As horrified we all were by 911, there was a tiny bit of comfort that the monsters behind it were not like us. They were mad men, radical religious extremists far away on the other side of the world.
I agree with most of the arguments from those who say that putting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine is in poor taste. I wonder however if it is the cover that bothers people so much or the fact that Dzhokhar is not ugly. We seem to like our monsters ugly, makes it easier to accept, easier to spot them, easier to mentally distance them from ourselves. Seems to me, that although they never made the cover of RS, the Sandy Hook and Batman theatre shooters were on the covers of almost every newspaper and splashed across the screen at nausea after their hideous crimes. Maybe the fact they both had sort of a crazed look made it easier to swallow.
Now I want to be clear, I am not comparing the behaviour of acting out celebrities and terrorists. But sadly, in America, bad behaviour is what gets you attention. Whether it be simply acting stupid, acting out addictions publically, getting drunk, wrecking your car or in more extreme cases murder. OJ anyone? My feelings toward this cover are about the same as my feelings about Oprah just making a two million dollar deal with Lindsay Lohan. Crimes of course are different, but the profiting from pain theory is about the same. Some of the most talented entertainers in the world, singers Groban and Streisand, actors Streep, DiNero and Day Lewis rarely make the covers of magazines. Oprah's biggest interviews last year were not Politian's or award winning actors, but Whitney Houston's daughter and The Kardashians. Matthew Perry was not on last week's People Magazine because of his incredible post Friends television career?
The outrage rings a bit hypocritical, as any attention, including the cover is a form of promotion for the magazine. Do all the protestors blogging, tweeting and publically posting their outrage about this cover understand all they are doing is bringing more attention, and more dollars, to the magazine? I don't know about you but I have not bought a copy of RS in years, and had no intention of starting with this one... but after all the attention....
You don't reward bad behaviour with attention, you ignore it. Acting out little kids don't get parties, they get time-outs. Why is it that we don't seem to understand this as adults? As much as I loath the faux celebrity status that so many people like Paris Hilton, The Gosslin and Kardashian's have been able to obtain, the real responsibility for their success sits directly with everyone who financially supports them by watching and buying the magazines with them on the cover. If people don't want criminals on the cover of Rolling Stone, don't buy the magazine and don't provide it free publicity by promoting it with online outrage.