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Michele Bachmann's Newsweek Cover: "Sexist" Or "Cyborg"?
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Aug 9, 2011
Modified Aug 9, 2011
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Aug 9, 2011
Modified Aug 9, 2011
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We weren't joking when we repeated the fact that Michele Bachmann is a futuristic automaton bent on enslaving mankind in the Lipton mines. But Newsweek seems to have taken a different tact by calling her "The Queen of Rage," with a delightfully demonic photo of her using her ocular gamma rays to give Obama a weird rash from thousands of miles away. Naturally, people are upset by the magazine's cover that is still significantly less offensive than that Princess Di Photoshop job they pulled in June.
Michelle Malkin, whose batshit word-vomit sometimes makes Bachmann look like Fred Rogers, said Newsweek resorted to "recycling bottom-of-the-barrel moonbat photo cliches about conservative female public figures and their enraged 'crazy eyes.'" Big Journalism thought it was "unflattering," and even NOW told the Daily Caller that it's "sexist…to cast her in that expression."
The Daily Beast/Newsweek editor Tina Brown had a lame defense for the photo, saying it showed how Bachmann's "intensity is galvanizing voters in Iowa right now," but the proof may lie in the session's outtakes. By our count, 5 of the 7 photos from the session show Bachmann using the same maniacal expression. And her "crazy eyes" have been well-documented. Face it, Republicans: you're on the precipice of creating a Terminator scenario in 2012.
Bachmann's photographer in the shoot, Chris Buck, has taken intriguing photos of politicians before, and it doesn't appear that this particular picture was a hit job or anomaly (here's George McGovern in a Speedo). And Newsweek has featured women on 15 covers since Tina Brown took over, which may be sexist, but perhaps not in the same way the detractors mean. Bachmann herself is playing cool to defy the headline: she claims she hasn't seen it, and that the actual message of her campaign is "hope." Ah, that's BachmannBot's state-of-the-art mimicry matrix in action.
Tagged
2012
barack obama
Democrats
election
gop
michele bachmann
republicans
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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