Deep Glamour: At the Intersection of Imagination & Desire

Carolee's Style Icons: Does Michelle Obama Know They're Equating Her with Evita to Sell Jewelry?

Walking through Bloomingdale's, I was struck by this sign in the jewelry department. The Carolee jewelry company is pitching its line of pearls with photos of four pearl-wearing style icons: two American first ladies, Jackie Kennedy and Michelle Obama, both Democrats, and two foreign consorts, Eva Peron and Wallis Simpson, who, to put it politely, leaned fascist. (What, no Imelda Marcos? Too famous for shoes I guess.)

Now I realize that jewelry marketers should not be confused with historians, but if I were Michelle Obama I'd be offended. And if I were managing the Obama brand I'd certainly protest. If the White House can ask a noncontroversial windbreaker-maker to remove a billboard featuring a press photo of President Obama in its jacket, surely the first lady's staff can ask Carolee not to link Mrs. O with Evita.

It is, of course, possible that this is a sanctioned use of the first lady's image. To find out, since there's no press contact listed on Carolee's site, I posted a query to @Caroleejewelry on Twitter. (If someone were paying me to write, I'd call the company and the White House.) No response.

 

Three Thoughts about Glamour and Politics

The new issue of Reason carries a short item I wrote about politics and glamour. A regular Reason feature, the assignment was to come up with a short, three-item list. It’s not online yet, and the published version was a bit truncated for reasons of space, but here’s what I originally wrote, complete with links not available on paper.

1. Glamorous political figures are rare. Unlike charisma, glamour isn’t a personal quality a politician can possess. It’s a product of imagination that requires mystery and distance, which are hard to maintain in a political environment that prizes familiarity and full disclosure. Glamour also tends to dissipate once you’re in office and have to take specific positions, thereby disillusioning some of your supporters. See Barack Obama.

2. Glamorous policies are common. As a nonverbal form of rhetoric, glamour is one of the most common ways of selling policies, from single-payer health care to the abolition of the income tax — not to mention countless military actions, perhaps the oldest use of glamour in politics. My favorite recent examples, because of the alluring imagery involved, are high-speed rail and wind energy.

3. Political glamour is most seductive when it’s selling systems that promise an escape from complexity and compromise. Whether expressed in full-blown communism, Western European socialism, or American technocracy, the glamour of top-down planning shaped 20th-century politics. F.A. Hayek lamented classical liberalism’s lack of similar Utopian inspiration but, in fact, Ayn Rand was masterful in her use of glamour. She knew not only how to tell a romantic story of struggle and triumph but how to create glamorous snapshots that focused her audience’s yearning for freedom and fellowship. Hence the persistent, if illusory, appeal of recreating Galt’s Gulch [link added for DG] in the real world.

[Soviet propaganda poster "POWERFUL TRANSPORT - THE BASIS FOR DEFENSE CAPABILITY OF THE COUNTRY," 1931, on auction at Swann Galleries February 8, image courtesy of Swann.]

Early, More Glamorous Version of Shepard Fairey's Obama Poster Up for Auction

This version of Shepard Fairey's 2008 Barack Obama poster, one of 200 prints the artist signed for campaign staff, will go up for auction at Bonham's on January 11. The auction house estimates its likely sales price at £1,000-1,500 ($1,546-2,319 at current exchange rates).

Although not as famous as the later versions based on Mannie Garcia's A.P. photo, the image of the candidate is even more glamorous. Instead of the angle spoofed by The Onion as a calculated "looking-off-in-the-future pose," this poster features a closer-cropped semi-profile where the stylized light and shadow work more naturally. It doesn't show the candidate's standard-issue suit or his goofy-looking ears.

Not to underplay the glamour of the famous version, but that Obama looks more like a regular politician or businessman—a dreamy guy in a suit—compared to this one. Here he not only looks less calculated and ordinary but a bit less like a Communist dictator and more like someone you'd find on American currency.

The one false note is the placement of the campaign's horizon logo. On the more-famous poster, where it appears on Obama's lapel, it reads as a campaign button. Here it looks like the artist said, "Oh wait, where can I stick that logo? Here's some empty dark space."

Check out this cropped version to see what I mean about currency.

Did the campaign make a mistake to reject this image and prefer the later one? Or was that version more appealing?

Deeply Michelle: Is the First Lady Glamorous?

Editor's note: I'm often asked if Michelle Obama is glamorous. My usual reply is that she is stylish but that her appeal, like Sarah Palin's, is based on being an extraordinary version of an ordinary person and she (unlike her husband) thus lacks the mystery and distance for glamour. In this guest post Sarah Sá Couto, who blogs at First Order Goods, offers a different answer. What do you think? --VP

Michelle Obama is said to be you know who with a law degree, someone for whom fashion is second to social purpose, yet whose sartorial choices move markets. There is a general sense that she has brought glamour back to the White House, something that is greeted with wild applause and mild outrage. While we might appreciate her wardrobe in abstract, let it not be confused with glamour.

Virginia put it best when she called glamour a process of “idealization, glorification and dramatization” to achieve a particular purpose. In any given context, the first lady’s words, gestures and, yes, clothes project a vision that is larger than herself and loaded with meaning.

Michelle Obama was at her most glamorous during the presidential campaign. The purpose was simple and her proposition alluring: she, a striking woman and gifted speaker, high-powered executive and nurturing mother, exemplified how you can rise above your circumstances to fabulous heights. This idea was reflected in her dress code of smart, bold and feminine outfits. Young fashion designers gave her a modern air, while a touch of high-street made the dream seem accessible. The personal nature of her story and the confidence, even enjoyment, with which it was presented, made it look easy.

As first lady she continues to pose as an example of what is possible, but now pride has given place to conceit. In line with her husband’s message of openness, Mrs. Obama has welcomed thousands of people to the White House, to give them confidence to rise, as she says, from “mediocrity to fabulousness.” Her first major initiative ‘Let’s Move!’ serves to lecture kids and parents alike on the inadequacy of their way of life. All is delivered in great style, which at this point gives her an air of arrogance. Back on the campaign trail for the mid-term elections, she consolidated her fashion credentials, by wearing the latest trends from the hottest designers. The style was often relaxed and even flirty, in sharp contrast with the mood of the disenchanted electorate. As has often been said about her husband, she appeared out of touch. 

