From "The 25 Most Influential Magazine Covers of All Time/Four editors, a creative director and a visual artist met to debate and discuss the best of print media — and its enduring legacy" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see all 25 covers and the story behind each of them).
I vividly remember that Life Magazine cover, "Drama of Life Before Birth," April 30, 1965. If I remember correctly — from 60 years ago when I was 14 — the article had nothing to do with abortion and readers were shielded from the notion that these unborn children were dead. We were invited to feast our eyes on the miracle of life, and we had never seen pictures like this before.
That Life cover ranks 6th on the list, well above the cover I would have put first, Saul Steinberg's "View of the World From 9th Avenue," which is only #14.
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46 comments:
#3 gives away the game.
The article was written by AI and a prompt by someone 80 years old most likely.
The article was written or edited by an old woman who has a gay kid is my guess.
“ In the 1980s, after learning that his pictures were being used at anti-abortion demonstrations, Nilsson refused to allow them to be republished...."
I wonder why. Ignorance is bliss in Dem world?
The introductory material says, "Though numbered, the entries below aren’t ranked; the covers appear roughly in the order in which they were discussed."
Wasn’t a similar image used in 2001 A Space Odyssey?
Probably half of them aren't anything special, they just validated somebody's politics.
If they were ranked, #14 probably does belong in the top spot. The Rolling Stone "Kill This Dog" cover belongs in the top 5, along with the floating baby and...maybe John and Yoko, the plastic bag iceberg, and Vogue with just the eye and the lips. None of the others still have relevance.
I'm agreeing with Achilles. Most of the covers are shyte. The Life Magazine cover one I remember as most gut wrenching was from June 27, 1969. The faces of the American dead in Vietnam. It was 242 that week. It was in the middle of my brothers tour and put my mother over the edge. She switched from a nightly glass of Gallo Rose to triple martinis
The view of America from New York launched a thousand imitators and memes. It should definitely rank number one. Also a high rank should be assigned to the first New Yorker cover from the 1920s (?). The high neck, imperious look, and monocle. It came to be associated with a New Yorker forever.
So the photographer reveals himself to be just another progressivist piece of shit. But the photos themselves continue to reveal the truth of the humanity of the developing child.
I would include the Playboy nude cover of Monroe.
readers were shielded from the notion that these unborn children were dead. We were invited to feast our eyes on the miracle of life,
I didn't know that. Kind of shocking. The issue isn't so much abortion as media hoaxes. Feels like a Robert Capa-level deception, although the image wasn't "staged" per se.
The Life cover says "Living 18 week old fetus." An outright lie.
A wildly disproportionate number of covers push progressive politics. Naturally, noted straight-talking "journalist" Gayle King is one of the judges.
This is like those thought experiments 'If you gave aliens a set a rules...'. The results, while technically following the rules have no resemblance to the actual historical significance of the covers.
It would make more sense if they admitted they perused the old covers and chose them based on their fitness to promote the current politics of the panel. As it is described, like most media these days, it is deceptive and dishonest...
Lois' Ali cover deserves #1, but good Lord, the eyes on '...we'll kill this dog" is in a higher orbit
Of note: Immediately after celebrating the dick joke on the Eliot Spitzer cover, the next segment opens scolding "tasteless" coverage of Bruce Jenner's transition to "Caitlyn," which was the next celebrated cover.
Every cover but maybe 3 have a progressive political message, mainly feminism.
Evolution of a baby was a forward-looking glimpse of humanity. Me, too, in a baby picture.
Transition? Nay, simulation. Simulants are in the transgender spectrum. Some earlier, others later in environmental and social chaos ("evolution").
"Mr. Cheeseface" may be the answer to the ultimate Boomer trivia question. Of course, Google has rendered such things meaningless.
As noted above, the judges, all lefties, mostly selected the covers that reflect their world view. Some selections already reached iconic status. Of them, I'd seen "the View from NYC", the "shoot this dog", the white Vogue with red lipstick, and the embryo. None of those are particularly ideological. Many of the rest favor the current fetishes of the judges to show how rright-thinking they are and these covers also show how the dominant politics of most national magazine editors skews hard left and always has since the 60's.
How do you leave off National Geographic, June 1985?
"Pretty Afghan girl" in National Geographic in the 60s was so memorable they looked her up again decades later and put her on the cover again. "Noseless girl" was another famous magazine cover, but I don't know if they were the same woman.
Ellen's "Yep, I'm Gay" was more forgettable than Rosie O'Donnell's "The Queen of Nice" Newsweek cover. The New Yorker's Ernie and Bert cover wasn't as memorable as their election day covers. "O for Obama Moon Over Lincoln Memorial," for example.
By far, though, Kennedy Assassinated or Man Walks on Moon on just about any magazine was the most memorable cover for decades.
The Life cover says "Living 18 week old fetus." An outright lie.
Something in me finds it worse if it's NOT a lie - if they took the picture and then just threw the fetus away while it was still alive.
A friend who's a vet tech (forgive me, I am VERY aware we're not talking about the same thing here whether you vote or from the pro-life or the pro-choice side) told us she hates when people won't sit with and hold their pets when they're being put down. The animal is often terrified and being held by its owner would give it comfort in its last moments - comfort the techs try to provide, but they aren't the familiar people.
