Posted on 06/19/2009 8:55:21 AM PDT by lewisglad
The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan goes all gooey for Michelle Obama again at the top of the Style section on Friday, comparing the First Lady to Clair Huxtable, or as explained by the caption under their pictures: "As portrayed by Phylicia Rashad, Clair Huxtable was an accomplished yet down-to-earth figure. In Michelle Obama, the nation now has another symbol of success and style." Givhan writes with an admiration so dazzled that you worry she’s going to faint:
She serves as a symbol of middle-class progress, feminist achievement, affirmative-action success and individual style. And she has done all this on the world stage...while being black.
Time and again, observers grasp for adjectives to describe Obama's combination of professional accomplishment and soccer-mom maternalism. It's no wonder so many eye her with awe and disbelief. Or why a minority still view her with suspicion. There have been few broad cultural precedents for what she represents.
Givhan hailed how "Historically, television has been more progressive than reality, preparing society for the moment when what only existed in the shadow surges into the spotlight," but television "rarely introduced viewers to anyone like Michelle Obama. The last similarly accomplished and wholesome black woman" on TV was Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show.
Playing off a column in the hard-left Nation magazine by professor Patricia Williams, Givhan complained that few black female characters on television "really reflects a generation of black women with advanced degrees, solid self-esteem, and no anger issues."
Set aside for a moment the idea that Michelle Obama’s never displayed "anger issues," while we wait for the story of what happened to Jackie Norris, fired as the First Lady’s chief of staff only four months into the job. Givhan really overplays just how awfully racist American culture has been up until this moment:
In a culture in which every white woman is presumed to be Everywoman until proven out of the mainstream, Obama has brought the normalcy of black women into the broader social consciousness. All it took were her two Ivy League degrees, a six-figure boardroom salary, a Norman Rockwell family, soccer-mom bona fides and an ability to dress herself without the aid of an entourage.
In many ways, the first lady has made people see -- really see -- black women for the first time. [Italics hers.] For example, when a black model appeared on the May cover of Vogue, news articles credited the "Obama effect," ignoring the concerted lobbying by fashion industry activists that began long before Barack Obama was even a presidential contender.
The role of style in defining the first lady might easily be dismissed as a distraction from more substantive issues. But Williams says the fan magazine breathlessness is significant because "it implies a kind of parity we really needed."
A reader who's not black or female can sympathize with the feeling that black women are undervalued or mischaracterized in pop culture. But the Post and Givhan seem unaware of how they're casting their readers as backward racist and/or sexist rubes whose heads are filled with crude stereotypes -- that is, until the vision, the colossus that is Michelle Obama graced the public stage.
The Post and Givhan also seem unaware of how this gooey prose about Michelle's perfection can really sound like the mandated meringues of a state-run newspaper in a airless dictatorship.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.
Does the exposed bra strap come with the orange tank top or is it one of Michelle’s touches?
Oh, I pray that Michelle is not expecting. The hype would be more than we could stomach. ‘scuse the pun.
...which, judging by her appearance at most every public function, she needs.
The media might as well be telling us that Helen Thomas is Ava Gardner's twin when they gush about Michelle's fashion and style sense.
She dresses like she's going to the mall or trying to be her daughters' friends' buddy. Her 'ability to dress herself' is BROKEN.
That was her “I’m the black widow, don’t f’ with me” dress.
“She serves as a symbol of middle-class progress, feminist achievement, affirmative-action success and individual style.”.....
Sounds like tingly leg syndrome to me!
EHHHGAADDS!....where in hell did that picture come from?
Little did we know that night marked the beginning of America’s Sweater Era!
Manly-man legs!
What a load of dirty diapers.
Michelle sucks. End of story. So does her husband. I can’t wait until they are gone.
I have nothing against her, except that she’s a flaming liberal who seems to hate the United States.
The media’s desperate attempt to portray her as some kind of paragon of charm is amusing. It would be better for her, IMO, if they gave her more serious coverage of her first lady activities.
Photoshopped cankles! You owe me a new Reuben to replace the one I just barfed up!
If I were a Black woman, I'd be very insulted. What on earth does the color of her skin have to do with anything? I wonder what the author thought about Condi? (A woman who succeeded on the world's stage without a husband's coat tails? Never-mind, dumb question!
Whew, baby got back.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, “used fashion to convey ‘pretty,’ not power,” said Givhan. If Palin had spent the $150,000 at Wal-Mart rather than at Neiman Marcus and Saks, Givhan suggested, perhaps people wouldn’t have been so appalled at the cost of her wardrobe. But the high-end designs and expensive jewelry were out of touch with her “Joe Six Pack” audience. Additionally, Palin’s wardrobe, while expensive, wasn’t particularly noteworthy: Nothing about her clothing choices crafted an image of power.
Robin Givhan on another politically smart woman.
Playing off a column in the hard-left Nation magazine by professor Patricia Williams, Givhan complained that few black female characters on television "really reflects a generation of black women with advanced degrees, solid self-esteem, and no anger issues."
It’s perfectly true - I eye her with awe and disbelief every time I see another of her thriftstore outfits. Can’t SOMEONE tell the Empress, if she doesn’t do another thing, LOSE the too-tight cardigans!
I can certainly understand the “disbelief” part. Who can possibly see MO as a fashionista in good standing? She mostly looks frumpy and over-done, although occasionally she wears something tailored and attractive.
Mostly, she is being overplayed for political reasons. And the more “they” talk her up, the greater the disparity between what we hear and what we see with our own eyes.
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