June 7, 2009
The Colbert/Newsweek Iraq Cover (or, Someone We Admire Yelling It At Us)
To appreciate this cover image, you need to consider it alongside Colbert’s admonition in signing off his explanation for editing the current Newsweek issue:
“Now go read my magazine. Although to get the full effect, you should have someone you admire yell it at you.”
Best known for wearing a persona, Stephen Colbert (from the neck up) turns himself into a grunt — and a national billboard — not just to illuminate, but to shout at us (through the language of parody, of course) about the men and women who have been forsaken for carrying out a forsaken war.
If the tendency is to summarize Colbert’s message, in big capital letters, as “Don’t forget Iraq,” the image (emphasizing that amazing “are you getting this?” eye, and that “we’re so miserable and disappointed” frown) is as much about the boots — or, specifically, the heads (with those vulnerable skulls) — on the ground.
The NYT captures the gist in previewing Colbert’s Iraq Show in its Television section (and don’t miss the lead photo of the article, with that suit that also conveys miles of identification):
The troops didn’t seem to care much about the meta-ness of Mr. Colbert’s visit, nor were they uneasy about his political shtick as they laughed at the gags about clearing Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and last year’s shoe-throwing incident involving the man who was then their commander in chief as much as at Mr. Colbert’s self-deprecating jokes about his lack of fortitude.
“I know his persona is all pro-American,” Lieutenant Klepman said, trying to explain the math of Stephen Colbert and “Stephen Colbert” and which one of them had come for what reason. Finally he gave up.
“I’m glad either one of them showed up,” he said.
(image credit: not available on-line)
6 Comments Leave a comment
Tena said:
Colbert is a genius.
We owe him so much – the press club dinner he emceed will go down in history I think as the thing that opened a lot of people’s eyes. It should.
thomas said:
The difficulty with the Iraq war is that it never was the people’s war. And now the clowns who pushed it on everybody and made it real are gone, and I think everybody is just fatigued thinking about all the problems it has created. Colbert serving up his satirical/earnest reminder reaffirms our collective burden as well as his status as a national treasure.
And I like the Rockwellesque expressive wholesomeness of the cover.
gmoke said:
For the people who are fighting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and here at home and around the world it is most certainly their war. Some of them are on their fourth or fifth deployments. If everybody in the USA does not know someone who has been in the war, they certainly know somebody who does. Whether we want it or not, it is our war and it’s about time we faced up to that fact. Colbert is doing his bit as Rob Riggle, a Marine Reserve officer, of The Daily Show did last year with his reporting from Iraq.
It seems to me that the leftish celebrities who have done USO tours to Iraq and Afghanistan have had a higher profile, in order to remind us all of our troops at war, than the rightish celebrities who have performed “in country.” But that is only my impression.
Colbert knows history. He may have been consciously repeating a Rockwell cover. He carried a golf club like Bob Hope when he appeared on his program tonight.
Stella said:
Stephen is “someone I admire” very much. His courage is inspiring, and I don’t mean just sacrificing his hair. He is a true artist.
Wayne Dickson said:
How did the phrase “on the ground” gain so much (unreflective) weight? I’m serious!
To start with, what are the main options? On the ground? Under the ground? In a vehicle? In a helicopter? Metaphor = frame = filtering perception and understanding.
Yes, being in the streets of Fallujah or on a lonely Afghan hill provides insight none of us sitting at home watching Bill O’Reilly rant can possibly claim. On the other hand, do we want large scale tactics, let alone strategy, being made from a lonely Afghan hill? Of course not.
The person(s) determining strategy and large-scale tactics should be far enough removed to see the whole chess board and reflect on the future ramifications of this or that move. But of course we’re talking the human equivalent of “Wizards’ Chess.” Each move will cost real suffering and even death to the troops. So the strategist should also be kept in touch with the full implications of life in the streets.
Boots on the ground? OK. But I also want boots in vehicles, in airplanes, and in places where decisions can be made on the basis of informed reflection, not reflex or emotion.
I’ll ignore the suggested image of a head on the ground! Criminy.
Michael Ginter said:
I LOVE Colbert with all my wittle heart