Jessica Wakeman
November 18, 2008 | 10:38 am EST
Giulia:
I’ve been thinking about Michelle Obama’s butt lately.
Well, sort of.
Last week I blogged about the recent Salon.com article by Erin Aubrey Kaplan about Michelle Obama’s booty. Focusing on this Princeton-and-Harvard grad’s rear attributes offended me, and so I wrote:
Objectifying the female half of the soon-to-be-most-prominent black couple in American culture so uncomfortable in a lot of ways. I point you towards Amanda Fortini’s wonderfully thorough piece in New York magazine about female stereotypes this past election, specifically “Bitch” Clinton and “Ditz” Palin. She touches on how Michelle struggled with the “angry black woman” stereotype earlier in the campaign, before becoming an easier-to-swallow “mom-in-chief” — cute daughters and puppy in tow. What will happen if we turn our attention to her bootylicious ass?
Other writers agreed with me. Dodai from Jezebel asked “Are we really having a conversation about the future First Lady’s bottom?” Even Salon.com’s feminist blog, Broadsheet, questioned whether the article was a good idea. (Disclosure: I’ve blogged for Broadsheet before.) But then an interesting thing happened. But as we chattered away, a chorus of voices came to Erin Aubrey Kaplan’s defense.
Actually, I sense they had more appreciation for Michelle Obama than they did for Kaplan, but nevertheless, these women thought we should *not* not have discussions about the First Lady’s booty. I honestly been oblivious to Michelle’s body type, but some women see the President elect’s wife — with her height and curves — as a breath of fresh air from the Mamie Eisenhower mold. Finally a woman with curves! Who isn’t a size 2! Who looks like she’s been told to diet in her life! Michelle Obama, it seems, is being imbued with the power to change the tone of body image discussion in America away from Eurocentric thinness.
Thank God someone’s talking about her normal-sized butt, these women said. How empowering for us real women. Where I saw rudeness, they say a new, high visability role model. And where I saw racial stereotyping, they saw racial pride.
I’m from a rather buttoned-up, WASPy part of Connecticut, where it’s “impolite” to talk about a person’s body, let alone a public figure’s body, this way. I would freak out of someone talked about MY booty, for example. Which is not to say that other people in other parts of the country are impolite, but to point out that different people have ingrained perspectives. My knee-jerk reaction to the Michelle Obama story was to think it was tasteless, because that’s how I’d feel if it happened to me.
I still mostly feel the same way about Kaplan’s article as I did when it first came out. But my eyes have been opened a bit more and I know realize that talking about Michelle Obama’s butt…well, it might just be liberating.
Yes, yes they did.
(Disclosure: I’ve written for Salon.com’s Broadsheet blog in the past.)
The author, a black woman named Erin Aubry Kaplan, begins:
…what really thrills me, what really feels liberating in a very personal way, is the official new prominence of Michelle Obama. Barack’s better half not only has stature but is statuesque. She has corruscating intelligence, beauty, style and — drumroll, please — a butt. (Yes, you read that right: I’m going to talk about the first lady’s butt.)
Objectifying the female half of the soon-to-be-most-prominent black couple in American culture so uncomfortable in a lot of ways. I point you towards Amanda Fortini’s wonderfully thorough piece in New York magazine about female stereotypes this past election, specifically “Bitch” Clinton and “Ditz” Palin. She touches on how Michelle struggled with the “angry black woman” stereotype earlier in the campaign, before becoming an easier-to-swallow “mom-in-chief” — cute daughters and puppy in tow. What will happen if we turn our attention to her bootylicious ass?
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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Several topics really stood out this week, including the Oscars as social advocacy inspiration, civil rights and Black History Month, and lots of hot news on entertainment going Green. Check out our most popular posts of the week on these subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.
Katie:
Happy Belated “Freedom to Marry” Week!
Rosa and Raymond Parks: Valiant Valentine #5
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Nicole:
Top 10 Oscar Picks to Inspire Social Action
Cornel West: Black Thoughts On Black History Month
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Gina:
Top 10 Best Picture Winners That Inspire
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Kerry:
Rosa Parks and Raymond Parks Shared a Love For Each Other and For Civil Rights. And as Valentine’s Week comes to an end, they are the final recipients of my Valiant Valentines Award (VVA) (joining Tim Robbins & Susan Sarandon, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, Lucie & Raymond Aubrac, and Robert Capa & Gerda Taro) which honors couples who loved together and worked together to make the world a better place.
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When Rosa met her husband in Montgomery, Alabama, Raymond, a 29-year-old barber, was active in the NAACP and the campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, 9 young black men who had been convicted (8 of whom were sentenced to die in the electric chair) for raping two white women, despite no real evidence. As a couple, they became even more involved in civil rights and Rosa became the secretary and later youth leader of the local NAACP branch. Raymond, whose education was limited by segregation, had educated himself and encouraged and supported Rosa to pursue her education.