Even for Gawker this is edgy
This is what The Aristocrats has brought us:The 1,001 Handjobs of Time Magazine’s Time 100
All of a sudden Bono and George Clooney come on stage. Bono drops trou and Clooney gets down on all fours. Bono is in a Nazi officer uniform and Clooney pretends to be Jewish. Then they puke in each other’s mouths, bow and exit stage left. Up next is a swarthy threesome. It’s Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and Mark Zandi. Nouriel is in a KKK hood, Krugman hasâ€â€offstage, I guessâ€â€smeared himself in shit, and Zandi, an economist, has very carefully made all his thigh hair ingrown, somehow. Anyway, so Krugman gets down on all fours, Roubini circles around his back while Krugman takes Zandi in his mouth. Then the hairy shit contagion shutters like a rickety train until they collapse in a puddle of santorum.
Seriously, what was Time magazine thinking? They do these Top 100 issues several times a year. They are almost always arbitrary and appalling. (But a few years ago I did like them choosing Person of the Year to be “You”–pretty clever).
I understand how easy it is to do these issues (no schedule, send famous people emails and await their replies), but this one was bad even for them.
Other Time cliches:
Dinosaurs/Vampires/Ghosts/Angels: Do they really exist?
Cover stories about religious questions (with 10 people in the byline, and juicy quotes from people who made the Top 100 list earlier).
It’s sad, because Time has generally good reporters and critics.
I’ve really been tempted to subscribe to a respectable weekly print mag (New Yorker, Newsweek, Time). They all have their pluses and minuses. This is Time’s big minus.