On the international stage, Michelle Obama may have won on the fashion stakes, but surely the point was to inspire trust and good will. An electric blue gown, combined with rhinestones, sapphires, glittery makeup, and elaborate hair was always going to stand out, if not outshine everyone in the picture. That was her solution to improve understanding with Mexico. In the first state dinner, meant to honor India, the first lady’s approach was to display her athletic figure in a strapless golden number, even though it was obvious that her guests would don saris and turbans. She looked dazzling, but did she inspire?

Another poignant moment was when the Obamas were received by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip for tea. Her outfit wasn’t particularly daring, but a voluminous black skirt, worn with high heels and high hair made her host, a formidable woman, appear frail by comparison. The Queen was actually compelled to remark on their height difference. If her purpose was to out-Queen the Queen, she succeeded. 

Decorum is not always the solution. The first lady can be young and beautiful and dress to impress when the occasion is right. She can even redefine the rules, but always with purpose in mind. In fashion matters, Mrs. Obama has repeatedly said that it is more comfortable for her to be “Michelle than it is to be first lady”. The result is very stylish and often dazzling, but her self-centered approach fails to inspire at home or abroad. Glamour involves something other than dressing up, it’s about dressing for.

[Photo from White House Flickr stream. Unlike every other blog, we don't steal copyrighted photos, much as we're tempted.]

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When Fashion Meets Political Function

[Editor’s Note: With this post, DG intern Crystal Hubbard, an aspiring television writer and organizer of the L.A. chapter of Liberty on the Rocks, joins our writing crew.]

“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image…” wrote art critic John Berger in his text on visual culture, Ways of Seeing. Berger’s perception hinges on the word “must,” implying that there is something inescapable about the female vigilance to appearance; something within her psyche that compels a woman to preen and then guard the finished product.

But it is one thing for a woman to watch herself at trivial and mundane events (though she will) and a completely different matter when she has committed herself to public service. Suddenly, a decision to wear (or not wear) X-item becomes a clue as to how she will vote, how she will govern, how she will wield power.

When Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) announced she would support the Senate’s motion to keep health care reform legislation alive, her historic decision—Lincoln’s was the last, and necessary, vote to further debate—was marked not with an accompanying dossier of accomplishments, but by what she was wearing. A relative unknown, Licoln chose to make her biggest senatorial moment into something almost not worth mentioning. “Her attire was school-principal prim—blue suit with knee-length skirt, orange silk scarf tied tightly at the neck,” wrote the WaPo's Dana Millbank. A meekly feminine showing, at best.

One has to wonder why she chose something so uninspired. A more memorable ensemble would have communicated that Lincoln realized she had climbed to the pinnacle of power, and had seized the national spotlight with an outfit worthy of the moment.

"My decision to vote on the motion to proceed is not my last, nor only, chance to have an impact on health-care reform," Lincoln said, having outlasted all the other pork-barrel beggars, and as Millbank noted, “She took a streetcar named Opportunism, transferred to one called Wavering and made off with concessions…”

If there is further motive—Lincoln is sure to remind her party, in the coming weeks of debate and deal making, of her solidifying vote—her propriety now becomes suspect. Following Berger’s observation to its logical conclusion, this may turn out to be only a penultimate moment for the senator from Arkansas, who gave a major piece of legislation a much-needed second wind, and may show up in something significantly more eye-catching the next time Harry Reid is found holding his breath.

 In his same essay, Berger also said, “men act, and women appear.” Which helps explain why fashion plays a less important role in the career of a male politico. Men are physically imposing without having to adorn themselves, and powerful just by being. If a man fails in the fashion—or appearance—department, we do not automatically question his judgment or ability to govern. We merely chastise him for not being mindful of the moment.

During a 2005 visit to Auschwitz to commemorate the liberation of Jewish prisoners, then-Vice President Dick Cheney sported an ill-advised parka, that, as Pulitzer Prize winner Robin Givhan wrote, made him look “like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults.” Former interim UN Ambassador John Bolton also received the Givhan treatment during his hastily made-up appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in the days leading up to his failed (permanent) appointment as Ambassador.

…when he settled in before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week to answer questions about his record, his philosophy and his intentions at the U.N., he looked as though he did not even have enough respect for the proceedings to bother combing his hair -- or, for that matter, straightening his tie, or wearing a shirt that did not put his neck in a chokehold. Bolton was one wrinkled suit away from being an insolent mess.

For men, we playfully mock and move on; for women, we analyze and critique ad nauseum. It’s one thing for Dick Cheney to look as though he should be clearing the driveway at Number One Observatory Circle; it’s another to say that since a woman looks like she could be the offspring of Tammy Faye Bakker we should question her political acumen. When the contentious results of the 2000 presidential election put Katherine Harris in charge, fair or not, the nation took one collective look and said, “Uh oh.”

We react this way because we count on women to “continually watch” themselves. And if our elected women aren't watching, if they too are schlepping around their closets like the worst of the boys, then they are—whether they know it or not—signaling that they are an aberration, out of touch with what it means to be a woman, and negligent of one of their most sacred weapons: themselves.

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Pretty Celebrities Sell Magazines: In Defense of Newsweek's Sarah Palin Cover

I am generally bored by the hysteria, pro and con, that surrounds Sarah Palin. As a bona fide coastal elitist intellectual snob, I can’t see voting for her. But neither do I share the visceral hatred for her or her fans. (Megan McArdle dubs it Palinoia.) I consider her intelligent but ignorant and unworldly. I even liked her convention speech.

That said, the flap over the Newsweek cover shot is as ridiculous as it is predictable. I’ve read enough comment threads over the years to know that conservatives regularly make a point of proudly declaring that their female icons are good looking compared to the old hags on the other side. When did they suddenly adopt politically correct second-wave feminist attitudes toward female beauty, even in the public sphere? 

