The Village Voice Queer Issue Cover

oh before I forget and before I slink back into silence for a while, I do wish to point out that I absolutely respect John Dixon, the art director at The Village Voice and though my comment pertains exclusively to the end-run around integrity that the editors chose to make, I think the cover, as Bob Newman pointed out, is in fact, memorable, graphic, strongly designed and yes, admittedly (for this FLAT AB enthusiast) fun to look at. --a

Given how the guys have responded, it seems kind of irrelevant now, but I'm with Andrea: they should have told the guys. And the Outside-Armstrong debacle was not cool on behalf of Outside. It's the kind of stuff that makes it harder and harder to do anything creative with cover subjects because it calls into question the credibility of magazine editors (visual and otherwise).

For the Voice, they got lucky, because apparently, the guys are down with the joke (all the more reason to be straight-forward with your subjects--pun only a little intended). Gotta hand it to them, I think they're being super classy about the whole thing, and really dig that they're willing to admit that they don't care who's cover they grace, they just like being fame whores...Bravo for the honesty!

The whole Outside thing stinks a bit, though what bothers me more about that cover is that it's just lame to begin with. There's no good reason one couldn't just write snappy cover lines to do what they chose to do in Photoshop. Making it look like he's wearing a sassy shirt didn't do anything for credibility of the profile reporting, and it's just cheap. I'm not totally sure I think it was mean, but definitely fell well within the Lance criticism of "lame bulls**t".

I stand fully corrected on the minus IQ points dig then. They're obviously highly evolved narcissists, not dumb ones by any stretch. They know they're being used for myriad purposes and they're fine with it cuz they know their time with it is going to be brief. And honestly, upon reflection, I think that's great they're so cool with the attention they receive from all their fans. They should be. I was assuming they were duped.

Related note: doesn't the guy on the right's expression resemble a live version of a Mark Ulriksen drawing?

The Voice has a collection of quotes from the Jersey Shore guys on their response to the cover: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/06/jersey_shore_re.php.

The Situation says: "As for the Village Voice SitUAtioN - it's not for me to judge somebody's sexual preference and in my opinion the SitUaTIoN looks good as hell and that is my main concern. It just so happens that The SitUaTiON has mass appeal and happily reaches a very broad audience - This is not my first cover and definitely not my last - SitUATIon NATION"

And this report on Vinny, another cover guy: "I don't give a s--t, man," Vinny just told me about being on the newspaper's annual gay-themed issue. "I've done so many photoshoots and they're pretty much all the same.

"I go in there, do my thing, take my shirt off, get my hair and my make-up done and they dress me," he continued. "I take the pictures and wherever they end up, they end up."

I know MTV and it's in their judgment to make sure they don't end up anywhere too crazy, but the Village Voice?" Vinny said. "That's awesome."

"As long as I look good," Vinny said, "that's all I care about." Way back in December, The Situation told me that he doesn't mind his same-sex loving fans. "I'll be honest, I like the attention," he said, "I'm flattered if there are guys with different preferences that have crushes on me." Besides, being a "Queer" coverboy does have its perks. Vinny bragged, "I got a free pink hoodie out of it!"

There seems to be this mini trend towards reckless lowbrow editorializing shock-draw that both this magazine's issue here, and Outside recently (http://popwatch.ew.com/2010... has engaged in. I'm not sure how it sits with me, personally as a reader of both pubs. It instantly registered as a cheap shot in both cases. At Outside, they have a sitting with Lance Armstrong, then only later Photoshop in a statement on his T-shirt that he neither endorses nor would've signed off on, and now here, intentionally provoking controversy using 3 decidedly hetero Jersey 15-minute famers (implication, too stupid and unaware to be in on the joke ha ha) to front a special gay-themed issue seems...mean. In both cases. And maybe i'm too close to the front lines to be amused, I don't know. Perhaps the risk the VV editors decided was right to take was they wanted to shamelessly draw the widest audience: the lunkhead hetero-zeigtgeist-following reader AND high-brow gay reader who may delight in the bait and switch, but again... mean. C'mon, did anyone read the recent interview with Mike "the situation" Sorrentino in NY Mag's recent SUMMER ISSUE? (http://nymag.com/guides/sum...

Guy comes across like he's actually minus IQ points. Play fair!