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3:37 AM · Jun 24, 2019Twitter Web Client

Imelda Marcos' direct involvement in, refusal to pay restitution for, and continued revisionism towards a regime that brutalized this country, butchered its people, and burgled its coffers and future is far more than "A bunch of things about her" and @stail_ph should know that.

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"But it's just a magazine cover!" No. The images we see, create, and suppress shape the politics of the world. The 👊 emoji used to lack political meaning; now it's weaponized to reflect and amplify the Du30 regime. "Yellow" went from neutral color to symbol of morality to slur.

"But it's just a magazine cover!" No. Remember the last time a Marcos was represented glamorously on the cover of a supposedly innocent, apolitical lifestyle magazine? And where that Marcos has now ended up? Images have real, political power, and oppressors know this.

The styling is the same. The color scheme is the same. Even the goddamn poses are similar. The Marcoses are excellent at branding, and if more magazines keep enabling their ongoing propaganda campaign, this terrifyingly coherent set of images will just keep getting more powerful.

And the other strength of these images is how they work to characterize their detractors (i.e. we who will inevitably be called "angry netizens"). The Marcoses are beautiful; we are ugly. They are poised; we are angry. They have class; we are classless. (Insert leftist joke.)

I don't know how to end threads and I have to teach a class soon (on the politics of aesthetics, of all things) so: @stail_ph is enabling oppression. Our media should know better. Images have power; with power comes responsibility. The Marcoses are evil poopheads. #neverforget