Like it or not, Sarah Palin’s good looks are a big part of her superwoman appeal: governor, earth mother, and sportswoman, with a pretty face and a great body despite all those pregnancies. Besides, I seem to recall some widely circulated topless beach shots of the current commander-in-chief. (Not to mention Condi Rice strutting in those great black boots.) There’s no double standard, except for the one that says if you have bad legs, we don't want to see you in shorts.

There are, of course, problems with the photo, which was taken for Runner's World and was supposed to be embargoed for a year. Nonetheless, it’s clear what Newsweek editors were thinking when they picked it: This is going to sell magazines. (The controversy is a bonus. Free publicity!) Journalism is in survival mode. This is not a time to get squeamish about using the most commercial photo available. 

The cries that the cover is “sexist” assume two things: First, that women in public life should not be portrayed as consciously, proudly, sexily attractive. Male politicians can be obviously good looking, but conspicuously attractive women aren’t sufficiently serious. (Maybe we’ll make an exception if you look sufficiently high-end WASP.) And, second, that Newsweek doesn’t like Sarah Palin—an assumption borne out by its cover headline. With different editorial framing, the photo would be read differently. (Pardon my bad mockup. I only had PowerPoint and a very balky iPhoto retouch function to work with.)

I do have one question: Is she wearing panty hose?

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Glamour Flashback: Nixon-Kennedy Televison Debates

This Saturday is the 49th anniversary of the first presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The debate marks a turning point in American political history—the point when television caught up with (and surpassed) newspapers and the radio as the most influential element media through which to campaign.

Nixon famously underestimated the visual power of TV. He refused makeup, against the advice of his television advisor, Ted Rogers, even though he'd just regained health after a two-week illness. As a result, he appeared tired and run-down.

Kennedy, on the other hand, was the picture of health, tanned and ready after campaigning in California—a "bronze warrior," as Rogers described him. The perfect picture of mid-century strength, youth, and masculine glamour.

The radio audience considered Nixon the winner, but unfortunately for Nixon, that moment coincided with a shift in the public's behavior. Kennedy's youth and vigor appealed to the television audience, who thought he won the debate.

The momentum Kennedy picked up at that first debate proved too much for Nixon, in 1960, anyway. The lesson Nixon learned the hard way - never underestimate the visual impact of health and glamour—was burned in every rising politico's brain.

In recent years, we've seen another shift in media and glamour, as the particular charms of the Internet force candidates to learn how to respond quickly and effectively to a constituent base made up of citizen journalists. Being able to adeptly manage messages is even more difficult now than it was in 1960. But the importance of glamour is still there—just ask will.i.am. Even today, politicians hope to capture the healthy, young, exciting energy that Kennedy so effortlessly projected back in September 1960.

A look at the Nixon/Kennedy debates and the impact they had on the election:

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Glamour & Terror in The Baader-Meinhof Complex

The Baader-Meinhof Complex, now playing in U.S. theaters, tells the story of the West German domestic terrorists who called themselves the Red Army Faction. Over about a decade, beginning in the late 1960s, they committed increasingly brutal acts, from bank robberies to kidnappings and murder, in the name of global revolution.

Christopher Hitchens, writing in Vanity Fair, called the movie “the year’s best-made and most counter-romantic action thriller.” Others have been less approving. The LAT’s Kenneth Turan deemed it “an exploitation film on a socially conscious subject, the equivalent of Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ having a love child with ‘The Fast and the Furious.’” When it was released in Germany last fall, some felt it was “a little too sexy for comfort” and trafficked in “terrorist-chic.”

“The film portrays one murder after another without any sense of meaning, any explanation,” Ulrike Meinhof’s daughter Bettina Röhl, who was abandoned to a Palestinian orphanage by her terrorist mother, complained in an interview with the Associated Press. She said that “in nonverbal but very suggestive ways, the film insinuates that their motivations for terrorism are understandable.”

These contradictory reactions reflect an uncomfortable fact about terrorism and political extremism: To the right audience, they can be very glamorous. They promise purity and meaning, attention and fame and a sense of belonging. Evil does not always appear ugly and unappealing. It can even be sexy.

“Terror is glamour,” said Salman Rushdie in a 2006 interview with an incredulous Der Spiegel reporter. It was an astute observation.  “The suicide bomber’s imagination,” he noted, “leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people’s lives.” What The Baader-Meinhof Complex reminds us is that the glamour of terrorism extends not only to those who actively engage in such violent acts but to the broader public that admires or justifies those actions.

Intentionally or not, this movie about violent leftists illuminates the mass psychology of fascism. (Or maybe seeing crowds of Germans chanting and raising their fists just makes me think of Hitler.) Hitchens writes:

Consumerism is equated with Fascism so that the firebombing of department stores can be justified. Ecstatic violence and “action” become ends in themselves. One can perhaps picture Ulrike Meinhof as a “Red” resister of Nazism in the 1930s, but if the analogy to that decade is allowed, then it is very much easier to envisage her brutally handsome pal Andreas Baader as an enthusiastic member of the Brownshirts.

In its descent from glamour to ever-greater brutality and degradation, however, The Baader-Meinhof Complex most resembles a movie with no political agenda: Casino. It is no more a defense of terrorism than Casino is an ad for the Mafia.

But, of course, glamour depends on the audience and so, then, does its deconstruction. German journalist Claudia Fromme, writing in the Times of London, recounted one disconcerting reaction:

As the credits rolled and the lights went up at a screening I attended in Munich, one member of the audience raised his fist in a gesture of sympathy.

He was barely 20 years old, munching popcorn and wearing a hooded jumper. The assiduously factual debunking of the “Baader-Meinhof myth” obviously did not work for everyone in the audience.

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Teddy, Obama, and Political Glamour

“Ted was the Kennedy who lived. He was, as a result, the Kennedy who wasn’t glamorous.”

Read the rest of my column at Forbes.com. During the campaign, I wrote this piece about Obama’s glamour.