In the case of a human fetus, taken alive from the uterus, it seems to me that as a matter of respect for its humanness there ought to be at least an agreement that aside from necessary activities to save the woman, everyone quietly acknowledges the fetus's life until it's no longer alive. I know that modern late-term abortions kill the fetus before delivering it, so it should be a non-issue now in the case of elective abortion.
What Ficta said
“ Wasn’t a similar image used in 2001 A Space Odyssey?”
Yes, but that was 3 years later.
#3 and #8 are so juvenile it's almost charming; ha-ha, Bert & Ernie are a gay couple, ha-ha Eliot Spitzer's brain is in his pants so here's a big red arrow pointing at his crotch and the word "Brain." Get it? Get it?? How terribly droll!
One of the unexpected benefits of our internet/social media age is the exposure of our "elites" for who they actually are, and although it's good to learn the truth it's honestly depressing to find out just what simpletons they actually are. Years ago it was possible to sustain the impression that elites like fancy magazine editors (and, by extension their readers) had wit, taste, class, and education that the rest of us could envy. Today, though, you can't avoid learning who they really are--they really think this callow literalism and their twaddle are deep and important. Ridiculous.
It's funny that the more interesting examples chosen are almost all 35 years old or older.
You've got to pick a time where it's cute. Not looking like a sea horse, for example.
rehajm @ 10:49 touches on my initial reaction: these folks must be using an entirely different definition of the word "influential".
Ficta,
Having linked to the Afghan girl photo, how can we omit linking to the controversy surrounding its origin?
On a less serious note, a cover that influenced millions of little boys and young men.
Life Magazine April 29 1957.
Pretty shallow. At least 3 gay pride covers no one remembers and no earth seen from space, no global cooling, assassination, no Nixon Resigns, no Concentration Camp liberation, no Kruschev pounding his shoe on the podium or Cuban missile crisis. No one saw Marilyn on the cover of Avant Garde - they saw her on the cover of Life repeatedly from 1952 to 1962. I doubt anyone remembered that Gourmet cover. Extreme recency bias with no Hugo Gernsback or Harpers covers. I'd certainly go for the iconic Rosy the Riveter or Saying Grace covers to represent Norman Rockwell not the one I don't think I've ever seen before though you could argue for one of the boys fishing or swimming covers that people actually recall. I do recall the baby on the cover of Life and it would have been one of the view on my list of influential covers.
Shoot this Dog and the Vogue cover do belong on the list. I meant few not view above.
No N.G. global ice age? Seems influential.
Before reading the rest of the comments, I'd just note that there are a lot of covers involving sex (especially deviant sex) and nudity. A LOT of them.
Also, as a postal worker who is often dragooned into working on the bundle sorter and sees a LOT of magazines, I'm a little surprised that none of the current crop of anti-Trump magazine covers made the cut. Most of the New Yorker magazine covers I've seen lately have had some kind of anti-Trump message. Same with The Economist.
Some on the pro-abortion left celebrate the procedure, but for some reason avoid any description of what actually happens. You would think if you want more of something you would tell people what it is.
Jeffries in a sombrero would make a nice cover.
Undistinguished Vogue, TV Guide, and Gourmet covers, no more memorable than any other week's or month's. Madonna grabbing her crotch wasn't a memorable rarity in magazine covers or in photos or in real life. Rockwell's long-ago cover is famous, but so much from another era. If his "Four Freedoms" series weren't magazine covers, I'd have gone with his "Desegregation" cover.
Brandy Chastain on Sports Illustrated? Meh. But it does bring us the latest chapter in the "David Remnick: Beta Male" saga:
Remnick: I think it’s great to have women in sports, too, on this list.
King: You just don’t know if this is the right one?
Remnick: The Sports Illustrated ones I’m going to think of are very male, to be honest with you.
King: That’s what I think is fun about this.
Remnick: Sure, and this was an iconic sports moment.
Most of the 25 are just covers pushing Liberal/left politics. Did they fufill the black person quota? Yes sir indeed. Gays? Check.
Plus a lot of vulgarity and wow aren't we naughty and anti-Christian. OTOH, some of the covers are good, and I liked Steinberg one too. At least it was clever.
Ali with arrows. Okay. Bert and Ernie and the Supremes. Childish. The devolution.
How do you leave off National Geographic, June 1985?
I think that one has been at the top of all the other bests according to people from Earth…
I have a copy of number 2, signed by Christopher Guest and P.J. O'Rourke. I need to get that framed.
Fetus is a technical term-of-art used by technicians and progressive liberal sects to socially distance themselves from subjects and victims, respectively.
How do you compile this list and leave off:
NatGeo with Afghan Girl
Life magazine with Earthrise from Apollo 8
Sports Illustrated with Miracle On Ice
A lot of those covers were long after magazines lost significance to me and a lot of others. I don't see how they can be considered on a list of most significant.
People in the prolife movement were well aware the Nilsson pictures were pictures of aborted children and there was discussion about using them. They were among the most powerful and effective tools we had for persuading people of the humanity of the unborn. But should we benefit from a crime? And keep silent about what the pictures really were? At the time I just thought that the crime had been committed in the past; it was done; and if using the pictures stopped the ongoing crimes, that was OK. And after awhile, I often sort of forgot where those pictures came from. They were very positive in an issue that was filled with blood and horror. I think now it would have been better to keep the issue of their origin alive but we would have all had to be better people than we were to look away from those beautiful pictures and talk about their dark origin.
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