ML1–b Critiquing The Silence Breakers, Person of the Year’s TIME magazine.
Abstract
The purpose of this essay is to critique the representation of the chosen reality conveyed in TIME’s Person of the Year (2017) magazine, entitled The Silence Breakers. The first part of this essay will dissect the magazine’s cover and the choice of persons in the photograph as well as the cover’s story. And the second part of this essay will study the reaction of the media then will highlight the reasons behind the aim of Time Inc.
The Choice of Faces Along With Their Story
The Silence Breakers, Person of the Year TIMES 2017’s story was written by Zacharek, S. , Dockterman E. and Edwards H.L. and the cover photo of the six women was taken by Billy & Hells. The chosen title of 2017’s Person of the Year TIME magazine is mainly about the celebrities of the media and entertainment industry, mostly from Hollywood, who came out in 2017 expressing their hurt and rage after years of being sexually harassed by highly-positioned men in many industries carrying from the music to the film industry and so on. in the cover photo taken by Billy & Hells, six women including Ashley Judd, Taylor Swift, Susan Fowler, Adama Iwu and Isabel Pascul, figure 1. However, the sixth woman’s face is not to be seen, except for her elbow, figure 3. Time’s magazine portrayed the six victims as being the face of the #MeToo movement. The problem begins with the choice of the persons on the cover. First of all, “person of the year” suddenly became “persons of the year”, therefore Time’s magazine has chosen to give an importance to 2017’s movement, making one question the true purpose for associating this grandiose gesture, of allowing six people on the cover of “person of the year”, creating the meaning of a revolutionary year. It makes people believe drastic changes have been made, and “bad guys” have been pulled out by their roots. And having it be six women, not men, represented as heroes of this revolution, will empower women to lead into their idol’s footsteps. Second of all, notice that all the women on the cover are from different origins and ethnicities. It is then obvious how Time’s magazine is trying to create one hero for women of any nationality, ethnicity and of different years of age. It is creating the chance for any women to feel a sense of belonging, relating to a celebrity, an idol, who became a hero of 2017, figure 2. It is a very simple tactic, yet a very effective one: touching the human’s natural desire for acceptance and empowerment to control the way the story is told. “TIME chose the team because they make emotional portraits that convey a quiet poetry coupled with a resounding dignity.”, says Pollack K. (2017). (Moreover, the title reinforces this idea by specifically using empowering words such as “breakers”, insinuating a feeling of rebel within one’s self; and the right way to do it would be to once again follow into the footsteps of celebrities controlled by the Jewish media and entertainment industry, in return making all followers nothing but a herd of sheep. This is very obviously shown in the choice of words the authors, who are as well three women writers, that are intended to display a sense of dramatic outrage “escape- devastating- warn others-sense of unrest- alone -collective -anger -duty -silenced- bomb-throwing — shame woman- she can’t escape- corner “. This technique based on pathos automatically makes the reader angry and on the same team as the celebrities, the victims. After that, several phrases were specifically chosen to make the reader relate to the celebrity, such as “Celebrities are like u and me-When movie stars don’t know where to go, what hope is there for the rest of us? a revolution of refusal”, civilian’s hope are based on celebrity’s hope, their problems become our problems apparently, throwing the reader again under this one category of sheep being controlled. The last thing to add to this is presentation of the six women. They are all dressed in black velour, giving an impression of professionalism and confidence maybe even a sense of hurt and loss of pride throughout passed years, with minimal jewelry and leaning towards the “natural makeup look” so that the women of each origin relating to their idol won’t feel the pressure of higher and lower classes, implementing a feeling of closeness to the celebrity making their words later on in the cover story more reliable and believable. None of the women are fully smiling yet are not showing the signs of anger and sadness, rather giving an air of confidence and regain of authority and rights over their bodies, enhancing the “victim became the hero” effect; and with a cold grey background wallpaper and table covering all hands, it draws the reader’s attention towards the stand and look each woman is embodying, noticing the white skinned women standing up and higher than the women of dark colored skin siting down and lower. According to Pollack K. (2017), Linz, part of the photo-composition and editing team said “We were interested in the balance between deep blacks, while at the same time as having soft colors. We saw in the paintings that soft colors get their strength in combinations with deep blacks…”.
