Michelle Obama's Public Image
Her Social Messages are Distorted as She Buys into Own Media Hype
Apr 20, 2009
As the first black first lady, Michelle Obama has been hailed as the kind of icon that crosses boundaries of class and race. She has been compared to Jacqueline Kennedy for her style, and Princess Diana for her grace and warmth.
The media has quite predictably exalted Michelle Obama for the wrong reasons, the usual reasons like style and beauty, while using her race as a pretext for holding her up as the people's champion. Her public image is the same tired message in a different colored package. What is surprising is Obama's own exhuberance in embracing the hype.
Media Comparison of Michelle Obama to Jackie-O and Princess Di is Incidious
The mainstream media has a long history of presenting these empty and safe stereotypes of women. Evoking the memory of Jackie-O in the body of Obama makes her the kind of change agent that takes America back to the optimistic dreamy 50’s. Comparing her to Princess Di brings back memories of the glamour and overconsumption of the 80’s.
The public image that is being created for her seems to be removed from the realities of the loneliness and isolation of both of those women’s lives. Has anybody forgotten that Jackie O’s husband cheated on her in the White House? Or that Princess Diana was hounded by the same media that glamorized her until she died?
Michelle Obama's Inauthentic Social Messages Maintain the Status Quo
During the G20 summit, Obama visited the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School and, through a haze of tears and to the adoration of her female audience, delivered a “stay in school and you too can be just like me” message.
Perhaps pandering is a necessary component of image building, but the political connections and deep historic roots her family have in the community provide her with advantages. The girls in the audience, many of them immigrants with English as a second language, cannot have these advantages no matter how long they stay in school.
Other messages she delivers encourage young people to put aside corporate positions to become teachers and community workers. Her own background, however, is filled with well-calculated political appointments and executive positions.
- Two Ivy League degrees at Princeton and Harvard – well known for their elitist status
- A post at the sixth largest U.S. based corporate law firm, where she worked with lucrative copyright and trademark detail
- A staff position with Chicago mayor Richard Daley
- Vice President of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals where she drew a $300 000 annual salary
She is not being authentic when she speaks about the nature of her and her husband's path to success. The media has seduced her with a tempting reflection of "woman of the people" so that she continues to peddle designers and barfs out the sound bytes they need. The result? BEE's are maintaining the status quo of their predecessors, the WASPs.
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