Umm, Newsweek? Really?
As you can see the cover story is about great restaurants around the world. Naturally you would illustrate that… well, this way.
I’m not naive about the apparent desire among the surviving newsweeklies to drum up interest by putting something on the cover that will make people stop and take a look– Newsweek calling Obama the “first gay president,” or Time‘s recent cover featuring a breast feeding three-year-old.
Over the years we’ve noticed other odd covers; Time seems to have a thing for representing breast cancer with, well, breasts:
Newsweek/Daily Beast editor Tina Brown recently told the New York Times that the cover represents a “unique seduction point for readers.” Something like that.
Well, at least it was asparagus, and not french fries.
Otherwise, Newsweek would have been both sleazy
And greasy.
Replacing the luscious mouth of a beautiful female with a masculine face -would most likely kill the sensual (sexual) effect on a prospective Newsweek reader. I would not classify it as a food pornography. Maybe ” food erotica’ for the lustful ?
The cover reminds me of risque Anime.
If I’d shot it for them, I would have drizzled a little mozarella cheese on her cheeks.
If you’re gonna go for food eroticism, go all the way!
I love the cover. As a food lover, its great! Why does anything that shows a littile creativity always create controversy? Its a staged picture folks. Thats all.
Actually, for a serious current affairs magazine the cover is NOT whats scandalous.
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Why does anything that shows a little creativity always create controversy? Because it’s suppose to do that.
Two stalks makes it okay. But someone should tell her that eating in the prone position is bad for the digestion.
This is just another step in Newsweek’s decline into fatuous irrelevance. It ceased being about “news” a long time ago.
Was the asparagus air-brushed like the female face (check her nostrils and chin)?
It all seems so salon-perfect. (Did I mention the fingernails?)
I bet I won’t run into this woman at the farmer’s market tomorrow at 6:30 a.m.
Oh, and the numbers kill me.
101 best places to eat/53 of the finest chefs.
This use of “stats” gives me the creeps.
We’re all talking about Newsweek. Isn’t the art director’s mission to have us take a look at Newsweek amidst the clutter of the supermarket checkout stand and to do so in a tasteful and creative way (ie, no cheap tricks like sucking babies at a young mother’s breast)? If we all spend a few minutes discussing the cover via blog posts, so much the better. Well done, Newsweek. If you have a moment, take a look at their July 16th cover concerning internet addiction. Excellent artwork to go with an excellent article within. Tina Brown is hitting her stride and is differentiating Newsweek from Time. Who else could have gotten Robert DeNiro to write a first person piece about his father?
Rock on, Tina!
Blatant. Not sensual. When I think of a sensual food bit, I harken back to Tom Jones and that wonderful dining scene. Anyone else remember? Had they presented a clip or a series from that I would shout Bravo! However, this is simply a cheap attention getter to sell a magazine that is no longer about news but just a step above People and the rest of the star studded press.
I am so glad I have not read Time or Newsweek for a long time. Apparently the American people do not need to be informed, they need to be provided yet another outlet for softcore porn.
Maybe next week they’ll have a male model sucking on mangoes…NewsweAk might be a better name.
No wonder we have such a high rate of teen pregnancy. Even vegetables make us too uptight to accept sex as something natural and something that should be honestly and intelligently discussed with our children. If sex didn’t sell, advertisers and media wouldn’t use it. We buy it, do it, & watch movies & tv shows with a lot of it… but asparagus makes us uncomfortable.
i used to read time and newsweek when i was younger and didn’t have much understanding. now i know better!
just trivia, but the newsweek cover isn’t an original photo..it was first run in a issue of harper’s bizarre in 06…and to make it a little worse…a food magazine used the same image on it’s cover in 08
http://eater.com/archives/2012/08/08/heres-where-newsweek-got-their-food-porn-cover-photo.php
Maybe the next semi erotic cover will have some person about to eat a raw clam.
Once upon a time, what grabbed readers was riveting headlines, not soft-core pornography. If their story headlines aren’t good enough to grab our attention, then maybe they should just not put out an issue that week? The people who buy that issue solely for the cover are going to be ripped off because the articles will not be about what they are insinuating with the picture at all.
It’s not creative; it’s demeaning and base, and probably took some sleazy art director all of 20 seconds to come up with. “What will we put on the cover?” “Implied sex, like always.”
Remember the hot girl breastfeeding her little boy standing on a stool?Yeah that was just peachy.Yuck!!!My question is what internal journalistic poll has shown these editors that this stuff sells print?You almost would be led to believe that soft core porn is infecting our minds.That it is a subliminally effective way of moving damn near anything.Maybe not.Im sure we are all Ok.Print medium still has our respect.Just like TV.Speaking of that ,I gotta go….Toddlers and tiaras is coming on.
OK, Here’s the deal… this image HAPPENS to show a healthy food; Asparagus – however, when we talk ad nausea about the obesity issue, here is the crux of the problem: subliminal media programming. That’s right – going through the ‘back door’ of your mind to get you to follow whatever path the food industry wants you to follow. Admittedly, a ‘subliminal’ picture such as this woman about to ‘take’ the ‘asparagus’ stalk into her mouth is not a perfect example, because as I say, in this case, it is a healthy food, however, it is the METHOD that I want to bring to everyone’s attention.
Bottom line? This method is used to ‘force feed’ us whatever food (or product or service) to consumers. And usually, it is not healthy food – it is junk food. Don’t believe Subliminal Seduction works? That’s just naive. It works and is often aimed at children who are not yet ‘branded’ to particular products. Junk food manufactures and marketers know it works – and they spend WAY more money than we could ever muster to combat it.
Why am I upset about this and posting it? a) I don’t like to be goofed on. b) I’m tired about arguing about why America is so overweight. Yes, it is mostly about poor choices and lack of exercise… and it also about what is done to the mailable minds of children. What are we not outraged about it?
I’ll try to put this to good use imeeidatmly.