Traditionally, this image has been threatening, says Robinson-Flint, pointing to the purportedly ironic depiction of Michelle Obama as an angry Angela Davis-style radical with an Afro and a gun on the cover of The New Yorker. As the daughter of two working-class African-American parents, Obama symbolizes the lineage of U.S. black history in the U.S. in a way her husband doesn’t, says Robinson-Flint: “African-Americans have been brutalized by racism in this country and that is something that Barack Obama [whose mother was white] does not carry as much as Michelle does.”
When Michelle Obama commands the cover of Vogue’s March issue, as is rumoured, she’ll be only one of slightly more than a dozen African-American women to have done so. Fashion remains an industry of racial stereotyping and exclusion. Zoe Whitley, a visiting lecturer at Sussex University who recently wrote her M.A. thesis about the representation of black models in Vogue, found repeated use of tribal and exotic tropes—models in animal prints or photographed crawling and leaping in the air.
Within the African-American community, Michelle Obama’s fit, pear-shaped body is itself viewed as a political weapon of change. In the salon.com article, Erin Aubry Kaplan writes: “I’m a black woman who never thought I’d see a powerful, beautiful female with a body like mine in the White House,” adding: “Try as Michelle might to cover it with those Mamie Eisenhower skirts and sheath dresses meant to reassure mainstream voters, the butt would not be denied.”
But to reassure those mainstream voters, Kaplan complained, the Obamas sublimated their black heritage: “Michelle’s ethnic butt might have snuck under the radar, but an ethnic do wouldn’t have stood a chance.” Danielle Belton, whose Black Snob blog tracks Mrs. Obama’s clothing, believes her ethnicity is more subtly conveyed in her choice of bright colours: “African-Americans love colour when it comes to fashion.”
Obama’s bold choices have occasionally misfired. The red-and-black Narciso Rodriguez dress she wore on election night to anchor a carefully colour-coordinated family tableaux, for example, received more criticism than any of her husband’s cabinet picks. Slate.com issued a finger wag: “Mrs. Obama, black with red is too jarring a color combination for a first lady. It’s too dramatic.”
Unbowed, Obama chose a variation on Nancy Reagan’s favourite hue when she made a post-election visit to the White House with her husband in November. Her coral Maria Pinto dress eclipsed Laura Bush’s mousy brown outfit in every photo. The optics were clear: hold on, America, a more vibrant administration is coming. The subtext was stealthier: I’m the next first lady. I’m definitely not Nancy Reagan. And you’re going to stop and pay attention.
Pages: 1 2
