Title - “Analysis on TIME magazine – how to win the warm on global warming” (Slide 1)
Speech outline Before we get into the topic image, first of all we have to know something about the America History in WWII. At here, I want to introduce one famous and controversial image in History of American. (Slide 2) This image is a well known image “Rising the Flag on Iwo Jima”. It originated from the American Photographer, called Joe Rosenthal, who took a picture in battle of Island Iwo Jima during WWII and then won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945. (Slide 3) In fact, the winning in Iwo Jima Island was a turning point leaded to the ultimate success of American in World War II. At that particular moment, U.S. government used this picture as the “icon” to announce to the citizen as well as the world the “Victory”. Therefore, this image served as the icon of “Victory”, “Glory”, “Patriotism” and “Pride” in the mind of American. However, there had many scandals and rumors about the photo of “Rising Flag”. As mentioned, one of the famous pieces was filmed and directed by Clint Eastwood named “Flags of Our Father” (2006). In fact, U.S. government was revealed and accused to lie and over-exaggerated the value and precious of the photo because of helping the government raising “Fund” to the war and economic. It was all about a “Marketing Show” by deliberately imposing the inside-photo soldiers. Therefore, this picture apparently served as the “Victory” and “Glory” in American’s consciousness, however, it served deeply in American collective unconsciousness as “Dishonest” and “Ruthlessness”, “Utilitarianism” and “Alienation” (Debord, 2000) to American soldiers of their government. Then we can take a look of how TIME magazine author and designer manipulated this picture to ironize the strategy of U.S. government on global warming issue. (Slide 4) In contrast to give United States government any credit on the current battlefield of “Global warming”, authors edited the photo and placed many sarcasms in order to ironize how conscienceless and dishonest of U.S. government are lied on one critical statement: “Another lie to the World”. U.S. Government is playing us again on global warming!” But how this statement could be? We can take a look of the cues provided by the cover designer one by one.
First of all, from the historical perspective, U.S. government created the illusion from this picture that “The war is ended”. But in fact, it didn’t. This picture was taken at the 4th of the total 35 days of the entire battle (Wheeler, 2007). Thousands of American soldiers were dead after the picture was taking. Thus, this picture haven’t represented the “End of War”, in contrary, it represented the “Beginning of the war”. Therefore, the cover designer of TIME magazine used this picture with edits to criticize the U.S. government as “Our government lied to us again! Another losing war and marketing drama in the global warming issue were led by U.S. government”. As the cover title mentioned, “How to win the war on global warming”, this is one of the Global issue. But author deliberately used the picture represented the United States which implicated that it was only a matter to United States, it should take the full responsibility on this issue. By this pairing of U.S. image and global issue, we can see the paradox reflected by the TIME magazine and cover designer. One hand author criticized the hypocrisy of U.S. It is well known that U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas every year, but ironically, U.S. is also the one who pushes countries to cut off their industrial plants and size in order to reduce the greenhouse release. This sounds ridiculous and similar to the 1945 “Raising Flag Scandal” as U.S. government raising the flag of “justice” and “glory” in one hand, it also raising the flag of “paradox” and “Utilitarianism”. Since United States is an early-developed country, it depends less on heavy industry and production which may produce greenhouse gases. However, by accusing other developing countries, such as India and China, the “excuse” of environmental-friendly can slow down their development and civilization, as well as threats to American. On the other hand, the title also implicated the “American-Chauvinism” belief of TIME and author. Supposedly, according to the Kyoto accords, the responsibility of reducing the greenhouse gases were shared by 174 nations. But cover designer paired the “Global issue” with the picture “United States”. This showed a deep-rooted belief inside TIMES and author who deliberately imposing to worldwide as “No matter the goodness or evilness, American is the only one alters the world”. The next question we should ask to the cover is “Why soldiers?” Why using army to represent the “Environmental issue”? The answer author and cover designer were trying to tell us the core strategy of conflict