[Photo by Flickr user ragesoss under Creative Commons license.]

From the Archives: North of 60 with Sarah--New Reality Show?

Editor's note: Kate originally published this post on October 16, 2008, but recent events make it worth a new look.

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic speculated about a Sarah Palin reality show, but you can tell he's not really familiar with the parameters of the genre. (Ophelia Swims came closer.) For a really successful series, you need an attractive protagonist (because they come into your home, every week), a lively and diverse supporting cast, and a location or situation in which conflict, resolution, and emotion can bloom.

North of 60 with Sarah

In this new reality series, former candidate for Vice-President, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, a forty-ish, flirty mother of 5 (!), juggles affairs of state, lost homework, disgruntled constituents, injunction-waving lawyers, wedding planning, and putting meat on the table. Think docu-drama meets C-Span, shot on location in the wilds of the frozen north.

In the first episode, spunky Sarah vetos anti-gill net legislation and an extended curfew for Willow with equal aplomb. Piper stows away on a float plane, but a quick thinking state trooper has her home for dinner.

Future episodes include a show-down between Sarah and Putin over fishing rights that's soon eclipsed by the furor raised by Bristol's determination to have a vegan wedding buffet.

Later, French premier Sarkozy shows up for a fly-fishing lesson--without his wife! Thanks to an emergency international call, the First Dude saves the day.

Sounds almost real, doesn't it? Have your people call my people. (Looks like cameras are rolling!)

(Apologies to the CBC.)

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Glamour on the Fourth of July

As holidays go, Independence Day is one of the less obviously glamorous. Parades and cookouts lack the dramatic excitement of New Year’s Eve champagne or Valentine’s roses. But that doesn’t mean that patriotism itself doesn’t have a glamorous face. Glamour and politics have been (somewhat uncomfortable) bedfellows since long before Rosie the Riveter, and they will remain that way long after Michelle Obama’s toned arms and Jason Wu ensembles have left the White House.

The role of glamour in U.S. politics is complicated at best. Glamour, as a concept, runs counter to the central notion of our government - that everyone is created equal. The result is kind of a mess, come election time. On both sides of the aisle, politicians try to appear simultaneously down-home (I connect with you) and glamorous (I'm so fabulous; you should aspire to be like me), sending mixed messages to a public that's mostly just tired of politicians anyway.

Maybe that explains why Fourth of July celebrations since the late 18th century have been more about parades and fireworks and getting dirty in the backyard than they have been about celebratory balls or fancy parties. Is it possible that this Saturday is the one day this year that we put aside our aspirations and, instead, act like we really are equal?

[War poster by Flickr user michal hadassah. Used under Creative Commons license. Original artwork by Cyrus C. Hungerford, 1944.]

Barack Obama: Super President

On the off chance you haven't already seen JibJab's latest satirical video, here it is.

It reminds me of a late-'60s Saturday morning cartoon I didn't believe was real when my husband first told me about it.

The Glamour of Battle

This British World War I poster, currently up for auction, repesents a calculated attempt to reinforce one of glamour's most ancient forms: martial glamour.

Though not himself a veteran, Frank Dadd, the illustrator, was from the generation portrayed by the old veteran in red. In a busy career, he painted many military scenes, whose accuracy was informed by his collection of arms and armor, but getting the clothes and equipment right isn't the same as portraying what a battle really looks like. (Not all Dadd's war pictures were so glamorous.)

The horrors of the Great War largely destroyed military glamour  in Britain. The Dadd family suffered along with the rest of the nation. Three of Frank Dadd's nephews were killed in the war, and another wounded. Dadd's own son survived physically but never recovered from shell shock.

Open Letter to Mary Schapiro, Chair of the SEC

I'd been struck by a story about the new chair of the SEC --Mary Schapiro, a DC lawyer who's been the head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, not because I'm so fascinated by finance but because I used to date her husband. I read the piece out loud at the breakfast table, and my ever-practical husband pointed out that even if I'd managed to snag the guy, it would have been highly unlikely that I'd have her job today. He was right-- I did have a little Walter-ette Mitty vision of myself in a Prada suit and an Hermes bag, swearing to keep stockbrokers honest

I'd gone out with Chas a long time ago in DC, but going out is a euphemism as we never went anywhere. I worked at the Smithsonian, in a job that was well suited for someone with a generous trust fund (i.e., not me), and he was in law school and clerking for a tiny stipend. He favored a retro preppy style, had deep blue eyes and a slight stammer. I favored tequila over white wine coolers, high heeled slingbacks over Jacques Cohen espadrilles, and having late-night fun over everything else. My southern housemate, Margaret, once remarked that she couldn't imagine what he saw in me. Her boyfriend, a recent Annapolis grad, gave me a sidelong glance--he knew exactly what the guy saw in me.  In Washington, in the late 70s, I could have been considered a walk on the wild side.

The only real date-date that I recall was an evening that should have clued me in to how wildly unsuited I was to the life of a Beltway lawyer. He asked me to go to the Messiah Singalong at the Kennedy Center--an annual event attended by people I considered to be older than dirt. Little did I realize that the senior partners of his firm were very keen on the activity. At 22, I had few ambitions besides a pair of suede boots at Garfinkels.

I managed to costume myself as a kindergarten teacher in a grey jumper, and we went, we sang, and then we went to an egg-nog party at a fellow clerk's apartment. The hostess, who had a raging crush on Chas,  was too polite to be bitchy to me, so instead tried to engage me in conversation about what she thought would be a favorite subject--Chas. Perversely, I opted to talk to a silver-haired guy who'd brought a bottle of scotch. We got on like a house afire.

On the way home, Chas was raving about my hither-to-unseen social skills. He'd been very impressed that I had managed to hold the attention of a big-deal Undersecretary of Something or Other. Too tipsy to be tactful, I pointed out that the Undersecretary was chiefly interested in getting into my underthings. Why else does anyone talk to a 22 year old girl?  He was a little shocked. He hoped I hadn't been inappropriate.  I pointed out that inappropriate seemed pretty interesting to him. He stopped calling soon after.

