Writer bemoans the media’s obsession with Michelle Obama’s fashion sense whilst penning a piece revealing her own obsession with Michelle Obama’s fashion sense. Upshot: if you don’t like it, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Considering her interest in fashion in the context of her life indicates an entirely modern approach to gender roles: She’s a woman who can proclaim herself a mom-in-chief without pretending she isn’t smart, share school drop-off with her husband and put aside her high-powered job to serve as his unpaid adjunct without having some sort of identity crisis. And her attention to an eclectic, ethnically diverse group of independent and American designers, some mostly known to those of us who have spent time inside a fashion closet, isn’t just smart, subtle support for the kind of businesses that will help our economy get back on track, but evidence of someone whose clothing sensibility is the sartorial equivalent of Barack’s working knowledge of postmodern theory: a slightly subversive signal that she gets it.
Lady, you’re nuts. It’s not every day that I get to read such a ponderous heap of preening gobbledygook (with apologies to gooks). “[P]roclaim”? “[S]ome sort of identity crisis”? “[E]clectic, diverse group of independent and American designers” (independent of what? nationality?)? “[H]elp our economy get back on track” (???)? “[S]ensibility”? “[S]artorial equivalent of Barack’s working knowledge of postmodern theory” (WTF?)? “[S]lightly subersive signal that she gets it”? Any more buzzwords you’d like to pack into that word-hive?
Let’s just consider that last bit. Thanks for letting us peons know that there’s a sub rosa message that Michelle Obama is sending with her designed by Gramsci wardrobe. Let’s concede that that message, the “it” that she “gets,” is clear to your readership from this cretinous goo. What does it mean? That she’s unapologetically unpaid in her role as First Lady? How groundbreaking. Are you aware that after her hubby became a Senator, her position at the Chicago area hospital started paying a salary 240% higher than it had? Are you aware that the position went unfilled after she left?
Sarah Palin was roundly pilloried in the media for the money spent on her campaign wardrobe (and her “bottom” looked pretty cute in a pencil skirt). I’m not saying that Mrs. Obama ought to wear gunny sacks, and I’m glad that she’s not donning that dismally prim Washington crapola, but does this, or her $500 charity sneakers, send the right signals about everybody having to sacrifice in this grim economy, however demoralizing it might be to the readership of Salon, who are apparently her natural audience? I don’t care where you were educated. As a feminist, you’re a moron.
As a Being Endowed with Intellect, I hate myself (and love myself!) for taking such delight in stomping on your kind of vacuous BS. If she wants to send the right message, maybe she should wear a merrywidow and carry a whip.
Oooooh, racist. OUTLAW!
UPDATE: From Abe Froman in comments, obtuse caboose on the loose
That hospital community outreach gig was high powered? WTF?
pencil skirt?
Ask NG, or get yourself a teenaged daughter, hf. They’ll know.
Black with unknown degree from Harvard: Genius
Special Olympian who runs a 25 second 100: Awesome
White with MBA from Harvard: Drooling idiot.
A rat’s ass: I do not give one.
You’ll need that later, Slart.
I googled. They are very nice skirts but not for everyone I wouldn’t think. For some it’s more of an aspirational skirt I would guess. What M’chelle gets is that the dirty socialist media will use her as jackoff material if she makes contempt-for-America noises and doesn’t beat her children. Publicly. She’s a skeezey cow. A postmodern skeezey cow to be sure.
We can just refer to that as a PSC, hf. All the “in” kids will get it.
Pencil skirt
Gis for Pencil skirt. It’s my favorite kind. http://tiny.cc/VDit1
The leftist Michelle Obama love club falls all over itself desperately trying to prove that Michelle is somehow more attractive, stylish, and intelligent than the living repudiation of all they are, Sarah Palin. Subconsciously they realize it’s a lost cause.
don’t know why that tiny won’t work. But it’s just a google image search for “pencil skirt”.
How about capri pants? MTM was sweet in them.
