Critics Blast Newsweek’s ‘Tone Deaf’ Penis Balloon-Popping Trump Cover – By Lee Moran (huffingtonpost.com) / Nov 10 2017
Newsweek is facing criticism over its latest cover.
For the upcoming Nov. 17 issue, the weekly news magazine used an image of a feminine hand jabbing a needle into a penis-shaped balloon to promote its lead article about women fighting against systemic sexual harassment.
″#MeToo is taking down powerful men in all fields. Is Donald Trump next?” the publication asks in the cover blurb.
The cover story, titled “How Donald Trump rules America’s Garden of Dicks and sparked the #MeToo movement,” drew little comment but Newsweek’s cover image has been described as “tone deaf,” “terrible” and “wrong.”
Some critics used Twitter to ask the magazine why it seemed to equate female empowerment with the harming of men. Another accused Newsweek of turning the “exposure of sexual assault into satire.”
Newsweek has not yet commented on the claims of insensitivity, a sampling of which appear below:
Jarvis @arvistj
Replying to @Newsweek- So men’s dicks are being deflated because they’re being called out on sexually harassing and assaulting women? Oh, so sad for men’s dicks that they can’t be part of sexual abuse. That cover is fucking dumb. 10:03 AM – Nov 9, 2017
Josselyn Berry @joss_berry
Replying to @Newsweek- This is a terrible cover. Depicting women who say they were sexually assaulted as just wanting to hurt dude’s dicks is insensitive 10:01 AM – Nov 9, 2017
Lee Larson @sportsdr44
You can find it yourself if you wish. I won’t retweet it. The latest @Newsweek cover is incredibly tone deaf. 10:04 PM – Nov 9, 2017
PB/TK – Remember when pushing the envelope of creativity was fearless, breathtaking, awe-inspiring and yet now is repulsive, inappropriate, and wrong. Yet I have to wonder how any of it gets past the PR department.
