Five Evil Faces

Looking at the TIME Magazine archive, there is much to learn about the changing of cover images over the years. A comparison between images, especially of political figures, can lend themselves to historical analyses of the time period in which the magazine was published and what the main article’s view is on the topic or conflict in question. For this blog post, I will analyze similarities between five images of five world leaders regarded as “negative” or “evil” world leaders at the time of publication of the TIME Magazine cover (and arguably before and after). The ideas I will highlight are the similarities: faces, shadowing, layering, and angle and discuss the implications for further research about one of the lleaders that strayed drastically from the other four. The five leaders are Gaddafi, Hussein, Khomeini, Jong, and Ahmadinejad.

Chronologically, the first image is one of the Ayatullah Khomeini during the Iran hostage crisis published in 1979. The image of Khomeini is a cartoon drawing with heavy shading, a large black turban, sinister yellowed eyes, and a three-quarter profile. What’s noticeable about the angle of Khomeini’s face is that although the face is directed away from the viewer, the eyes are looking directly at the viewer. This depiction is a created one, so this small decision was still a decision made by the artist to express some type of peripheral awareness and slyness on the part of Khomeini. An additional artistic choice was to place a smaller photograph (not cartoon drawing) of Jimmy Carter, who was president during the crisis to the side, on Khomeini’s cheek. Carter’s angle mimics that of Khomeini’s, but his eyes are directed away from the viewer, possibly looking at Khomeini as a sign of aggression or imminent confrontation. 

The second image is one of Saddam Hussein in 1997. The similarities between this image and the Khomeini image are the direct gaze of Hussein into the viewer, the placement of a competing figure blocking part of the face, and shadowing that discolors the face. The person in front of Hussein is Bill Clinton, president during the time when Hussein was kicking weapons inspectors out of Iraq, in a “showdown” of power struggle. Again, the image of the “evil” dictator is much larger than the US counterpart, and the US counterpart is not looking threateningly at the viewer, but at their nemesis.

The third image is of Kim Jong Il in 2003 at the beginnings of the 6 party talks about disarming North Korea’s nuclear program. This time, instead of having a US counterpart blocking the face, there are missiles (in some ways replacing an enemy with an ally) that block portions of his face and dominate the picture by being much larger in scale and number. The similar angle of the face is differentiated by a look away from the viewer. This variation may occur for many reasons, possibly because there was no direct “showdown” imminent as in the other situations with clear allies, but simply an overarching threat to many people, hence the multitude of weapons to symbolize the importance of the threat to people who may not think of him to be so.

The fourth image is the one that detracts most from the other similarities, the image of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006.  Although there is a bit a text calling for a war, there is no US counterpart image, such as of George W. Bush, blocking the face of Ahmadinejad.  Additionally, the top of Ahmadinejad’s head cuts off the word “TIME” which no other image does (except for the missiles in Kim Jong Il’s image) and he is an obvious focal point with no competing images, people, or words on the cover. Even the text in the corner is of a different shade of red than the background red that fades marginally into the background. The gaze of Ahmadinejad is towards the front, but up and over the viewer, giving the entire image a tone of reverence to the leader as opposed to direct conflict, although the cover calls for a description of what a war with this man would look like for America. The implications are as the text indicates, that war is not inevitable and that this man should not be seen as an enemy quite yet.

The final image is from 2011 and is an image of Gaddafi after he was removed from power in Libya.  Although the gaze is not present in this image due to the dissolving of Gaddafi’s face, the face is directed forward and it is implied that the gaze would be forward as well, indicating a disappearing enemy and risk to the viewer. Like the Ahmadinejad image, there is little competing with Gaddafi’s image, but in this circumstance, Gaddafi’s face is not given importance in the sense that it only half appears, implying that what was once an enemy is now no longer a threat, emphasized by the empty space surrounding the image.

Each of these images share different representations of leaders and dictators considered enemies of the US in a national American magazine over the span of 30 years. Additional research should be done concerning these archival images to include other leaders represented on Time Magazine covers, an analysis of even more similarities and differences (too extensive to list in an essay of this size), and the additional background (such as the articles within the magazine themselves) to determine the exact points and view and purpose of each of the images. Especially considering some of the stark differences between leaders, there may be some insight through further research into why some images are similar and others deviate strongly from the others.