Interview Russia Gives ScarJo the Pop Art Treatment

You know what? I don’t like this. Interview Russia‘s February cover featuring Scarlett Johansson popped up on the TFS Forums early this morning and even though there are only a few comments in the thread at the moment, they’re all overwhelmingly positive. So let me tread carefully, as my opinion may be in this (rare, you know?) case, an unpopular one. (Also, sorry: have been reading so many old novels and now I fear I sound like the other other Boleyn girl — you know, the one that lives in Brooklyn and spazzes out over clementines and boys. Mmmhmm, I sound just like that.)

I am perhaps equally interested in Scarlett Johansson and Marilyn Monroe — and by that I mean, not very. Even though she’s appeared in three million movies, ScarJo can’t act her way out of a fuzzy fitted sweater. And that’s precisely why she’s famous, for wearing fuzzy fitted sweaters in expensive movies.

Marilyn Monroe is another story, talent-wise. However, she’s dead. Like, really really dead. This has been the case for a long time! We get it. Dead, not alive. Like, she cannot walk or breathe or eat or love or give interviews. Get it, Interview? Marilyn Monroe has nothing interesting to say, because she is dead! Scarlett Johansson has nothing interesting to say either, but that’s not because she’s dead but because she’s not very interesting.

Yet still. Here we are, staring at an image of ScarJo channelling Marilyn. Get it? Because they are both buxom Hollywood blondes — no, no one has ever before made a connection between the legendary Marilyn Monroe and a busty blonde working actress. Yes, Interview Russia is truly visionary.

Another stroke of genius: the pop art effect. GET IT? Because there is an original Andy Warhol print of the real Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn Diptych, 1962) and also Warhol was behind the original iteration of Interview magazine in the U.S. And so pop-artifying a picture of ScarJo embodying Marilyn Monroe for the Russian edition of Interview magazine makes so much sense it’s … okay, so fine, I have something nice to say: ScarJo looks really really good. Salable, sure. And if this cover does move magazines on the newsstand — which it probably will — then JobWellDoneInterviewRussiaISuck.