La First Lady

so, i looked up elegance in the dictionary, to see if there was something different between what i and others might think, how we would use it, and it says: graceful and attractive in appearance or behavior. OK. that’s what i’d thought. it’s about appearance as both pretty (attractive), and as appropriate, in a higher order (graceful).
now, don’t get me wrong here, not that i don’t want michelle to be or appear elegant. but i’m still stumbling here–are we surprised by her elegance, and how that may interact w/ our notion of her as BO’s best friend, and a powerhouse intellectual in her own right? are we surprised by her beauty, and how that may interact with our notion of first ladies, or of black women? is she a better person, a better leader, a better best friend to our president-elect if she is beautiful, if she is graceful, if she is ELEGANT? it definately makes it easier to swallow for some (a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down ala mary poppins), but here (at the BAG), i don’t think we actually are, or are trying to represent that section of society. would it be better if obama loved & was best friends with a wife who wasn’t ‘attractive’? even if she still was as intelligent, as well spoken, as good of a mom as she appears to be? what’s with this constant refocusing on her physical appearance, as if she has anything to do with the fundamentals of her physical structure? (yes, she could overeat & get fat, yes, she could go for some crazy fashion & appear ‘dated’ or whatever), but, given that she doesn’t, why is the focus so much on her cheekbones, her facial lines, her eyebrows, her lack of pearl necklaces, etc.? is this moving beyond ‘it’ in some way, moving towards ‘change’?
I guess that at this point I’m not sure that what we want theoretically (good president, does good for all, superman-esque) can really be disentangled with how we want this goodness to LOOK, and what it says about our correlations between physical appearance and personal characteristics. indeed, not just the current correlations, but our naturalization of them, our encouragement of their continuation. is this the power of visual media? an effect of visual media? help.

Referring to a photograph as being superficial (in that it deals with surface appearances) or unreal (in what sense I’m not sure) is not analysis, it’s observation.
I don’t know why you use quotes around “beautiful” in your commentary (last para). Are we supposed to read the term differently?
It’s a beautiful image, and it expresses many positive qualities, including elegance, and it can only serve to strengthen a positive image of her, and by association, her husband.
And that, as obvious and banal as it is, is pretty much all you can or need say about it. Some images you can take at face value.

I find the larger discussion of posting this type of visual very interesting. I don’t think one needs to struggle to find relevance or explain away or qualify the syntax of reaction. Taken beyond the obvious reaction, I dwell on a certain cultural audacity: The strength of this visual in the narrative and the confidence and ease in portraying “she looks better than you” is not a superficial conclusion. It’s just short of astonishing when you place this photograph in a historical context.
“This black woman looks better than you” is not a statement I believe could have been safely made about a black person seeking the approval of whites on the political stage. It’s audacious and unsafe or at least it was 10 years, 20 years, or 44 years ago when she was born. So it’s not so much the photograph itself, it’s the fact that it exists at all and the fact that it was not widely distributed in the media prior to the election that most interests me.

I never realized Michelle Obama’s eyebrows were paint-ons. It’s kind of jarring to realize, though it doesn’t make much of a difference. Where I live, painted eyebrows are very uncommon, so it’s probably a reaction to that more than anything, and also, I suppose, a testament to Michelle’s fashion choices being very measured and careful. Character-wise, I’m finding myself thinking of Hillary Clinton when she went to the White House, but with a more highly developed sense of fashion – not in terms of wearing nice clothes or makeup or whatever, but in knowing how to market herself to the media and voters more effectively.
And it’s great to have a first lady who appears classy and elegant. Laura Bush always felt like a tragic figure: small-town librarian who fell in love with the bad boy and was rushed along to the top without having much say in the matter. Her visuals always seemed forced, like she couldn’t quite relax, and almost subservient (in a ’50s conservative housewife way) to husband George (which is why I was very surprised to hear about her book deal).
Michelle has the aura of someone who knows exactly what’s happening and what she makes happen. Not a prima donna, but definitely someone in control of her own destiny and not afraid to show it in the way she acts and dresses. She’s a partner to Obama the same way Hillary was a partner to Bill.

arty, there’s a big difference between a fashion spread and the release of an official photo of an Army general. Off the top of my head, there’s government vs. private industry release (we can argue whether the Obama pic is journalism), the PR office source of general’s photos and the independent source of the magazine. There’s also fashion vs. government.
As for Sarah Palin: she was a candidate. Had her husband been retouched for a GQ spread (if they did one), I doubt many would notice. Michelle Obama is a candidate’s spouse.
It’s not the photoshopping, it’s the subject of the edit and who is doing it. There’s also the matter of degree…I would bet Michelle Obama did not need an entirely new skin.

I’m not going to get into the elegance discussion—the whole issue of “beauty” in the context of a photograph of a woman is a nice little patriarchal dirty bomb I’d rather not set off, thanks.
But there are two things you can say about the image, one internal and one as an artifact. First, I think it is interesting (and very consistent with Michelle Obama’s public persona during the campaign, where she seemed fairly explicitly uninterested in image) that the traditional portraitist presentation of her torso—with cleavage as the central focus in such a dress— is strongly countered if not overwhelmed by her turned head and pursed lips, as if something else a good deal more interesting has caught her attention and she’s about to comment on it.
Second, regardless of how you want to analyze this image as an artifact of the male gaze (not to mention the dress design as one of male wrapping), we should not lose sight of the tremendous boost being given to black girls and women by Michelle’s doings and presence, even before we get to the high visual octane of a White House setting. This is a situation in which the internal corruption of the image has a paradoxically positive effect on people who have been marginalized.

Responding to Michael’s addendum, OK, makes sense, why one might point out this picture as significant. however, I wasn’t so aware that michelle was ‘approached skeptically or ignorantly by the media and much of the public over the course of the campaign’–was this visually, or verbally, or some other way? does anyone have any pics (or stories) that show this? i was under the impression that pre-election, the media was a bit intimidated w/ her, w/ her intellectual & business credentials, and w/ her gravitas as a speaker. I would like to see a compare/contrast, of how ’she has been depicted with more grace and style since the election’–can anyone help?
My original last question still holds, if anyone can help, though-i’m trying to expand on it, make it clearer, b/c i wasn’t so clear in the first post. do we have good/any examples of a disentanglement/detachment between physical looks & moral attractiveness (for lack of a better word, graceful being admittedly feminine) for world/state/community leaders? are these sorts of people often found/valorized in media, or rare? what does having visual media do to influence our options, choices & preferences on leadership–does it encourage a particular personae, which is not only morally, but also visually attractive to us, for positions of leadership? i don’t imagine it is really neutral, but i wonder to what extent others think it is more directly influencing implicit/unconscious public opinions…

Brian,
When I read beauty in quotes in the context of visual politics, I understand that the author is signaling to the subjective nature of beauty. When beauty is used in common parlance, it is often taken as a universal attribute that can and perhaps should be recognized by all who see it. When we are analyzing images, as relating to their political, visual, and cultural context, I hope that we can be audacious enough to call qualities like beauty into question, or at least get specific about what we are talking about. Indeed, the quotations is an easy way to do that, sometimes leaving something wanting. The language can be as illusive as the visuals.