I took your advice and googled ‘pencil skirt’ Sarah. And I think Michelle would need the Fat Albert Pencil Skirt.
Michelle got her first high-paying job based on her race, right? I mean, it didn’t pay what it did before she took it, and no one has replaced her yet, making it seem the money was better used for something else than what she was doing?
How about Hefty bags? She, her husband — hell, their entire party — can wear them over their heads.
your tiny link worked it just took awhile. What I learned today is what a pencil skirt looks like and also that it can be an above the knee thing or a below the knee thing and I agree that M’chelle would look silly wearing a pencil skirt. They’re very feminine.
I’m just agog at the near hysterical tone of the Michelle troop of Vagina Warriors trying to make ‘chelle into the Best First Lady evah because she’s “sacrificing” a [phoney] career. Laura Bush has a Master’s Degree, worked a real job before becoming a mom but was always sneered at as a “stepford wife” or that she was “drugged”.
I’m glad you haven’t lost your capacity for agogery, yet, Darleen.
I went right past the pencil skirt and made the unfortunate mistake of googling Kara Jesella. M’chelle makes her feel less the way she looks, methinks.
It was a position of such sublime and exacting characteristics that only she could possibly fulfill it. Without her the job will not and cannot be done right and proper. The hospital will suffer, but does so with progressive pride, and will struggle on knowing that she has been called to a higher purpose. The position will remain open awaiting her return.
Upholstery chic!
Oh, thanks. I’ll just hang on to it, then.
I think they really are stupid enough not to understand that M’chelle’s “hopsital job” cum sinecure was a disguised payment to Brack for favors and influence, wrapped up in a nice liberally-feeling bow (M’chelle was in the healthcare business, wingnutz!).
It ain’t a job if they won’t and/or can’t fire you if you don’t show up.
I met her in a club down in old soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-cola [lp version:
Coca-cola]
C-o-l-a cola
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle
Well Im not the worlds most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle lola
Well Im not dumb but I cant understand
Why she walked like a woman and has arms like a man
Oh my Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle
Well we drank champagne and danced all night
Under electric candlelight
She picked me up and sat me on her knee
And said dear boy wont you come home with me
Well Im not the worlds most passionate guy
But when I looked in her eyes well I almost fell for my Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle
Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle
I pushed her away
I walked to the door
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Then I looked at her and she at me
Well thats the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
Its a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle
Well I left home just a week before
And Id never ever kissed a woman before
But Michelle smiled and took me by the hand
And said dear boy Im gonna make you a man
Well Im not the worlds most masculine man
But I know what I am and Im glad Im a man
And so is Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle Michelle Mi Mi Mi Chelle
Thanks, Joe. You’ve overwritten the will.i.am piece that was in my head from driving Aidan to school this morning.
Only instead of “woman” it should read “Klingon.”
…if you want it, it’ll either be in my purse, or in the refrigerator.
Dan, I’m surprised, or rather not surprised at this comment given the long and painful history of likening black people to Klingons.
Since when did wearing 70’s sofas and bad curtains become fashionable?
Pencil skirts are teh hot.
I thought it was “I know what I am and I’m in bed with a man……”
Did that bint get paid to write that drivel? That is enough to make one’s head assplode.
Reference: here, about 1:45. But watch the whole thing.
michelle…rings a bell
her triceps are very well
so the press do tell
Pablo once had a great link to where it did a compare and contrast between Michelle Obama’s dress and a shower curtain.
Is there anything like this within the credible RW publishing circles or blogosphere?
I ask, because this kind of bafflingly insane and frankly embarassing shit is absolutely passable coin of the realm on the left. I have never seen a Noemie Emery or Matt Labash or anyone in NR (or on any website) riff on a first lady’s fashion sense AS A GATEWAY into some “broader point.”
When you have no God other than politics and the cause, a politician’s wife’s wardrobe takes on social implications.
The -gook dance doesn’t have to mean anything. It has to be performed. Its audience cheers it, not knowing what it is. You reject it, saying “What the fuck is this mess?”
