Dictator chic, Bashar al-Assad is just a regular guy—when he’s not slaughtering his political opponents.
Photo by James Nachtwey
It would be a grave mistake to ignore fashion, relegating the business of glamour to a frivolous pursuit of the rich and idle. Fashion matters for it is one of the most visible barometers of society’s values.
Seraphic Secret believes that fashion, like movies, is a moral landscape.
Front and center in Vogue Daily is a chic and glamorous woman, highly educated, involved with charity, family, and her husband, a soft-spoken head of state.
Is Joan Juliet Buck writing a profile of Michelle Obama or Carla Bruni in the pages of Vogue?
I (sorta) wish.
Buck is singing the praises of Asma-al Assad, the first lady of Syria, wife of Bashar al-Assad, perhaps the most ruthless, murderous totalitarian in the Middle East.
But according to Joan Juliet Buck’s tortured prose, the Syrian first couple are a beacon of freedom and multi-culturalism.
Buck thinks that Syria’s connections to Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah are, um “murky.”
Well, only if you’re willfully ignorant, or as Lenin phrased it, “a useful idiot.”
Does Joan Juliet Buck, a red diaper baby educated in the finest private schools, mention Syria’s assassination of Rafic Hariri?
No, she does not.
Does Joan Juliet Buck remind her readers that Syria, in alliance with Iran, occupies Lebanon, using the most brutal security forces?
Does Joan Juliet Buck mention Syria’s alliance with North Korea and their attempts to go nuclear in order to wipe Israel off the face of the earth?
Of course not. That’s just not attractive.
Joan Juliet Buck does notice that, gee willikers, the Jewish ghetto is empty. Syria is Judenrein. But no worries, the Jewish houses are all locked up because Syrians are so decent they wouldn’t dream of touching private property.
It’s puzzling that such an enlightened monarch and his forward-thinking spouse reign over a country where Syrian Jews—an ancient and proud community—were cruelly forced into exile after decades of the most ruthless government repression that included frequent public hangings of—what a shock—Zionist spies.
The entire story reads like a Mel Brooks screenplay, a sequel to The Producers:
Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her “the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.” She is the first lady of Syria.
Read the entire story. But stay close to a bathroom so you can heave.
Okay, let’s look at a clip from the original Mel Brooks comedy The Producers:
Mel Brooks is funny. He uses irony to parody the depths of evil.
Look, designer John Galliano was fired by Dior for proclaiming his love of Hitler and his hatred for Jews.
Good for Dior.
But Joan Juliet Buck, Anna Wintour and Vogue are lost in a haze of moral nothingness, unaware or unconcerned that their glamorization of this tyrant and his wife will only legitimize Assad’s regime of terror, torture and murder.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
13 Comments
Thank you very much, Robert – that means a lot coming from you. I agree w/you about Kristin Scott-Thomas – that’s probably why she lives in Paris, I suppose. During the shoot I did with her she was complaining that the film festival organizers insisted on limo-ing her from the hotel to the cinema – a distance of about a block; she thought it excessive, and wanted to walk. That pretty much says it all. Have a pleasant weekend and Gut Shabbes.
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Rick:
I failed to remember that Nachtwey is a very great war photographer. Thanks for reminding me.
BTW, your photos are pretty great too.
I love your portrait of Kristin Scott Thomas. It absolutely captures her essense.
Kristin starred in a movie I wrote a few short years before she got famous. She was spectacular.
As soon as I saw the first rushes I knew that sooner or later she was going to be a big star.
But tempermentally, she’s really not suited for Hollywood fame and fortune.
Thanks for stopping by.
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dahozho:
The leftist slant of the fashion press is quite appalling. Would Vogue print a glowing profile of the beautiful and fashionable Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann or Niki Haley?
Never.
But Arab Muslim monsters who rule through death squads and secret police are perfectly acceptable.
Further proof that liberals are fascists in better outfits.
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I notice they got James Nachtwey, veteran of many a war zone and a man who should be familiar with the real face of evil, to do the family photos. I’m hoping he’s saved some shots back that’ll give some sense of the poisonous irony of life in the dictator’s household, but he’s signed a Conde Nast contract, so there’s no reason they’ll ever see the light of day as long as Vogue needs to make a happy face for Assad. Another sign of moral judgment paid off and bartered away…
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This has been the reason I gave up my subscription to W. Well, not *exactly* but the same kind of issues of lack of morality/why is the spread in a *fashion* magazine.
Circa 2006, W ran 1) a Madonna spread that was simply porn; and then 2) ran a spread of A. Jolie and Brad Pitt playing house together, simply an endorsement of adultery.
Easy decision. Subscription cancelled. I don’t care what the composition is, how ‘arty’ the photos may have been judged by the W staff. They were NOT fashion and were off-topic and inappropriate for a women’s wear magazine. I knew the head editor at the time, we’d worked together during the summers in college. I couldn’t even send her anything because it really appeared to me that she had lost any sort of ethical moorings, not to mention failing to keep her staff on-topic.
This Vogue spread is more of the same. I can’t decide if ‘worse’ applies, but its still just morally bankrupt and attempting to put a shiny gloss on EVIL.
Meh, bleah.
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David:
Great link. Thanks so much.
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Johnny:
I fully expect Joan Juliet Buck to sing the praises of North Korean fashion: the ill fitting Mao suit made from a special NK polyester that reportedly feels like sandpaper. That millions are eating bark and bugs in N. Korean gulags is, er, just a “murky” rumor.
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Not only did Vogue not back down from the story, they would not rule out a story about any leaders of any countries, even North Korea. Amoral would be too nice a term for them.
Dick Shawn was great.
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Also see The World’s Top 10 Gaddafi Toads:
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/03/03/the-mead-list-worlds-top-ten-gaddafi-toads/
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David:
Agreed. And that’s why I posted, and why I pay close attention to the world of high fashion.
This story in Vogue is more dangerous to the cause of freedom than anything written by Andrew Sullivan and his radical leftist, Jew-hating buddies.
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The most effective and dangerous kind of “progressive” propaganda is not in the form of explicit political discourse, but this kind of thing, where the political message is embedded in an article/story/movie which is ostensibly “about” something else.
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Marni:
Totally normal totalitarian family, sort of like Adolph and Eva.
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‘Read the entire story, but stay close to the bathroom so you can heave.’
Great line!
Looking at the warm and fuzzy family pic, one would mistakenly think what a lovely, normal family
this is.
Thanks for enlightening us.
Marni (in Yerushalayim)
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