The last time I saw him , Chas was recovering from surgery. He'd had a bout of testicular cancer, and naturally, I wanted to see the scar. "Don't be so prissy," I told him. "I've seen you naked about 1,000 times."  So he dropped trou, I made sympathetic noises, and as he zipped up, he said "Don't tell Mary."

And I didn't. Until now.

Is It Demeaning to Talk About Michelle Obama's Clothes?

 

In Thursday's WaPost, Jeanne McManus makes the case that it's perfectly all right to talk about Michelle Obama's clothes.

How to say this: I enjoy reading about Michelle Obama's clothes. I like to know what she's wearing, appreciate details about her shoes and gloves, wonder where she got her necklace. When she shows up at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, I'm not distracted from her message by being simultaneously informed that she is in a slate-gray suit.

Is it right about here that other women start throwing shoes at me?

In the stunning image of Michelle Obama, a woman of substance and of style (in this case, attention-getting, Vogue-worthy style), it is apparent that in Washington we don't always do a good job of acknowledging those two sides of the same woman -- or of allowing them to coexist. Hawk-eyed consumers of mainstream media are ready to pounce anytime a reporter covering Mrs. Obama goes off message and writes about her clothes.

You should read the whole article, which as of this writing has garnered 299 reader comments (many of them idiotic partisan rants of various flavors, as is the custom in such forums) and is the sixth most viewed article.

It reminds me of the short but strange discussion that broke out on Brad DeLong's econ blog after he ran a picture of me and someone asked about my shoes. In liberal-intellectual land, there still seems to be a prevailing notion that women of substance--or liberal women of substance, as opposed to libertarians like me--pay no attention to fashion. That makes Michelle Obama a problem.

But, as I noted in The Substance of Style, the opposition of style and substance isn't the historical or anthropological norm. It's a post-Victorian WASP hangup. To take one relevant exception: African Americans have, since slave days, realized that style can be not just a source of great personal pleasure but a public assertion of dignity and personal worth. It's probably no accident that two of the country's most eminent and intellectual fashion correspondents, the WaPost's Robin Givhan and the WSJ's Teri Agins, are African American. I was Givhan's contemporary at Princeton and, believe me, no intellectually respectable white girl would have admitted to being interested in clothes. We were still living in the shoe-throwing culture McManus writes about--the same culture that left Hillary Clinton unable to cope with her hair.

Besides, if it's silly to talk about Michelle Obama's clothes, it's a lot sillier to talk about Barack Obama's hoops skills. Just think of fashion as sports for women.

Check out The Black Snob's smart-and-pretty Michelle Obama fashion retrospective, from which I stole the photo above. It's a year old, but still good. (More recently, she had a good rant on the NAACP's historically clueless crusade against "poofy dresses.")

The Hair Club for Governors

Poor Roland Burris, turned away at the Capitol door got me thinking about everyone's favorite governor, Rod Blagojevich.

More specifically, it got me thinking about Gov. Blagojevich's hair.

His hair has been discussed before, sure (Salon wrote, "Blagojevich may not be bright, but he's good looking," which I have to disagree with, but I assume they couldn't look beyond that massive think mane of his.), but it's also been SEEN before. Where? On just about every other governor in the U.S. of A.

Why, just look at Texas Governor Rick Perry:   

That is some hair, am I right?!? And his posture, his smile, it all seems very familiar, like another Texas governor from the past. No! Not that one! THIS ONE.

In fact, there is quite a string of thickly coiffed governors in this great nation of ours:

 
That's NM Gov. Bill Richardson on left, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (which was unfortunately labeled "photo-sexoffender[1]" from the state's media site when I downloaded it)  in the center, and the best governor name EVER, Butch Otter, governor of Idaho on the right.

BUT WAIT! There's more!

Always Wear Sunscreen: Hyannisport Edition

So Caroline Kennedy isn't up on the concerns of Upstate New York. Who did you think she was, Hillary Clinton after a listening tour?

But what about skin care? Isn't that something rich Upper East Side ladies are supposed to be experts on? Or is there a double standard for Kennedys?

Cuba--The Anti-Mall

In  the NY Times Sunday magazine, Roger Cohen rhapsodizes about his sojourn in Cuba. Like most Americans of a certain mindset, he likes the non-commercial aspects of the place:

The absence of visual clutter — no ads, no brands, no neon signs — leaves the mind at peace. Fidel’s colossal stubbornness has delivered a singular aesthetic, striking in the age of globalized malls.

I wish I had a dollar for everyone who's ever been to Havana and gushed about all the cool old cars.  My former brother-in-law once told me that Americans love Cubans because they're all so thin--rationing works!  The rest of his family  came here on a raft.

Blogger Yoani Sanchez, who has no ticket out, recently won the Jury Prize  in  the Deutsche Welle International Weblog Awards -- The BOBs--and has been organizing a meeting of  Cuban bloggers for this weekend.  The meeting was canceled by order of the Interior Ministry.

We want to warn you that you have transgressed all the limits of tolerance with your rapprochement and contacts with counter-revolutionary elements. This totally disqualifies you for dialog with Cuban authorities.

The activities planned for the coming days cannot carried out.

We, for our part, will take all measures, make the relevant denuciations and take the necessary actions. This activity, in this moment in the life of the Nation, recuperating from two hurricanes, will not be allowed.

It's really a pity that the PTB at the NYT didn't link to her blog.  Besides dodging the secret police, Sanchez can't even post her own entries.  Instead she  e-mails  them to friends outside of Cuba who update her blog. 

What Happens to the Posters After Election Day?

Like Batman or the Virgin of Guadalupe, Barack Obama's face has become an icon of popular devotion--unusual in American politics. As long as the election campaign is still going on, the Obama imagery is inspiring but innocuous, combining the escapist glamour of a tween's Hannah Montana bed linens with the fan enthusiasm of a Tony Romo jersey. While Obamania may seem excessive to outsiders, so do Comic-Con and Clemson tailgating parties. Besides, some of the merchandising is just that--an entrepreneurial way of playing to the passions of the moment. "Yes We Can Cola" is all in fun. (And Jones Soda did make other campaign colas.)

