At what point do we say something is too far? My opinion is that using photography as a medium to gain fame, be it good or bad, isn’t a new thing. But as time goes on, seemingly, these things are lacking in taste more and more.
Kathy Griffin recently faced a large backlash for a photoshoot that showed her holding Donald Trump's decapitated head. The old saying "there’s no such thing as bad publicity" seems to be a potential reason for doing something like this. The photographer, Tyler Shields, likely knew it’d go viral, which would spread his name everywhere; even if it’s in bad taste, people are still hearing his name. Personally, I’d stay away from something that goes quite this far with it. In the past, depicting something such as murdering a president even in “acting” was considered a threat and would garner a visit from the FBI, potentially with criminal charges. Now, with the Internet being what it is, people seem to get more brazen.
If someone didn’t like the current president and made a “clown nose” on an image in poking fun, ok sure, whatever. But heinous violence? Especially for a man with children, this is, in my opinion, super tacky. How would you like to have to explain that to your children when they asked what the deal was?
And for Kathy Griffin, is doing what she did, then apologizing somehow going to make it go away? Would she have apologized on her own based on her own morality if the Internet hadn’t flamed her for it? If so, why do it in the first place? If knowing doing something like that causes a firestorm, then apologizing (knowing it doesn't do any good) seems like that was the plan all along, a tacky publicity stunt to try to not become irrelevant in her own industry. Regardless of one’s political opinion, I don’t feel things should ever go this far.
What do you think? Is it worth it to participate in something like this for the publicity, or should morality come into play? And should her apology mean something?
Image source: Tyler Shields (uncensored image is displayed here)
Sum up, I think she is wrong and the message is sickening. Whether she broke the law is not my experty, but I personally lean towards freedom of speech. However, The one thing we can all agree is... This is not funny, what a terrible comedian with a stupid message!
But images of lynching a Black President were ok, come on now.
Not at all. I think the difference is that it was done by someone who has a large following and is a public figure. This naturally made it a more viral story (not to mention how graphically real the head was made to look). From a social impact, there's a big difference between some random nobodies burning dummies and a public figure doing what they did. Both are wrong in my opinion and both should be similarly condemned, but both will have different backlashes based on the popularity of who is involved.
Unfortunate
Precursor to my comment: I am a social- and fiscal conservative. I very reluctantly voted for Trump in the general election, although I think he's a foolish man (lesser of two terrible options in my opinion) -
I think this should be protected free speech so long as it really isn't a threat to the actual subject represented in the image. Showing that we still have some level of decency in our country, what should happen did happen: people from all sides have condemned it (which is what I would've done had it been Obama's head-in-effigy even though I regularly disagreed with his worldview and policies), thus she is prosecuted and convicted in the public square. As a result, there is no resulting precedent that starts the slide down a sippers slope that leads to any disagreement with a POTUS being outlawed.
Pixellating the image is an insult to adult intelligence, especially in a photography mag where the photo is supposed to be under discussion. As The Beheaded One would say, "Sad."