Heather Dockray, "Who are these cartoon villains driving around with Rudy Giuliani?" As Dockray reports, the photo of Giuliani and Roger Ailes sporting cigars is from Twitter, Oct. 2016; she cites a number of tweets with the image, but it's not clear to me who took this photo and was its original Twitter source.
A Friday photo essay for you: what story do you hear these interlocking (to my way of seeing, that is) images telling us?
Ali Dukakis and Lucien Bruggeman, "Who are the mystery men photographed sharing cigars with Michael Cohen?" As this ABC report says, two of the men with Cohen are Rotem Rosen and Jerry Rotonda, of MRR Development (and, in Rotonda's case, Deutsche Bank).
Artwork by Owen Smith — see Jessica Bennett, "A Master's Degree in …. Masculinity?" and Caroline Crosson Gilpin and Natalie Proulx, "Boys to Men: Teaching and Learning About Masculinity in an Age of Change."
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, July 2015, "Holy Smoke!" at cookout for construction workers, St. Patrick's Cathedral, NYC.
Gordon Resnick, "Hillary: 'They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President."
Artwork by Joan Wong, photographed by Damon Winter, NY Times — see Jill Fillpovic, "What Donald Trump Thinks It Takes to Be a Man."
My own thoughts as I read these images one after the other: Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar. But sometimes it's a symbol of phallic twattery of the most repugnant description possible — the kind of phallic twattery that would break any law to keep a woman out of positions of high power.
P.S. Some of the images I've used here are very likely under copyright; I'm using them with the understanding that, by referencing their source, I may share them online. If this is an incorrect assumption and anyone has information to correct it, I'll be grateful for that information.
P.P.S. And, yes, I know the origin of the word "twattery." I used the word deliberately, linked it deliberately to the word "phallic" to underscore that the same man who demand phallic power over others construct women as nothing but their body parts and hormones.
