The Devil’s Advocate: The Zelenskyy photoshoot is as cruel as it is comical

Jane Austen wrote in Emma, “Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.” Looking at Vogue’s recently released special cover focusing on the Russia-Ukraine war, I can safely say it can also produce lunacy. The kind that can and probably should get humans disbarred from qualifying for basic skills like ‘reading the room’ or ‘reading the burning country that you are trying to steer clear of annihilation’. This last week has been about covers, controversies and photo optics (the other being Ranveer Singh’s bare bottom) of varying relevance and while both have courted controversy the most ludicrous is the one in which everyone has their clothes on. Ukraine, being run by a former comedian, has now unfortunately become the punchline of a rather cruel, self-regarding photo-op that belongs in a teenager’s imagination or a film written by Tom Cruise. Just what in the hell were the Zelenskyys thinking? The Russia-Ukraine war has somewhat been circumscribed with the churlishness of some of the tactics. There have been memes, Twitter wars and cultural jibes exchanged between warring countries that have also functioned like rival teams competing in a comedy sketch. To everyone’s surprise, the famed dictator has looked peeved and broody, while the comedian has walked around with the bullish confidence of a man fronting a summer blockbuster. It’s all macho, all the time. Zelenskyy has already earned plaudits for his bravado, for his gift of the gab and virtually dropping into elite events like Cannes with the probable hope of eking out a biopic of him. But, hey, this is war, death, destruction and global economic collapse that could carry the world to a past it has worked hard to grow out of. And yet someone at Vogue thought it was a good idea to get the leading man and lady of the country being torn down by a moody Russian, pose in their own personal post-wedding-in-the-midst-of-war shoot that looks as horribly untamed and insensitive as it feels entitled. [caption id=“attachment_10968941” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Image courtesy: vogue.com[/caption] One of the images from the cover that have rankled me the most is the Ukrainian First Lady holding on to the collar of her coat, surrounded by female soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It’s influencer pedagogy at play, with an outsider occupying a frame and looking the oddest one out. Empathy is one thing, but this is a perverse devouring of the moment that really belongs to the women standing next to the First Lady. It’s frankly awkward, to contemplate the devastation that has been caused in Ukraine, alongside this self-appraising photoshoot that looks like a sophomore intervention trying to turn an actual life and death situation. Yes, there is something like soft power, but when bombs are literally falling from the sky you don’t rush to the closet to piece together your greatest couplet yet. You scream and sound the alarms so others can save themselves too. [caption id=“attachment_10968961” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Image courtesy: vogue.com[/caption] I’m sure there will be advocates of this senile form of vainglory who believe everything, even war, is an art-form that must be explored for its vain little pleasures. But maybe do that in fiction, after everything’s over? In fact, I’m not sure whom to blame for this. The magazine that wants a war-torn country’s leaders to wear their fancy pants for a beguiling little experiment in vanity rhetoric. The leaders themselves who could have chosen to dial down the dramatism that makes them look like two teenage love hounds who’ve burned a country after selling it to a bamboozled victim ala Bunty aur Babli. Or maybe it’s us, the people who now consume conflict through the vapid, often defiling language of humour, memes and visual grandstanding. To which effect, I can imagine readers of Vogue saying “Their country might be at war but look at her skin tone and on his fiery college jock eyes”. The Russia-Ukraine war, however it ends, will have implications for generations. A previously peaceful land has now been seeded with conflict and it shall, as most conflicts do, reap in terms of life and livelihoods. Not to mention the global implications of a war that threatens to destabilise the global economy and start a cascading effect of financial woes that might require either divine intervention or another Vogue cover to undo the damage exacted. I can’t imagine how people staring at the doomsday clock can then have the nerve or the audacity to pose for photo-ops that would also look good on the cover of imaginary music albums – The Dark Side of the Fool? Trivialisation can be your ally when you’re on the defensive, but the use of media as a glittery dining candle in the middle of war, is as they would say in fashion, bespoke stupidity. Hard to believe then that between Ukranian diplomats, the Zelenskyys themselves and a lifestyle magazine’s team keen to raid a country and glamourise its conquest for survival, nobody really thought that all of this was maybe odd, poorly timed, or at least awkwardly conceived. I’m not sure what the Ukranian public, or those most directly affected by this war think, but they can look forward to sitting through the European winter, huddling around burning copies of an infamous photoshoot that might, in retrospect, be evidence of Zelinsky’s capacity for dark comedy. The author writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.