If Obama is elected president, however, the man in the pictures is no longer a symbol of identity and aspiration. He's the boss, "Leader of the Free World." He has power. Ubiquitous images of his face take on a creepy Dear Leader quality, implicitly commanding obedience. As Kaelan Smith wrote in an article about Shepard Fairey's famous Obama posters: 

“Can anyone think of a time,” I asked, “when a presidential candidate used an image of himself as a primary campaign logo?” None of us had been alive during the Great Depression or the subsequent Great War, so we agreed unanimously that we hadn’t. Then a woman at the table said, “I suppose you see pictures like that of Castro in Cuba.” That reminded me of a trip I’d taken recently to Jordan. When I walked across the border from Israel I’d seen the huge, benevolent faces of King Hussein and his son, King Abdullah II. In fact, they had been everywhere, from the small, goat-herding villages along the highway, in Petra on a wall near my hotel, and in every shop throughout Amman.

In the United States there are not laudatory images of Bush hanging in stores or in living rooms, at bus stops or on billboards. But if Obama gets elected in November, thanks to Shepard Fairey’s efforts, his face will already be a ubiquitous, public image; I hesitate to, but must say, like the monarchs of the Middle East and the dictators of the remaining autocracies.

In an interview Fairey assured Smith that his imagery “anti-propaganda propaganda” that, he suggested, is “coming from a position of moral integrity.” In other words, he believes it, or at least believes it's in a good cause. The Obama posters were, of course, based on the famous propaganda image of Che Guevara. John McCain may suggest that Obama is a socialist. Fairey, a man of the left, literally paints Obama as a communist--which may involve as much wishful projection as the belief in other quarters that the candidate is a secret free-trader.

Although campaign posters are surely a form of propaganda, the Obama imagery is so empty of specific exhortation that we do better to think of it as a manifestation of the candidate's glamour--a seductive illusion in which the audience sees whatever they themselves desire. Glamour is manipulative, but not coercive. It requires the audience to suspend its skepticism and the object to maintain his mystery, a tacit form of cooperation. Give the object the power to compel devotion, and glamour is suddenly neither sustainable nor necessary.

Mary Ann Akers Ignores Union Rate for McCain's Makeup Artist

Back when I blogged at Fishbowl LA, I took the view that East Coast journalists usually failed when trying to cover show biz. 

Case in point:

Mary Ann Akers, the Washington Post's The Sleuth (and boy! how the mighty have fallen if she's their crack investigative reporter, er, gossip blogger) gets all a-jitter over McCain's makeup artist, Tifanie White.

The make-up artist to the wannabe-stars is getting paid beaucoup bucks to make McCain, 72, more telegenic.

White got paid $8,672.55 in September to work on John McCain. White's got a big list of credits and an Emmy nomination. As a union makeup artist, her day rate is around $550 for a 10 hour day. Her pay's not even close to what a key artist, working on a feature film, could make. If that's beaucoup bucks, the Post is in worse shape than I thought. 

Akers is really rather lame, as  so many others agree.

The Politics of Headshots

Last week, Fox News set off a short-lived controversy when it attacked Newsweek for not retouching the magazine’s larger-than-life cover photo of Sarah Palin. Calling the headshot “ridiculously unfair to her,” anchor Megyn Kelly declared that “any respectable magazine should be doing a little retouching.”

Demanding that a news magazine manipulate photos in order to remain “respectable” may seem odd, all the more so since Governor Palin looks quite attractive in the photograph. But the criticism reveals more than ratings-plumping partisan grievance. In an image-savvy culture, we’re increasingly forced to consider just what constitutes a valid portrait. The way most of us instinctively answer the question demonstrates the difference between objectivity and truth.

Consider the apolitical act of selecting a personal headshot: a bridal photo, a website image, an author portrait. You don’t just face the camera and accept the first photo that come out. That’s for driver’s licenses, mug shots, and security badges—the ID photos most people find not only embarrassing but somehow untrue. At the very least, you want to choose a shot where your eyes are open, your smile looks genuine, and your cowlick is under control.

If strangers’ snap judgments matter, you go for a bit more artifice. Take an attractive single friend of mine. When she moved to Los Angeles, she signed up with an online dating service, using a handy snapshot to illustrate her profile. She got no inquiries. Then she hired one of the many local photographers who specialize in actors’ headshots. With exactly the same profile information but a more professional photo, my friend was suddenly inundated with emails from prospective dates. She didn’t even use retouching or special makeup. The difference she says, “was the lighting, the camera angles, plus the sheer volume of shots.” She had hundreds to choose from.

Partisans demand that magazine portraits glamorize their heroes for the same reason my friend hired a professional photographer. Humans seem hard-wired to assume that good-looking means good and, conversely, to equate physical flaws with character flaws. We may preach that beauty is skin deep, but we’re equally certain that portraits “reveal character.” In a media culture, we not only judge strangers by how they look but by the images of how they look. So we want attractive pictures of our heroes and repulsive images of our enemies.

Read the rest on TheAtlantic.com.

North of 60 with Sarah--New Reality Show?

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic speculated about a Sarah Palin reality show, but you can tell he's not really familiar with the parameters of the genre. (Ophelia Swims came closer.) For a really successful series, you need an attractive protagonist (because they come into your home, every week), a lively and diverse supporting cast, and a location or situation in which conflict, resolution, and emotion can bloom.

North of 60 with Sarah

In this new reality series, former candidate for Vice-President, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, a forty-ish, flirty mother of 5 (!), juggles affairs of state, lost homework, disgruntled constituents, injunction-waving lawyers, wedding planning, and putting meat on the table. Think docu-drama meets C-Span, shot on location in the wilds of the frozen north.

In the first episode, spunky Sarah vetos anti-gill net legislation and an extended curfew for Willow with equal aplomb. Piper stows away on a float plane, but a quick thinking state trooper has her home for dinner.

