The photo of the White House Situation Room during the operation that killed Osama bin Laden stunned the world when it was released. The photo is powerful, and the response to it has been strong. An image this dramatic almost seems taken in a parallel world, one removed from our cubicles and trips to the dry cleaners.
Perhaps, then, it was only a matter of time before the photoshoppers went to work on the iconic image, using it as grist for the always-grinding humor mill of the Internet. Already, Keanu Reeves, the grumpy flower girl, a velociraptor, and the shocked cat have been edited into the photo. The Situation Room has been colonized. It is part of our world. Take a look for yourself:
The Situation Room Meme: The Shortest Route From Bin Laden to Lulz
On a more serious — and more interesting — note, the reaction to the photo from some photo editors.
Doesn’t matter that there is a woman Secretary of State. Men are still called by their last names and women by their first names. Drives me nuts.
I observed that name familiarity business throughout my career. The only mitigating factor I ever figured out was that women were less common in key roles (then), so their first names were less common — but there were a lot of Jacks and Mikes and Steves.
But I think now that misogyny is the best explanation.
Thanks for the links on the photo, Ken. About the third or fourth thing I noticed when I first saw the shot was the young woman in the back. I thought, “Who is that woman”. She seemed out of place with the rest of the photo. Anyway to find out, Ken?
Out of place because she isn’t an old white guy?
Or because she looks like she’s craning her neck to see – i.e. because she isn’t as tall, i.e. because she isn’t an old white guy.
The internets has this cool feature, Ken B. 🙂
Go to google.com and type in “woman in white house situation room photo” and you find out her name is Audrey Tomason and she works for the National Security Council. Said to be 34 (obviously the youngest person in the room by a decade or more) and a graduate of Tufts and the Kennedy School at Harvard. (No confirmation on age or education.)
C’mon Ken, You know I’m lucky if I can figure out which is the “on” button on a computer!
Jill, I find that she is ‘out of place’ because; She is young (has nothing to do with her gender); her position in the room; and her expression. It’s kind of like she just popped in and said, “Can anyone tell me where the bathroom is?”. Please, don’t attribute attitudes to me that I don’t have.
Your pointing out that she looks out of place because she is young does little to counteract my wondering if you thought she looked out of place because she wasn’t old and a man. I guess I was only half right.
And I just went back and looked at the picture again and I don’t get where you are seeing something weird in her expression, either. She looks like she’s somberly watching a TV screen to me…like everyone else in the room. Except she’s doing it with her head tilted because she is shorter than the people in front of her (possibly because she is a woman, not that that has anything at all to do with why she stands out to you as being different and not belonging).
I’m sorry. A young person standing in the back of a room filled with old people looks out of place to me. If you want to say it is because I have a problem with her being a woman, then so be it. The ‘where’s the bathroom’ comment was an attempt at humor. Whatever.