Shepard Fairey and OWS: the Protester as the person of the year – Part 3

Times Magazine declared the Protester as the person/people of the year. That article and the issue cover, by our dear Shepard Fairey, created heaps of hype in the blogoshpere. From criticisms to stalking the protester whose face graces the magazine,  it has certainly been an eventful ride. But, the image and the Times article actually offers a decent portrait of the OWS movement.

The Protester
Shepard Fairey

Upon first seeing the image, I was interested in its lack of specificity. The original image, shot by Ted Soqui of LA Weekly, captures Sarah Mason, a LA protester who has been arrested for her efforts. The collage images, however, represent various protests from around the world, including Egypt and Russia. Fairey and Time Magazine, which provided the collage images for Fairey to use, are saying that OWS isn’t just about the US.  It is a global movement.

Moreover, the article explains that the various global protests are a network. Connected, however loosely. Greece was inspired by los Indignados of Spain. The Wall Street starters learned from other protests. It all started in the Arab World. For OWS, the original email from Adbusters called for a Tahir Square for the US. (Abouzeid) In an interview with the Huffington Post, Fairey says of the collage background:

With the Time cover I wanted to capture the spirit of defiance that any protester must possess in the face of arrest or worse. To convey that the cover was about worldwide protests I created a collage of protests from around the globe that is used tonally in the background. I’m a supporter of Occupy, but I thought it was important to recognize that protest was a global phenomenon this year. I think the collage helps to put across that cumulative effect.

But there are problems with the image as well. Again (I seem to talk about this in all my posts), Richin’s idea of Hyperphotography becomes a problem. The seemingly unending curiosity of human beings has turned the anonymous protester featured on the cover into Sarah Mason, about whom you may learn way too much information via LA Weekly’s blog. Part of me doesn’t want to link the page out of respect for the woman’s privacy, but part of me realizes that is a citation faux-pax.

Sarah Mason Portrait
Ted Soqui

Is this LA protester the face of all protesters worldwide? Maybe, maybe not. No, her credit card debt fueled protesting isn’t the reason that Los Indignados became frustrated, but she is an average woman seeking her frustrations. Fairey says in a Times tumblr post “A lot of [the protesters] are just regular folks who feel dissatisfied.” That certainly describes Mason.

So, what does “The Protester” say about OWS?
The image itself and the article that it illustrates indicate that it is a global protest of regular people, a network, a movement.
The story of Sarah Mason shows that it is a protest composed mostly of regular people who are dissatisfied. In other words, Fairey finally seems to have gotten his OWS propaganda-art close to right.

-Evelyn

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/12/shepard_fairey_time_person_of_the_year_occupy_la_protester.php

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/12/sarah_mason_time_protester_photos_occupy_la.php

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/14/shepard-fairey-designs-ti_n_1149680.html

http://timemagazine.tumblr.com/post/14214199000/shepard-fairey-talks-about-creating-times-person-of

A Quick Look at the Beginning

Social Media was able to transform the Occupy Wall Street Movement from 2000 to 10,000 in a matter of a few weeks. Below is a summary and a link to the story behind the movement. How did they grow so fast?

Summary: 

In just three months, Occupy Wall Street created an idea and a hashtag which became a worldwide movement. “On July 13 Adbusters magazine sent out a call to its 90,000-strong list proclaiming a Twitter hashtag (#OccupyWallStreet) and a date, September 17” (Schneider.) It partnered with an image of a ballerina atop a chagrining bull quickly spread amongst the young, tech-savvy generation. The meme spread and by early August activists began meeting in New York to plan. Adbusters decided that just bringing 20,000 people together to march wouldn’t be enough, instead they needed to plant seeds to grow across the nation. “The initial gathering point was the Charging Bull at Bowling Green, a few blocks south of Wall Street” (Schneider.) The 2,000 people that had showed up were redirected to Zuccotti Park. There were never more than a few hundred occupiers present, but they began to call themselves the “99 percent” and were constantly in conflict with police officers. Every time there was an incident of protesters being hurt or dragged, it was caught on tape and videos were going viral online. “Each time there was an incident with the police, media attention increased; the police, it sometimes seemed, were trying to do the occupation a favor. Young women pepper-sprayed without provocation, teenagers slammed onto the pavement, about 700 arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge—each episode brought more cameras, more sympathy, more people and more momentum. After two weeks, and two Saturdays of mass arrests, the kinds of groups that previously didn’t want to be caught dead near the dirty radicals on Liberty Plaza started to join in, to see themselves as occupiers too: labor unions, student clubs, an ex-governor of New York, parents and grandparents. Surprise celebrity visits started becoming the norm. Just over two weeks in, more than 10,000 people marched down Broadway to Liberty Plaza” (Schneider.)

For the full story follow this link: From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Everyhwere

Savannah R. Edwards