Sorted.
(“Organized,” if you prefer.)
When the President’s wife is held up as an exemplar of the “subversive,” and her dumbfuck husband is credited with a “working knowledge of postmodern theory” — by someone who likewise has none, for an audience that, too, has none, so they all can share in the virtue of this unknown-to-them thing — meaning is not happening.
Signifyin’ is.
Of the pre-postmodern kind.
I met her in a club down in old soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-cola C-o-l-a cola
I woke up in an alley six hours later with no watch, no wallet, a bruise the size of a baseball on the back of my head, my clothes tattered and torn, a mouth like a dirty ashtray, no shoes and socks, wearing the smeared remains of a shocking pink lipstick, with a case of gonorhea that tokk three years to clear up, and a most uncomfortable feeling in my anus.
O-l-a Ola
Um, yeah. The New York Times made her do it.
Oh, and with only one kidney.
That has to be Salon’s finest work since they gsve the world this glorious gem.
A first lady needs Sass to match her TOTUS’s Swagga.
magazine covers
proves she’s better than others
especially you
the $500 sneakers didn’t bother me. my name is katharine and i am a shoe freak. waddaya want from me? *shrug*
but i am deeply embarrassed, mortified really, that with all the really great japanese designers our klingon first lady chooses to wear so much junya watanabe crap. it looks like it came from ‘crafts day at the mental hospital. or the bowels of etsy. fugly. and not even the flattering kind of fug.
Wait, kate: the price tag didn’t bother you? I mean, you think she got her $500 worth?
When feeding the ‘poor’, $500 sneakers is a decent attempt at humor, but soup bowls with holes in them give the server more of a belly-laugh.
unpaid adjunct?
Yeah.
The writer here manages to capture the “Glory that is Michelle Obama”
Michelle Obama: Unpaid Adjunct.
btw- Michelle’s mom dresses her funny.
.
I am perfectly ok with her playing Fashion Princess; takes up the time that she would otherwise use fixing our souls.
I really do wish people would stop calling Michelle Obama a Klingon. I like and respect Klingons.
She’s more of a Cardassian, I think. But without the pasty gray complexion.
Isn’t louchette our favorite bisexual ?
;-)
Boobies.
than i shall refrain mcgehee. bitch probably couldn’t handle a bat leth anyway.even with those arms. ;)
I just wish the Biceps From Heaven would quit stealing old people’s sofas and shower curtains to wear. The media has to be exhausted coming up with reasons why that is somehow fashionable, and only leads to the drivel Dan linked above. Is there something the matter with going to Von Maur, Dillards, or even Nordstrom? Or is off-the-rack too peasant-like for these dirty little Euro-socialist wannabe’s?
Oh, and Maxim placing Senorita Obama on their Top 100 Hottest Women list is laughable. They should be embarassed.
You sure that wasn’t the “Women I’d like to donkey-punch” list JD?
Ooh. I’ll be out of the country for a while.
Donkey Punch is just another name for Kool-Aid
Did I mention that Ric Caric buggers underage goats recently?
Not sure what a donkey-punch is, and I doubt I want to.
Holy shit, al. I just visited urban dictionary to look up donkey punch, and sharted I was laughing so hard. Fuck you, you hysterical demented bastard.
I’m sorry, I read the clip in the piece above, and all I could think of was: “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan…” http://tinyurl.com/2o4jka
And of course, now I can’t get that stupid song out of my head. PSC indeed.
JD they even have a movie called DonkeyPunch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzoh5XvVVjE
SFW
They left that part of Disney’s Pinocchio on the cutting room floor, JD.
None of you guys are at all right. You are soooooooo fundamentally wrong.
