-Head." What was his name? Anyway, I guess B&B is the stuff of nostalgia now.
To respond to Scott Ferguson, as long as there are doctor's offices (and the like) and as long as people spend time on the crapper (remember George and the artbook in Seinfeld, he should have grabbed a copy of the New Yorker instead) there will be a market for printed, glossy magazines.
Regarding the choice of that Rolling Stone cover, if it wasn't for the actions of a madman, wouldn't the main reaction to that photo be, "how sad, still hippies and its 1980"?
Ann, the name of Beavis & Butthead's hippie teacher was David Van Driessen. He was the one that pitched a tent with Stuart. He-heh.
Tongue firmly in cheek ...
Ziemer:
... what's there not to hate about the boomers
Um, well ... the fact that they're probably your parents and/or grandparents? And in case of the majority of those generations, provided more for you than they themselves had (even comparing within classes, that is, working class to working class, middle class to middle class, and so on)?
There's a lot that can be laid at the door of the boomers, no doubt. But in addition to the negatives, from the point of X'ers and Y'ers, it seems to me that there are many elements of life on which you rely that come out of boomer culture, know-how, and priorities. I'm not saying that I personally like all of them (or that you do), but I know of almost no X'er or Y'er who doesn't take for granted as a fact of life at least some of those elements. (Technology, anyone? Greater acceptance--or at least tolerance--of casual dress? Fewer prescriptions and proscriptions related to behavior? Greater autonomy in terms of choices at a younger age, yet coupled with far less pressure to "get out and on your own and settle down" as soon as possible?)
Only sayin' ...
Full disclosure: I think there's general agreement that the boomer generation started around 1946, but opinions vary as to whether it ended as early as 1959 or as late as 1964. Either way, I think it's safe to say that, as someone born in 1961, I'm on the ass-end of that generation.
Which, I suppose, appropriately enough perhaps, may make me an ... in the eyes of the those following me.
I can only hope my kindergartner is endowed with an excess of generosity of spirit for those who came (along time) before by the time he hits his '20s and '30s ...
Thanks, Icepick. Sorry I misspelled Beavis. Good old Beavis.
As a boomer, let me just say that a lot of us got sick of the hippie ethic and felt liberated by the realization that we didn't have to toe the hippie line. It was oppressive! Though I still like the motto "Do your own thing."
That should be:
... came (a long) time ...
Rather disturbing mental image this discussion left me with:
A potbellied, 50-ish high school teacher with big plastic plugs in his ears some afternoon in the mid 2020's, tormenting a roomful of sullen teens with a version of Kurt Cobain's version of "Come on people now, smile on your brothers" and stories of Lollapaloozas past.
I've actually quite fond of the Ono/ Lennon portrait, precisely because I've never been a fan of Lennon's-- always struck me as rather creepy and infantile. I wasn't aware of its morbid backstory, either.
Also, Beavis and Butthead is occasionally showed on MTV2 at around 2 AM. It's still absolutely brilliant.
I'm a Beatles fan and I always hated that picture. The look of utter indifference on Yoko Ono's face always struck me as strangely anomalous. For those of a more sinister turn, it may seem emblematic of their worst suspicions about Ono, that she was a sort of golddigger. (Lennon, of course, was no choir boy and the producer of their joint project, 'Double Fantasy' once reported that Ono was afraid of incurring Ono's displeasure.)
The picture is strange to me in another way. It clearly was meant to allude to the first joint Lennon-Ono project, 'Two Virgins.' On the front and back covers of it, both appear naked. Perhaps Ono rejected suggestions that she appear au naturelle here. (Which is more than fine with me, by the way.) But the effect of the naked Lennon next to the clothed Ono is that it gives him the appearance of an almost pathetic dependence, an impression only deepened by his nearly fetal posture. This adds to the suspicion held by many, apparently unwarranted, of Ono acting as a kind of Svengali to Lennon.
(An interesting side note to make is that in most Hollywood movies and TV shows, women in love scenes with men are far more likely to be shown naked or nearly-naked than their partners. I don't think it's a great stretch to believe this is so because sexist men like the notion of women being vulnerable and in need of their protection and their "superior" acumen as lovers. So, at least at one level, the Lennon-Ono photo is a reversal of that unfortunate fact.)
Whatever, I always thought the picture was stupid, silly, and self-indulgent.
Mark Daniels
Ann, I didn't notice that you had mis-spelled Beavis. And there's little reason to apologize: HE probably couldn't spell it either.
reader_iam, Douglas Copeland identified Generation X in his novel of the same name as those tail-enders of the Baby Boom born in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They didn't quite belong to the Baby Boom culture of the 1960s. Somehow those of us born after that ended up with the designation instead.
I had a couple of snarky comments about reader_iam's semi-defense of Boomers, but I've decided to pass. Gen X snarkiness about Boomer nostalgia is almost as tired as Boomer nostalgia. We Gen X'ers are hitting 40 now, people! Time to quit being the bratty younger siblings!
townleybomb, the Beavis & Butthead re-runs just leave me disappointed. They've cut out too many of the videos, which were the best part of the show. Who can forget such great commentary as "Stand up straight, play your guitar, and SSSSSSSHHHHHHUUUUUTTTTTTT UUUUUUPPPPPPP!!!!!!!" and "The angle of the dangle is inversely proportional to the speed of the beat!" Both of those are Beavisisms, BTW, just for Ann!
