Image worth defending

The show: Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial The moment: The appropriation

Though Pepsi pulled the ad almost immediately, to see it was to hate it. A “protest” march populated exclusively by young, beautiful people. They’re not actually protesting anything; it’s protest as a lifestyle choice. Still, it pulls Kendall Jenner from her photo shoot. She tugs off her blond wig, cracks open a Pepsi and hands it to a cop. He drinks. Deliriously, the crowd cheers.

The social media smackdown was immediate and fierce. The Day-ofthe-Multicultural-Zombie vibe was loathsome enough. But what rightly incensed people was that Jenner squaring off with the cop appropriated the now-iconic image, shot by Reuters photographer Jonathan Bachman, of Ieshia Evans, the nurse in the floaty dress who stood calmly as police in riot gear rushed to arrest her at a Black Lives Matter protest in Baton Rouge, La.

I’m heartened that the public called out a multinational on its stupidity. But I’m also moved by something else: the enduring power of the still photograph. Humankind is awash in imagery — moving billboards, YouTube videos, gifs, cable channels, streaming sites. People will shoot 1.2 trillion digital photos this year. That a single image can still arise from that stew and grab our hearts is almost miraculous.

A brilliant photograph does something we can’t do anywhere else in life: It stops time. It arrests the flow of moments and permits us to study one in depth, from all angles. It’s a gift. It stretches our souls. The vitriol against Pepsi for demeaning that proves how essential — and worth defending — it is. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.