What the Hell is Going On with This NYT Viggo Mortensen Cover?
Videogum's Gabe Delahaye asks some very reasonable questions about the choices made by the editors of T: The New York Times Style Magazine with regards to their most recent cover, featuring "grungy antihero" Viggo Mortensen:
The dude is 53 years old. 53 YEARS OLD! So we're not even just talking about the age-inappropriate outfit, which makes him look like he's not sure if he's going to make it to Jacob's bar mitzvah this weekend because the new skate park opened two towns over and if he can convince his mom to drive him and Brad then the two of them are going to go shred. It's also the FACE HE IS MAKING. He looks like he's asking to borrow your lip balm as a pretext to fingerbang you under the bleachers. Hey, Viggo Mortensen, Jordan Catalano called and said he wants 1993 back. And finally, what is up with that sub-headline? 'Hollywood's grungy anti-hero'? How so? He's handsome, and successful, and has certainly played some challenging roles, but was also just a straight up HERO in Lord of the Rings, and what does the word 'grungy' even mean in the year 2011?
I don't know! Perhaps the article itself holds some answers. It begins:
"High up in an apartment block in Toronto, Viggo Mortensen was padding around barefoot, cleaning up the kitchen after lunch and speaking, in his soft-voiced way, about his longing for immortality. "I'm not afraid of death," he said, wiping down a counter with a damp cloth, "but I resent it."
I give up.