Now they cram three eps into a half-hour, instead of two. Sad, and yet more evidence of the increasing suckitude of the MTV empire.
i have to admit, though, when you consider how polite and well-mannered young people are these days (the offspring of the boomers), the boomers obviously did one thing well.
Thank you, Zeimer. Very kind of you to say. Many of us Boomers take our greatest pride in the way our children have turned out.
Plenty of people did not like the Beatles in 1963 but they were not the cool kids. The coolest girls seriously dug the Beatles and the Stones and the Beach Boys and others and since those were the girls we liked, my brother and our friends got cheap guitars, formed a "combo" and tried, in vain of course, to look and sound like any of those stars who the cool girls were so enamored by. We were nine and ten years old.
We weren't anywhere near as cool as we thought we were but the whole process did lead us to learning as much about music as we knew about baseball and so, I suppose, it broadened us.
By the way, the so-called hippie ethic did not include saving the world. The hippie ethic had more to do with tuning in, turning on, and dropping out. The inspiration for the Boomers to save the world came much earlier around the time when JFK spoke the words, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
MD:
We are so enjoying your post! And I do mean that seriously, NOT in the snarky sense, at all.
Regarding the first paragraph, yes, I can understand that! And NO, it's NOT nice to be defined by the loudest part.
But what I'm really liking is the second 'graf, in which you so well state a fundamental truism. The reason for my enjoyment is my amusement over a fundamental fact (from my point of view, not universally shared) of being a late boomer, which means that one's teen-aged years took place in the '70s. At least by my lights, I don't have much temptation to play for "young-ers" the vast majority of top-40 hits of the '70s, as exemplified by what was played at your average middle-school and high-school dance, so it's no virtue that I don't. "Afternoon Delight" won a freakin' grammy, for pete's sake ... and I could, but won't, go on and on.
(Although, my kindergartener has lustily been singing "Godzilla" for the past few years ... thanks to his guitarist dad [b. 1964]. No "Fear the Reaper," however.)
And yes, I do know about the alternative-music parts of that time (college radio alumni here), but that's not what I'm talking about.
Icepick: Sorry that my tone inspired an urge to snarkiness. I didn't mean it to do so: I was just trying to provide a bit of balance regarding boomers and allude to the fact that every generation spawns rebellion--in one way or another, to some degree or another--in those that follow. The boomers (including myself?--glad you pointed out the genesis of "Gen X," of which I was aware, but, as you note, is never used that way, having been co-opted) are just so darn large and ubiquitous that THAT generation is more obvious and, seemingly, everlasting.
Ziemer: I'm not sure if you're kidding or not. I assume you are? For my part, this strikes me as a downfall, and not just in what I've observed over the last 15 years or so. More self-centeredly, try raising your kid, if you're an oldster like me, with any semblence of the etiquette with which you were raised. Undercut almost every time ... mostly, I can't even get your average boomer to accept being referred to by Ms., Mrs., Mr., or Mrs., and there is NO compunction about correcting me in front of my child. I won't explain why this is emblematic: those who know, understand; those who don't, would probably be bored.
Deleted the last paragraph:
And, again, as a generalization, their children--probably as a result--seem to have a problem with "time and place," meaning that one-etiquette-fits-all-situations seems to be the norm.
That's not so great, I'd think.
Ziemer was being sarcastic about our well-reared kids?
Oh.
How embarrassing that I took his words in earnest.
As embarrassed as if I were photographed curled up next to Yoko Ono in nothing but my boxer shorts and the photo posted all over the halls of my old 1967 junior high school.
Touche!
Actually, I wasn't sure of the intent.
Your interpretation seems at least as reasonable as mine.
I'm the one both fuddled and cynical, in this instance.
Sorry :).
My vote goes to the black on black 9/11 issue of The New Yorker.
It's not that boomers revel in their past--I think probably every generation does that--it's that they're so self-righteous and superior about it. And the media keeps shoving it down our throats with stuff like this mag cover. ... it also doesn't help that every other commercial on TV nowadays panders directly to them, featuring classic rock and "free-spirited" seniors romping around.
In the U.S. the boomers have defined every subsequent generation.
The baby bust was due to the pill and Roe v Wade. Growing up in the smallest generation following the largest was a time of shrinking resources and a society that was no longer as child-centric (knowing from an early age that the world doesn't revolve around them lead to a more resourceful and adaptable generation, but I'm prejudiced).
The echo-boom caused by boomers realizing in their later 30s and 40s that they wanted kids after all happened much later than had been historically the case so those kids grew up with more resources, more supervision, more expectations, and more medication than any past generation (and not all to the good).
We are only just now entering a time where the majority of births aren't defined directly by boomer reproductive habits (the earliest wave of boomer women are menopausal and even the latest boomers as broadly defined are over 40)
[is there any subject that doesn't become about boomers at some point?]
(and the preceding is all conjecture and assumptions feel free to destroy it all with facts)
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