BagNews Archives About Staff BagNews is a progressive site dedicated to visual politics and the analysis of news images.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Twitter

@bagnewsnotes »
Advertisement



September 6, 2006

Blair’s Fut ure

By Michael Shaw

Blair-Future

Blair-Thacher-2  Blair-Door-2

This is what’s known as a newswire death knell.

In the past twenty-four hours, we’ve had a a 10 Downing Street reminder of how abruptly the long-running Margaret Thatcher show was cancelled.  We’ve had a blunt and auspicious close-up of the 10 Downing Street entrance.  (Don’t let the door hit you on the way out?)

And we’ve been delivered the wonderfully cheeky shot above.  There’s Tony looking completely saucy, the angle showing some aging under the chin.  (The stress starting to take its toll there, Tony?)  Behind him, the future is only looking up.  Yet, the P.M. is looking backward, as if the future could only be swinging around to crucify him.  And, if you notice the crease in the background, the “future” is split, appearing to stop at Blair’s forehead.

Sometimes, there’s no holding back on the analogical hints and coy visual suggestions — especially when your subject is history.



(image 1: John Giles/AFP.  September 5, 2006.  London.  Via YahooNews.  image 2: Sean Dempsey/AFP.  1990.  London.  Via YahooNews.  image 3: Dylan Martinez/Reuters.  September 6, 2006.  London  Via YahooNews.)

« Prev

Next »

  • ummabdulla

    Bliar’s looking young and energetic; the white shirt and purple background show off his nice tan from the holiday in the Caribbean or wherever he was, and he’s had his hair freshly colored to cover the grey.
    (Someone should photoshop him to have makeup and a costume like the Joker in Batman, though – because his face just screams out for it. And that purple is the color of the Joker’s suit, isn’t it?)
    What is he thinking? It’s obvious that just about everyone wants him to go; isn’t it humiliating for him to keep hanging on, even when he’s dragging the party down? He thinks he’s a President – not only that, but a President with no term limitations. (And the U.S. has a President who thinks he’s a King.)

  • http://www.sumption.org Dan Sumption

    They used some very unusual shots of Blair on the BBC news last night – very low-key B&W, dark, gloomy, made him look very old or dead. They looked portrait-like, almost formal, but I’m guessing (given the fact that he looked so terrible in them) they’re digitally altered versions of shots like the one above. Whatever, they seemed slightly strange to be used in a news context, but very effective.

  • http://www.keirneuringer.blogspot.com Keir

    Yeah, so what? So he’s been in office too long . . . he runs a country that still has a monarchy for chrissakes. And I have never, ever seen a picture of Tony Blair that has failed to give me the creeps (not that, er, Maggie Thatcher has any different effect on me).

  • http://areyoudressed.blogspot.com momly

    I still think Tony Blair looks like Tim Curry.

  • zaha

    He looks high – Momly, he’s heading for the Tim Curry look.

  • margaret

    All his assistants resigned to protest his leadership. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing, if Bush’s Cabinet members did the same, in protest? Then, I would say we had a real government that responded to the will of the people, and was sensitive to the results of actions they have taken.

  • mugatea

    He looks more like Vegetable Korma.

  • readytoblowagasket

    He’ll make an attractive game show host.

  • jtfromBC

    Updating the BAGs Link > “The prime minister intended to use a long planned visit to a London school with Education Secretary Alan Johnson to set out his intentions, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported”.
    I am just returned from a school in London‚s St John‚s Wood, where Mr Blair has made his much-awaited utterance about his future. A frustrating experience, standing about on the kerbside listening to chants of “Murderer! Murderer!” from the hundred or so protesters gathered outside. Poor Blair. His minders had managed to come up with a school, a third of those pupils hail from Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq.
    The school itself was effectively purged of press. A cameraman, a photographer and the local newspaper man, but no-one who might ask a dangerous question or two.
    Mr Blair arrived, went inside and departed. And I only found out what he said when I returned to the office and turned on the television. That‚s reporting for you.”.
    Posted by Vegetable Man on September 7, 2006, 6:53 pm http://www.medialens.org/board/

  • http://www.woodka.com donna

    He can’t resign until his Carlyle Group job offer comes through….

  • uncle vester

    That is the goofiest picture of TB I’ve seen yet. His skin looks shiny/greasy, the background purple is ugly and that dark a tan on a Scottish whiteboy (and I’m a Scottish whiteboy who’s spent too much time working in the sun) just screams melanoma and hasn’t been in since the ’80’s.

Recent Comments

Popular Topics

More topics »

Popular Entries


Archives

Recent Entries