In case there was any doubt, Time Magazine has confirmed that this year, it's Putin:
Is it me, or does this photo not look much like Putin
at all? Ah, but wait - it looks very much like Don Putin...
[image source]
All the news on this latest bit of international fame/infamy for VVP. Brace yourselves for a wave of commentary and opinion pieces with this selection as a "hook," all of which will no doubt note that the honor - once known as "Man of the Year" - has in years past been bestowed on people like Stalin (twice!) and Hitler...
[Update 12/20] Since it's been discussed in the comments, I wanted to mention that commenters on the Russian LJ written by drugoi have (in the midst of making a fair amount of funny cracks - e.g., that the photo was taken by Medvedev while on his knees, or by Putin's dog - have identified the photographer as this guy. The post is currently in the Yandex list of top blog posts (as drugoi's posts often are), and I have no doubt the discussion there will be extensive and mostly interesting. Maybe Global Voices will do a summary translation...
Some of the funnier short comments so far:
The only thing missing for a full picture of how this newspaper [sic] portrays him are tattoos on his fingers [characteristic for Russian organized crime figures]
Is that really him? It looks like a lot like that guy who Berezovsky put in charge of his party a long time ago.
In that pose he looks like Snoop Dogg or someone [Actually, I had exactly the same thought and even did a Google search for pictures of Snoop looking hard in a suit - was hoping to do a "separated at birth" juxtaposition, but I couldn't find anything with a quick search]
His [thumb]nails are of different lengths!
It's OK, we portray Bush an idiot all the time, too.
- Ha! It's not just us. The Americans do, too.
I wonder, can you sue someone for photographing you with a wide-angle lens?
And someone has already posted a distorted version of the Time cover (no doubt to make the Time editors look like even bigger meanies for making VVP look so bad), as well as a link to an earlier cartoon referring to "Putin's Clan" as opposed to "Putin's Plan" and using Sopranos-type imagery.
RIA Novosti created a special "collage" rather than use Time's actual cover image.
at all? Ah, but wait - it looks very much like Don Putin...
[image source]
A Tsar Is BornIn the same package of articles is a piece called Choosing Order Before Freedom.
Adi Ignatius
Time Magazine
Tuesday, Dec. 04, 2007No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin's. The Russian President's pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved by the suppression of ordinary needs, like blinking. The affect is now seamless, which makes talking to the Russian President not just exhausting but often chilling. It's a gaze that says, I'm in charge.
All the news on this latest bit of international fame/infamy for VVP. Brace yourselves for a wave of commentary and opinion pieces with this selection as a "hook," all of which will no doubt note that the honor - once known as "Man of the Year" - has in years past been bestowed on people like Stalin (twice!) and Hitler...
[Update 12/20] Since it's been discussed in the comments, I wanted to mention that commenters on the Russian LJ written by drugoi have (in the midst of making a fair amount of funny cracks - e.g., that the photo was taken by Medvedev while on his knees, or by Putin's dog - have identified the photographer as this guy. The post is currently in the Yandex list of top blog posts (as drugoi's posts often are), and I have no doubt the discussion there will be extensive and mostly interesting. Maybe Global Voices will do a summary translation...
Some of the funnier short comments so far:
The only thing missing for a full picture of how this newspaper [sic] portrays him are tattoos on his fingers [characteristic for Russian organized crime figures]
Is that really him? It looks like a lot like that guy who Berezovsky put in charge of his party a long time ago.
In that pose he looks like Snoop Dogg or someone [Actually, I had exactly the same thought and even did a Google search for pictures of Snoop looking hard in a suit - was hoping to do a "separated at birth" juxtaposition, but I couldn't find anything with a quick search]
His [thumb]nails are of different lengths!
It's OK, we portray Bush an idiot all the time, too.
- Ha! It's not just us. The Americans do, too.
I wonder, can you sue someone for photographing you with a wide-angle lens?
And someone has already posted a distorted version of the Time cover (no doubt to make the Time editors look like even bigger meanies for making VVP look so bad), as well as a link to an earlier cartoon referring to "Putin's Clan" as opposed to "Putin's Plan" and using Sopranos-type imagery.
RIA Novosti created a special "collage" rather than use Time's actual cover image.
4 comments:
Interesting to imagine Putin posing for this photo. Makes me wonder if it is just a look-alike in an Armani suit.
I had the same thought, but I don't think Time would use a look-alike. Most likely, it was a formal photo-shoot and the photog took dozens (or hundreds) of pictures, including this one, and then (as you've noted western media outlets doing in the past), the editors selected the most sinister-looking Putin.
I actually think he usually does a fine job of looking sinister (when he's not busy looking borderline goofy doing his "ganksta lean"/"pimp limp" swagger), and that it may be an intentional part of his image, although this particular photo would appear to be editorially selected for maximum sinister-ness.
On the other hand, I think Time used a tightly cropped head shot (and not this "throne" angle) for the cover, which is the more important photo. And I have to give the "throne" shot its due, since it is a great encapsulation of the "tsar"/"gangster" vibe that surrounds Putin these days (again, a vibe that is not entirely invented by the media but is in part self-created), so I'm sure the photog was delighted to capture it.
I remember some youtube or rutube clip (likely on some blog, of course) that showed a comic comparison of Yeltsin vs. Putin. Yeltsin of course was shown as a stumbling drunk, the the Putin portrayal showed him as something of a vain fashion horse, walking, posing, and turning like a model, vogue-ing for the camera.
That image of him has stuck with me, as sort of a vain guy and usually trying to appear serious.
Do you think he plays on a sinister look? I tend to think what we see as sinister or overly serious, Russians see as "dignified". At least that is what Katja reminds me of in public places in Russia ... stand straight, no smiling, eyes ahead, look serious and dignified. (For some reason she always feels a need to remind me of this on the Metro.)
I guess it is possible he would pose for this, but what public figure does a photo session without getting final say-so on what images are used and how?
Maybe you're right and he wants to look the part of a heavy. Small man complex.
There's actually going to be a talk in DC in Jan. titled "Presentation of Self in Russian Culture: The Case of Vladimir Putin." Should be interesting.
I don't think he tries to look sinister per se, but that in trying to look serious or even "groznyi" (which I think he does do at times) he can come across that way - and I think you're right that we Americans generally expect people - even public figures to take themselves less seriously, so it plays all the more heavily to us.
As for the photo session, I'm pretty sure that in a photo session with a journalistic publication (as opposed to a fashion magazine) all shots are fair game (just like all quotes in an "on-the-record" interview are fair game to any journo worth his salt and need not be "approved" by the interviewee), although it would seem that Time's Person of the Year is sort of a cross between serious journalism and fashion-mag puffery. So it is conceivable to me that they would have let VVP's people approve at least the cover shot. One could hypothesize ad nauseam about this - "what if Putin's people approved this photo because it makes Putin look bad, so that now they can say the Western media tries to make Putin look bad..." - and 'round and 'round we go.
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