Future episodes include a show-down between Sarah and Putin over fishing rights that's soon eclipsed by the furor raised by Bristol's determination to have a vegan wedding buffet.

Later, French premier Sarkozy shows up for a fly-fishing lesson--without his wife! Thanks to an emergency international call, the First Dude saves the day.

Sounds almost real, doesn't it? Have your people call my people. (Looks like cameras are rolling!)

(Apologies to the CBC.)

Sarah Palin's Animal House and Banksy's Pet Store

Sarah Palin decorated her Alaska office with a massive bearskin, shot by her father. Shawn Henderson at the Huffington Post is appalled.  (Who he? The eBay design director. Who knew they had one?)

Taxidermy is a tricky subject--animal lovers hate it, no matter how long ago the animal died, decorators love it, especially the out sized and/or rare.  The September Vanity Fair ran a story by Olga of Greece, (royals don't use last names, except for the Windsors, who aren't really named Windsor, but that's a different story) about the rebirth of the famed French animal stuffing atelier,  Deyrolle, after a devastating fire.

Apartment Therapy frequently riles up the faithful readership with posts featuring animal skins, heads, etc.

Mrs. Blandings has a nice retrospective going on,  as does The  House of Beauty and Culture.

Banksy takes the whole meme there and back again, by mounting McNuggets in a less-than-natural pose.

DIY Political Imagery

Browsing through Zazzle, the site we use to create and sell DG merchandise, is an interesting way to get a look at grassroots political enthusiasms, pro and con. OCTOBER 2 UPDATE: Zazzle is running a VP debate-day sale, $1 off on political stuff, enter promocode DEBATEDEALS2.

Who gets the lipstick vote?

Obama: Savior or Antichrist?

Browse more here:

Sarah Palin Style: MSM Floods the Zone

Please let this end soon. The media's fascination, horrified and other, with Sarah Palin's clothing, hair, eyewear, and shoes, is fast approaching not just sensory overload, but overcurrent.

Jodi Kantor in the NYT:

The governor, thin to begin with, began an elaborate game of fashion-assisted camouflage. When Vogue photographed her, five months pregnant, for a profile in January, she hid in a big green parka.

Because who wears a parka in Alaska in January? Omigod. When was the last time you saw someone visibly knocked up in Vogue?

Lauren Beckham Falcone on her hair  in the Boston Herald:

“It’s about 20 years out of date,” said Boston stylist Mario Russo of the Alaska governor’s ’do. “Which goes to show how off she might be on current events.”

Because the outside of your head indicates the inside. Or vice versa. Or something.  And Boston is all about hair.

Elizabeth Snead in the distastefully named Dish Rag at the LAT:

Let's hope pregnant teenage daughters aren't the next big craze Sarah inspires.

The commenters, unusual for the LAT, seem to think this is a cheap shot.

The London Times fashion team weighs in:

Remember those Utopian Donna Karan ads in olden times featuring a glamorous woman being sworn in ’neath the stars ’n’ stripes? SP does.

Oooh--I remember those. Donna must be freaking out. Who dreamed anyone would take those seriously?

And in a simile that's the ultimate compliment for any woman, AdAge quotes Harvard's John Quelch:

McCain has put a red Chevy Camaro in the garage next to his truck.

Thanks honey--do these rims make me look fat?

Sarah Palin and Cowgirl Glamour

A couple of years ago, when I was still living in Dallas, I drove over to Fort Worth to see a costume exhibit at the National Cowgirl Museum. I grew up east of the Mississippi and as much as I love the American West, I'm a dedicated urbanite. So I'd never seen, or even thought about, cowgirls. When I heard the word, I thought of people like  like this. (It could be worse.) I expected the museum to be stupid.

It wasn't. In stark contrast to the ridiculous Women's Museum in Dallas, which (the one time I visited it) featured a strange combination of populist kitsch and social-constructionist feminist dogma, the Cowgirl Museum showcased women of no-nonsense character, pioneer (and pioneering) achievement, physical daring, and unapologetic femininity. Full of inspiring role models, the museum presented a piece of feminist history that gets left out of the city-oriented accounts most of us learn. There's a reason Wyoming was the first state to let women vote and that the first female Supreme Court justice (a member of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame) came from Arizona. The thinly populated western frontier couldn't afford to waste women's talents (though Arizona and New Mexico were among the last states to give married women full property rights).

This all came back to me when I heard Sarah Palin's convention speech and thought about how so many smart--but parochially "cosmopolitan"--people miss the enormous appeal of her persona. She may have wrangled fish rather than cattle, but she shares the cowgirl tradition.

UPDATE: Alex Massie has further thoughts. And for more Sarah Palin stories, check out Quick Links at the top of our middle column.

Alaskans Line Up For a Whiff of Ivana--Sarah Palin on Glamour

Sarah Palin, a commercial fisherman from Wasilla, told her husband on Tuesday she was driving to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana.

And there, at J.C. Penney's cosmetic department, was Ivana, the former Mrs. Donald Trump, sitting at a table next to a photograph of herself. She wore a light-colored pantsuit and pink fingernail polish. Her blonde hair was coiffed in a bouffant French twist.

"We want to see Ivana," said Palin, who admittedly smells like salmon for a large part of the summer, "because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.

The Anchorage Daily News, April 3, 1996 

From Glamour to Horror

In an astute comment on my post on horror versus humor in McCain's "The One" ad, Jens Fiederer writes, "I don't think horror diminishes glamor, horror is a glamor of its own. Watch some vampire films if you doubt that. If this ad is supposed to evoke horror..., it works WITH the glamor to paint a glamorous arch-villain and encourage those convinced to choose sides."

Jens is absolutely right to that glamour and horror often go together. The original meaning of glamour was, after all, a literal magic spell cast to deceive the viewer into seeing things that weren't there. "When devils, wizards or jugglers deceive the sight, they are said to cast glamour o’er the eyes of the spectator," explained a 1721 glossary of poetry. The word's definition has obviously evolved, but glamour is still an illusion.