I had an interesting conversation with my wife the other night that shed some interesting light on the most awesomest ever first lady, Michelle Obama. My wife is an attending physician in the ER of a large Inland Empire (Hi Darleen!) hospital here in CA. She recently spoke to a University of Chicago Medical Center doc who was there interviewing for a position. ccording to him, many UC Med Ctr docs are looking elsewhere for employment due to the “Urban Health Initiative” that was introduced there last year. The stated purpose of this initiative is a “partnership between the University of Chicago Medical Center and community doctors, clinics and hospitals to improve the long-term health of South Side residents”. However, in reality, what this program is doing is steering patients without insurance (or the ability to self-pay) to other (usually county) hospitals for treatment while keeping the paying customers for themselves. And since the poorer patients tend to be black, what you get is the white affluent patients being escorted into the ER for treatment, while the poor black patients are told to go to another hospital.
What could possibly go wrong? University of Chicago ER sends kid mauled by pit bull home
And who, you may ask, was the heartless person responsible for launching this obviously anti-poor and even anti-black initiative? Why that would be Michelle Obama, wife of the “post-racial” president. And who would you turn to help you sell this craptacular new program? How about David Axelrod? Yes, Obama’s chief strategist.
Read more here.
One paragraph that seems to support what my wife was told is this:
And I loved this:
Yes, we may be shafting ‘black and poor’ patients, but we don’t want people to know that’s what we’re doing. So let’s change the name.
Sadly, all that negative publicity is causing the university to rethink this program.
What I want to know is why the hell didn’t we hear anything about this before, especially during the campaign? Now I followed the news pretty closely during the elections, especially the last 6 months, and I NEVER heard one peep about this. Not one. That WaPo article above was focused more on the connections between the Obamas and the university.
Can you imagine if this had been a program Cindy McCain initiated (or even supported)?
Hey, Dave in SoCal, at least now we have an idea of what Obama’s nationalized healthcare plan will look like.
If I never hear the word “swagger” or “swagga” again, it will be too soon.
MSM makes me want to throw up on a daily basis.
Hey, Dave in SoCal, at least now we have an idea of what Obama’s nationalized healthcare plan will look like.
Oh yes, they are leading the way on getting us on gov’t funded ObamaCare.
From the Tribune link above:
Pencil skirts are pretty hot, but what do you think of this (NSFW) new rage in Japan?
No, not see-thru, it’s just a print on the skirt.
A propos of the title, I just want to say that I love Patsy and Edina, and that the original series was better than the revived.
That is all.
Re: lee’s link.
Note to young women: dressing like, acting like, and being treated like a slut is not the road to happiness.
Note to young men: sluts won’t make you happy either
ohnoes. While M’chelle prances around with her postmodern I kill him dead before I let him beat me arms America is losing its edge in truly innovative slutwear.
Oh sure, where’s your apology to gobblers??
Note to young men: sluts won’t make you happy either
Next you’ll be telling me that alcohol won’t solve my problems.
Told ya so. Cardassian.
Whereas by the time you get to my age you’ve given up on being happy anyway. so…
You didn’t hear about it because the press wasn’t interested.
Mcgruder said he’d never seen a story killed because it was detrimental to certain people; I responded with “fish don’t see water, either”. Reporters don’t even bother looking for bad stories about liberals because they honestly don’t think any such thing is possible.
On the rare occasions when some such story leaks through, it’s because it was accidentally uncovered, or it’s too big and grotesque to ignore, or they’re in pursuit of a “bigger good” that justifies the sacrifice of one of their own.
“Oh, and Maxim placing Senorita Obama on their Top 100 Hottest Women list…”
I read that as “Marxism”.
What I want to know is why the hell didn’t we hear anything about this before, especially during the campaign?
Consider this a purely rhetorical question.
dan — sorry i didn’t reply earlier. i had to go do a bunch of ‘real life’ today.
anyway, as a spoiled princess with many nice shoes who has volunteered in the soup kitchens and food pantries here… no the shoes don’t matter i think. except that they should be comfortable, with good ankle and arch support for standing all day. and they should be easy to clean afterward. (spills happen!) and mostly people, clients and volunteers both, are not much interested in how one is dressed under that plastic apron. and fun or silly shoes and clothes can sometimes be an asset for volunteers too. some ‘clients’ are quite timid and funny shoes are one more extra thing that can get them to open up and talk. if the place also does referrals and placements for housing or other city and/or charity services then getting the clients to open up a little is key to getting them help.
me? i wouldn’t wear such expensive shoes to volunteer. but mostly because all of my really nice shoes are ‘fuck me’ heels, and not comfortable for standing all day.
this to be slightly subversive signal and so can you!
