You could probably dramatize and add menace to anything by making it darker and more shadowed– an entry or hallway could be made to look ominous, or a landscape more threatening– not necessarily a person. People tend to attribute threatening qualities to something that is mysterious or partly hidden by shadow. The OJ photo really illustrates how our prejudice towards something visually “dark” as adding a sense of menace and intrigue plays into racial prejudice and stereoptyping.

TIME probably would (and did?) argue that they would have darkened a mugshot of any suspected murderer for dramatic effect, regardless of race. But the fact is, race is an explosive subject, and mixing it with the controversial issue of photo doctoring was bound to provoke outrage.

And as for the tennis beefcake on the cover of Men’s Fitness, Andy Roddick was quoted as saying of his digitally pumped-up arms, “Yeah, I wish I had those guns!”