resolution of American: “War”. In fact, they ironized the U.S. government likes solving the conflict and problem in a “heavy-handed” and “imperialism” way, such as raising war. American favors the “Individualism” as well as individual achievement. However, this kind of achievement depends greatly on “competition”, “I-win-you-lose situation”. War, another form of competition, is a mean to get this achievement as well as proving their belief of “individualism” (Spence, 1985; Harkness, 2000; Nelson, 2002). Therefore, war and army are symbol to U.S. government, author and cover designer attempted to tell us that competitive became a signature to American and fostered by their value of individualism. This led their government never negotiates or compromises on any issue, even though the mutual problem “Global Warming”. What American and their government needed is a war of “I-Win-You-Lose”. When we focus on the picture, the flag raised by soldiers in the original photo was replaced by a tree. More precisely, is a tree of species named “Norway-Spruce”. It has another well-known name called “Christmas Tree” which commonly and exclusively found in United States and Europe. Authors and cover designer deliberately chose the “Norway-Spruce” as the American’s tree to replace American’s flag to show two possible facts. One is “Nationalism”. Americans or European would spend all the costs on saving their home, their environment. However, on the other hand, it also pointed out the “Protectionism” and “Utilitarianism” of United States and his alliances of Europe. It seemingly said that, “We will only save “Norway-Spruce”, the tree of U.S. and Europe. Fellow small Asian or Indian countries, your tree or environment is none of my business.” Another point cover designer led us to review was the “size” of the tree they raised. The green part of leave was so small and less than others, it was criticizing government paid very little effort on this issue, and their policy or protocols of reducing greenhouse and protecting environment were executed so lately. While the green part of the tree as well as the green part of the world is getting less and less, ironically, governments are still in process of raising or negotiating. It is also noticeable to the color of cover. Cover designer only colorized the tree and the “TIME” logo but grayish the soldiers and others represented United States. Guy Debord (2000), French Marxist theorist and film producer, first mentioned the “Alienation to audience” in his book Society of the Spectacle. Citizen or audience learnt the “world” through the lens or symbols created by media. Therefore, the act of grayish the picture
created by government or media was to lead us against their illusion or excuse, such as inadequate scientific proof or economical concerns but focused on the only one “colorized fact” here – Tree and Environment-saving. Moreover, the author replaced the traditional red color of “TIME” logo with green meant there have nothing important than environmental-saving, even though the corporate and self. Lastly, all the analysis mentioned above pointed out one fact, author thought that “United States and some western countries had no interest in environment-saving as well as solving the global warming”. In fact, we are not surprise why author insisted that when we dig in to the background of the author. Bryant Walsh, TIME magazine reporter who was lived in Hong Kong and Tokyo before coming to New York. Due to his massive understanding and experience with Asian countries, his perspective may strongly be influenced and slant to Asia. Especially, we can tell this from his line, “While even developing China has boosted its mileage standards to 35 m.p.g., the U.S. remains the land of the Hummer” (TIMES, 2008). At this “Cutoff greenhouse gas” issue, the most intense and controversial conflict was happened between Asia and Western countries. Therefore, it is believed that this article might intend to criticize how western countries deal with the global warming issue from the Asian perspective.
References Bradley, J., & Powers, R. (2006). Flags of Our Fathers. Bantam. Debord, G. (2000). Society of the Spectacle. Black and Red. Harkness, S., Super, C. M., & van Tijen, N. (2000). Individualism and the "Western Mind" Reconsidered: American and Dutch Parents' Ethnotheories of the Child. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, (87), 23-39. Nelson, M., & Shavitt, S. (2002). Horizontal and vertical individualism and achievement values: a multimethod examination of Denmark and the United States. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(5), 439-458. Spence, J. T. (1985). Achievement American style: The rewards and costs of individualism. American Psychologist, 40(12), 1285-1295. Time magazine. (28, April 2008). How to win the war on global warming. NY: Time direct ventures.
Wheeler, R. (2007). The Bloody Battle for Suribachi: The Amazing Story of Iwo Jima that Inspired Flags of Our Fathers. Skyhorse Publishing.
Original Copy
Revised cover by Time Magazine