David has a great Rolling Stone article on the now famous image from 2004 at left. I stopped reading RS a long time ago, but his point on the Marlboro side of things from a marketing POV has deeper issues at work. (For tobacco giant Philip Morris, who will take any mention or branding opportunity they can find at this point, they should pay the guy.) But the other thing the Rolling Stone article (and subsequent comments there) highlights is the reality behind the perception, because damn if we don’t fall for great cover images like that every single time. Used to be you found out what the real story was decades later, like the recent Flags of Our Fathers. Or the leaders they taught us about in school weren’t as perfect as we thought, and only as an adult did we discover the real truth. You would’ve never guessed they could be just as human, just as troubled as you might be. And as it is with the Marlboro man now, it seems the time it takes to find out those real stories has gotten so much shorter.Thursday, May 1, 2008
Perception. Reality.
David has a great Rolling Stone article on the now famous image from 2004 at left. I stopped reading RS a long time ago, but his point on the Marlboro side of things from a marketing POV has deeper issues at work. (For tobacco giant Philip Morris, who will take any mention or branding opportunity they can find at this point, they should pay the guy.) But the other thing the Rolling Stone article (and subsequent comments there) highlights is the reality behind the perception, because damn if we don’t fall for great cover images like that every single time. Used to be you found out what the real story was decades later, like the recent Flags of Our Fathers. Or the leaders they taught us about in school weren’t as perfect as we thought, and only as an adult did we discover the real truth. You would’ve never guessed they could be just as human, just as troubled as you might be. And as it is with the Marlboro man now, it seems the time it takes to find out those real stories has gotten so much shorter.
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3 comments:
Rolling Stone has become, in effect, a publication of the Democratic National Committee. Forgiven because the stuff it does on music is so great, unique, and definitive.
I bypass the latest Gore glorification to read a piece on Bob Marley or Mick Jagger or Gwen Stefani. Very high income readership and a very low age. Great ad medium.
The politics, though, is a major drag.
I focused on his firsthand account of what his life has been like since, because that to me reveals the person behind the image. I ignore the politics used to sell it/write about it in this case.
Thanks for picking this up, Bill.
One thing I didn't include in my post was the photographer's impression of the image, which I think is important commentary.
Sinco was shocked, however, when media outlets presented the image as a symbol of triumph. Seventy-one American soldiers were killed in Fallujah, and more than 600 were wounded, making it one of the war's deadliest battles. "We were gonna die!" Sinco says. "It was all up in the air about who was kickin' whose ass. But people were looking for any shred of American heroism in the wake of Abu Ghraib. And a certain segment of society wanted to see something else in the photo — a weird, twisted thing about American masculinity."
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