Download PDF Version Revolt Magazine, Volume 1 Issue No.4

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