He's right, too, to single out vampires as a glamorous archetype. While horror comes in different forms, some decidedly unglamorous (e.g., Alien, Saw), a lot of horror, including vampire tales, depends on glamour: What starts out as beautiful and alluring is revealed to be terrible and life-destroying--and by then it's too late. Witness not only the vampire but the femme fatale, especially in her 19th-century form. Glamour promises escape and transformation; horror replaces escape with entrapment.

Sarah Palin on the Ticket and in Vogue

DG missed this issue.

Gov. Sarah Palin,  just announced as McCain's running mate, did indeed pose for Vogue last December.

Vogue's breathless caption read:

Besides being telegenic, she had a tough-girl Alaskan resume that most politicians could only dream of - the protein her family eats comes from fish she has pulled out of the ocean with her own hands and caribou she has shot.

But the cover? Alas, no.  She was joined by daughters Willow, Bristol and Piper for a spread on the inside of the February book.

Slate's Timothy Noah has the backstory on  Palin.

The Stars Are Just Like Us

John McCain isn't the only one trying to puncture Barack Obama's glamour. So is...Barack Obama.

"Barack Obama is lauded as everyman at Democratic convention" is the headline on this LAT story. The exotic background, cool exterior, and ethnic distance that helped create a glamorous aura in the early days (at least among white voters) have become potential liabilities in the general election. A glamorous icon enables audiences to project their hopes onto him--but they can also project their fears.

It's always been Michelle Obama's job to bring her husband's image back down to earth. She overdid it when she called him "stinky and snorey" and complained that he left dirty socks on the floor. That ordinary voters don't want--too much information. Last night's performance, however, was designed to create a more dignified image of Obama-as-regular-guy, mostly by association (the Robinsons as average American family). This was "Celebrities are just like us," going about their business shopping and taking their adorable kids to the park, not "Stars without makeup," looking sloppy and unattractive.

Towering over the microphone, Michelle was the picture of polished style. She has a model-like physique, made for elegant clothes, and obviously appreciates the shopping benefits of a salary in the range her husband Obama plans to sock with extra FICA taxes. People often compare her to Jackie Kennedy. But, she implicitly assured us last night, she won't be spending any summers cruising the Mediterranean with her princess sister on a Greek shipping tycoon's yacht. That kind of glamour today's politics won't tolerate.

[Photo via Barack Obama Flickr photostream under Creative Commons license.]

The Future Is a Windmill

Sleek, pristine, and elegantly modern, the blades of an advanced windmill turn in an unseen wind. Windmills have become the glamorous new symbol of clean energy and, like a stylized atom or rocket ship in the 1950s, of a hopeful future made possible by technological progress. As far as I know they haven't yet shown up in upholstery textiles or restaurant decor (give it time), but images of windmills are everywhere in this season's ads, political and otherwise. Obama has them. McCain has them. Boone Pickens has them. GE has them. An ad promoting Minnesota in the new issue of Fortune has them. Bank of America ATMs have them, promoting paperless online banking. Even Turkish Honda Civic ads have them.

These images epitomize grace, one of the essential components of glamour. The blades appear to turn effortlessly, generating energy without waste. They look as autonomous as a bird in flight. Everyone, including me, leaves out the massive power lines required to carry the electricity some place where it will be useful. These are glamorized images.

Like all glamour, these images create an illusion. The grubby details of wind energy aren't as pristine as the pictures. Generating and transmitting electricity is a complicated business, requiring unglamorous, behind-the-scenes labor and expertise--not to mention huge structures that the neighbors may not like. Even wind-energy promoter Boone Pickens admits that a wind farm isn't self-sufficient as a power source: "You've got to supplement it with a gas-fired or coal-fired source so whoever buys it gets continuous 24-7 generation."

Glamour is a "magic light" that distorts perceptions. Its allure depends on obscuring some details and heightening others. Experience and close examination tend to destroy glamour, often replacing it not with sober realism but something far more negative. Once disillusioned, the once-enchanted audience can become excessively cynical, unwilling to see anything good in what it once idealized. It's dangerous to depend too much on glamour. Just ask the nuclear power industry.

[Click photos to see larger versions.]

Horror or Humor?

Beyond the ordinary factors that give the Democrats an advantage this year, Barack Obama's glamour poses a huge problem for the McCain campaign. To destroy glamour, you have to change perceptions. You can try sober realism. But that lacks emotional punch. To strike at glamour's emotional core, horror and ridicule work better. Instead of telling the audience to ignore its desires and be rational, they replace desire with dread or derision. What was once inspirational becomes terrible or absurd.

McCain's "The One" attack ad (now in a new Denver convention version, above) is clearly an attempt to strip some of the glamour off Obama. That much is indisputable. Pundits are now arguing about whether the ad's imagery is intended as satire (the ridicule strategy) or as a veiled attempt to paint Obama as the Antichrist (the horror strategy). If you're a cool cosmopolitan character, it's hard to object to satire, even when directed at your favorite political figure. Irony is too much a part of your cultural milieu. Hence the appeal of the horror narrative: The ad isn't mocking Obama for messianic excess. It's literally portraying him as not just any old false messiah but the Antichrist.

What's interesting about this dispute is that it can't be resolved simply by looking at the ad. The interpretation is entirely in the audience's mind. The words and imagery that make Obama look ridiculously messianic are the same words and imagery that make him look like he's usurping the real Messiah's role. There's no way an ad meant to spoof him could avoid the charge of playing to fundamentalist fears. Do you find those words and images silly or scary? It depends on your cultural assumptions.

Though I'm not exactly a fan, I find it hard to believe that John McCain, a man whose humor is a major part of his persona and who clearly thinks Obama is a wet-behind-the-ears pretender, intended anything other than satire. The ad seems like obvious mockery. But it's impossible to disprove that someone in the campaign wanted a "dog whistle" to scare fundamentalists. Like glamour, humor is in the audience's mind. And the people who look at the ad and cry, "Antichrist" see only horror in the Republican base, imagining the worst. Hat tip: Megan McArdle