Come on, people! Liberal programs are NEVER expected to accomplish anything! They are for making it look like they’re concerned and doing something. Didn’t you read Jonah’s book?
On another note, I seem to recall that Michelle, two years out of law school, got bored doing what out-of-law-school-for-two-years attorneys do virtually everywhere else. She asked (demanded) some other kind of work. I think they they “promoted” her, rather than endure the inevitable brain damage her legal/racial claims would guarantee
heels what are more ambiguous about the fuck me than other heels you might choose to wear I think
oh HF! i saw those during fashion week. and i shoe lusted for them, madly. but those are above even my pay grade. and madge may not have bought those either, tho she may have too bought them. but with celebs you never know. sometimes they really like the item and purchased it, but sometimes they are jst wear stuff ‘on loan’ as a PR favor to the designers.
argh! typos. i denounce myself. =P
I would bet she didn’t pay anything or else we wouldn’t have the picture if you follow. M’chelle will learn this trick whether she wants to or not cause of she’s so beautiful people will forever be bestowing beautiful things on her. Insert entirely ironic fist bump here I think.
follow, and *bump.* you know what they say: politics is just show business for the ugly people. sad it’s come to that, really. and i still really want those shoes. they’re exactly the sort of thing i like to collect; extreme, witty, and flattering/wearable. they’ll probably be in a museum one day.
Rule #14 in “How To Get By In Life Without Your Head Popping”: Fashionistas are morons. Ignore them.
Anything that’s been within 10 feet of that terriying skank is nothing I want to be anywhere near, let alone see on some other woman. Madonna… *shudder*
I think 10 feet is too close for a blast zone.
Madonna makes my skin crawl. Her “music” sucks as well.
Michelle Obama looks like Captain Caveman in a sausage-wrap.
Dan, great write-up. I saw this Salon piece floating around. There was no way I would or could go near it. You’re brave. We thank you. I’m glad you tore the cover off. In time these writers are going to get ulcers trying to figure out new ways to compliment the Obamas. It’s already past embarrassing.
I was also thinking how the left likes to shred Palin for her beauty… and now Carrie Prejean too. Yet they build up Michelle as some dynamic stunner. Mort Sahl was doing standup a couple weeks ago and he said this whole Michelle-is-Jackie thing is ridiculous. A media invention.
And can’t remember where, but I did read about that hospital scam Michelle put together, pushing the needy out the door and off the company books. I guess lifting that humongous paycheck gave her biceps a good workout.
Not really off topic, but kind of off topic, my wife got a free issue of Esquire and it has a huge picture of George Clooney on the cover with the title, “How To Be A Man”, and I’m sittin’ here thinkin’, if you need a magazine with articles on how to be a man maybe you should just admit you’re gay and march on.
^ They keep sending me GQ, which I never ordered. Must be to push up the subscription numbers. A few months ago they put Clint on the cover and distorted a quote to make him sound like a ‘Bot. That particular issue was way over-the-top jizz, especially a thing on David Plouffe. Clooney is a first-rate ass. Makes Streisand look like a neocon.
Sanford and Son called. They want Aunt Esther back.
New name for UC hospital: “St Nathan’s Hospital For Young, Attractive [People] Who Aren’t Particularly Ill”
HF: “…she’s so beautiful people will forever be bestowing beautiful
things on her”
Of course as opposed to the right-wing xenophobes who have to spend $150 large for their own nice threads and get front-page stories on how much was paid OMFG, instead of being a good socialist and getting all that nice stuff “loaned” to them by ghey wanna-be designers.