The Reaction of the Media towards the Cover Photo
The media’s concern was not the topic chosen along with who was chosen as the magazine’s face, but that of the person who was cropped out of the image, leaving nothing but her right arm and elbow shown, figure 2, not even her hand. As it turns out in the interview of the cover story, that person is a 35-year-old female who didn’t want to show her face in fear of being labeled as “the victim of harassment” in the small town she comes from, hence her anonymous decision. Naturally, one should question the choice of the face representing the heroes of the #MeToo movement, but the media repressed those who did question it in order to keep the media and entertainment industries at the top. In reality, it is Tarana Burke, a social activist, who should be on the face of The Person of the Year 2017 magazine, since she is the one created the concept along with the hashtag #MeToo over a decade ago, figure 3. A hero is defined by a person’s ability to take the first step of courage to defeat a problem that a minority of people whose voices are not being heard. In 1997, Tarana Burke was that person long before Ashley Judd decided to take the first step in voicing her passed sexual harassment and become the first celebrity to speak the truth. The reason why Ashley Judd, or any of the other women, should not be on the cover of that magazine representing the #MeToo movement is simply because voicing out your experience doesn’t make you a hero. Taking action does. Creating a campaign for a social cause, in this case, which was being repressed for years due to the wealthy and highly-positioned people in the social-political spheres silenced them. Judd and the other women should appear no more important than all the hundreds of women who voiced their sexual harassment experiences shortly inside the magazine. Some people have expressed their opinion on this matter on social platforms, such as Ziyad H. (2017) has done so on the website “Afropunk”, claiming that it is purely a matter of racism “A Black woman creates something, and white people credit themselves for it…”. People seem to be taking this very lightly and are not fully understanding that it is not a matter of white people taking credit for black people’s work, it is a matter of who took Tarana Burke’s credit and position on the cover of the magazine. It is the media and entertainment industry. Time Inc. was founded by Henry Luce and Britton Haden in 1923 in New York City. Once the magazine was distributed worldwide, it achieved a reputation of covering heavy news concerning celebrities or politicians, entertainment and pop-culture. Once Luce, co-founder of Time Inc., passed away in 1929, all shares went to Haden. In 1989 Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications owned by Time Warner and Warner Bros. According to the Journal of History (2010), News Source Inc., 96% of electronic news and entertainment medias such as Time’s magazine is owned and controlled by Jewish companies and families. As mentioned earlier, Time’s magazine is portraying an image of heroes controlled by these Jewish companies and industries to convey the image they want the mass to follow so it would fit their agendas. They don’t want people knowing and having opinions on matters that they are not in control of. To add to that, the specific agenda being conveyed is feminism in all forms. This movement started off as purely an act of reeling to gain women’s rights, protection and pride back and ended up becoming a tool to implant feminism in women’s minds all over the world, creating more and more social-political chaos. The proof of that was incredibly fast, a woman’s march took place on the same day of Trump’s inauguration, figure 4, thinking they were fighting for women’s rights as their idols being photographed on the cover of Time’s Person of the Year (2017) cover; and Trump was accused right, left and center of sexual harassments. This social movement which was created for a good cause was stolen by the Jewish industries to create political chaos at the end of the day.
To wrap this up, The Silence Breakers are merely the celebrities who decided to speak up concerning they past sexual harassment by people of the music and film industries. Time’s magazine did a very good job at trying to convince the mass that they are heroes and that women should follow their steps, and they did so various forms: through the choice of photographic tactics, elements and positioning, through the use of a civilian who was not shown, making the media spears the Time Inc.’s issue even more, also through the studied wording in the magazine’s cover story. However, after dissecting the techniques used by Time Inc., the reality of the picture was clear and the lack of credit for Tarana Burke alongside the immediate effects of the Jewish agenda through the woman’s march and so on were raised to the surface.
References
Chan, M. (2017). The Story Behind the Woman You Don’t See on TIME’s Person of the Year Cover. Billy & Hells for TIME.
Felsenthal, E. (2017). The Choice.
Garcia, S. E. (2017). The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags. The New York Times.
Murray M.V. (2017). We Won’t Let “TIME” Erase Tarana Burke From the Movement She Started. bet.com
Rothman, L. (2017). What It Means When TIME’s ‘Person of the Year’ Is a Group. Billy & Hells for TIME.
Pollack K. (2017). Behind the Powerful Portraits of ‘Silence Breakers’ in TIME’s Person of the Year Issue. time.com.
Zacharek, S., Dockterman E. and Edwards H.L. (2017). The Silence Breakers. Person of the Year, TIME magazine.
Ziyad H. (2017). TARANA BURKE WAS OMITTED FROM THE TIME MAGAZINE COVER. afropunk.com
figure 1
Person of the Year 2017, Time’s magazine 2017.
figure2
The woman with no identity, victim of sexual harassment.
Figure 3
Tarana Burke, a social activist, founder of the #MeToo movement, alongside victims of sexual harassment.
figure 4
Trump’s inauguration day, the Women’s March taking place, 2017.
