FASHION Today The Cult of the First Lady: The Media’s Festishistic Gaze BY EMILY KIRKPATRICK Photo courtesy of The White House. The First Lady of the United States has always been a figurehead for America, representative of the perfect wife and mother. The title of First Lady comes with no paycheck, no official responsibilities, and a life lived under almost constant media scrutiny. According to Carl Sferrazza Anthony’s REVOLT <strong>Magazine</strong> Number 4, 2013 book The Role of the First Lady, “She is, first and foremost, the hostess of the White House.” Although most would, in public, vehemently disagree with that statement, the problem is that it’s still an ideological truth privately held by a majority of the population and every media outlet across America. In the past few decades, a First Lady’s position and responsibilities have evolved well beyond the realm of traditional wifely duties and fashion trendsetting. It’s now common for First Ladies to be vocal about their political opinions and pioneers on public 14
initiatives aimed at fixing everyday issues faced by American citizens, ranging from the environment, to women’s rights, to illegal drugs. The American media, however, has failed to keep up with this shift in emphasis. Publications continue to focus on the superficial, banal and demeaning over the political and charitable when discussing our First Lady. The result of this discourse is a constantly backfiring attempt to limit the feminine domain and return to an era of repression, and a sexual stereotype, that no longer exists. For this reason, Michelle Obama represents a perfect storm of political and social media commentary. As a woman in the public eye, she inspires a shallow, thoughtless dialog that has surrounded the feminine sphere for far too long in this country. Due to the color of her skin, she has unwittingly unleashed this undercurrent of intense racism, hatred, and at it’s core, fear, that has been masquerading through the media under the guise of political discourse and criticism. Michelle Obama is by no means the first First Lady to receive such intense public scrutiny, especially on a physical and sartorial level. Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis continues to be remembered to this day for her contributions to fashion and style, if nothing else. But when Barack Obama was first inaugurated into office, the Michelle media frenzy hit a fever pitch which has sustained itself for the past five years and will surely remain intact well beyond the completion of his second term in office. In addition to the relatively standard trivialization of the First Lady’s appearance and activities, the comments against Michelle Obama, specifically, seem to have taken on a distinctly different tone and bitterness than they have with First Ladies of the past, such as Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton. Of course, other First Ladies have been vilified by the media and had their public lives intensely, and inappropriately, put on display. But never before has a First Lady’s allegiance to her country, the size and shape of her body, or her day-to-day decisions been so intensely analyzed and attacked as Mrs. Obama’s. The problems with the type of language the media uses when discussing any woman, but in particular Michelle, are myriad. This type of insensitive, objectifying discussion undermines the authority and respect deserving of a woman in her public and political position, as well as setting back the agenda of equality, and inviting some remarkably racist, and completely out-of-line commentary. When people in political office or on national television speak about a woman of power, such as Michelle Obama, in this type of condescending, accusatory language, it gives the rest of America permission to follow suit. The claims against Michelle Obama range from attempting to appropriate the plight of black, single motherhood into her persona, to anti-patriotism, elitist spending habits and allegiances with the Black Power Movement. As Barack Obama’s term has progressed, the articles about Michelle Obama have tended to increasingly feature style over substance. In an article for The Economist in 2009, Adrian Wooldridge wrote that most new stories about the first lady, “were almost entirely devoted to fluff.” Every fashion magazine and website in America has run at least one piece on how to attain the First Lady’s amazing wardrobe; that is if they don’t already have an entire section dedicated exclusively to her daily outfit choices. Proving Wooldrige’s point, in 2009, CNN ran a segment on “How to get Michelle Obama’s toned arms.” But, as the piece points out, not everyone is a fan of the First Lady’s muscular biceps. The article quotes Boston Herald columnist Lauren Beckham Falcone who wrote to Obama, saying, “It's February. Going sleeveless in subzero temperature is just showing off. All due respect." Clearly there was no respect intended here. Would these same journalists be ballsy enough to walk up to any shoulder-bearing stranger on the street and tell them to stop showing off and cover up? What is it about Michelle Obama’s husband’s choice in profession that makes her arms and body a permissible subject of critique on a national level? And don’t think the average American woman’s personal struggle with the First Lady’s bare arms has diminished with time! Joyce Purnick, in an article for the New York Times “Style” section in 2012, wrote, “I HAD expected to keep mum about my problem with Michelle Obama until after the election, but my frustration has gotten the better of Photo courtesy of The White House. me. I can’t contain it any longer. I refer not to her politics, but to her arms -- her bare, toned, elegant arms. Enough!” According to Purnick, the first lady has made it “unacceptable for women to appear in public with covered arms.” Because, clearly, Michelle is not only the first famous woman to ever wear sleeveless clothing, but also, a dictator of sleeve lengths for women across America. Purnick concludes her article by pointing out that Michelle will turn 49 in January, suggesting, “Could it be time for her at least to begin to ponder setting a new fashion trend? Here’s a thought. Maybe she could take a cue from her husband and, in a bipartisan gesture, adopt Ann Romney’s preference for elbowlength sleeves and red taffeta. Or not.” I think the crucial take away from that sentence is “Or not.” This quote suggests that woman of a certain age, specifically, women of a certain age and public profile, should not be able to dress as they please. They should be ashamed of their bodies and of the effect they have on American woman clearly suffering from body issues of their own. Secondly, it implies that the most politicized opinion a First Lady should have is in the realm of fashion (where she can make a “bipartisan gesture” of her own), while the heavy thinking and legislature should be left to her wiser, more powerful husband. Lucky for all the tabloids, as the buff arms stories began to grow stale, Obama was inaugurated into office for his second term, and the First Lady had some exciting new changes of her own planned. According to Joselyn Noveck, a writer for the AP, “the president started it.” She’s referring, of course, to the media’s new, unbridled obsession with Michelle Obama’s bangs. According to Noveck, media outlets around the world are completely justified in talking exclusively about a First Lady’s haircut because of a husband’s admiration for his wife. Obama’s comment was clearly intended as a joke, considering he referred to the bangs as "the most significant event of this [inaugural] weekend." Despite the transparent flippancy of his statement, this quote was repeatedly taken out of context and used to justify a whirlwind of bang commentary and speculation. The Bangs even spawned their own Twitter account, which sends out thought-provoking tweets such as, "Just got a text from Hillary Clinton's side-part.” In a 2012 piece for The Washington Post, Rahiel Tesfamariam wrote, “Since the beginning of the president's term, there's been an ever-present demand to "publicly dissect" [Michelle Obama] and examine why she dresses the way she dresses, says what she says, and behaves the way she does.” The public is not satisfied until each of her decisions has been broken down and analyzed in order to suss out and reveal her presumed secret motivations behind every act. Even down to something as simple as a choice in hairstyle is suspected to have nefarious or manipulative motives. On December 28, 2012 in an article by Cathy Horyn for The New York Times, Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of the Museum at FIT, commented, “Oddly, fashion, which has tended to be treated with extreme suspicion in American history, has not caused political problems for her.” It seems to me that this is the case because if we can trap a powerful woman in this shallow discourse, we lessen the appearance, and thus the threat, of power and authority in her decision making. By taking the focus away from her education, her intelligence and her position of authority, and reducing it to simply what she wears every day, how muscular her arms are, and how she styles her hair, she becomes “safe.” If we reduce her to a 1950s conception of what women should be and what their pursuits should entail, she can be viewed as posing no political or intellectual threat to the overwhelmingly white male patriarchal government. And the patriarchy is most certainly intimidated by Michelle Obama, as media and political pundits prove daily with their increasingly
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