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The
Right to Bare Arms
Remember
Kim Carnes and the deadly, unending re-playing of “Bette Davis
Eyes”? If you can’t—and as I age I realize there are those
of you who were spared an adolescence of the “Baker Street,”
”Open Arms,” and ”Urgent, Urgent Emergency” soundtrack—you
ought to count your blessings. But if you’re of an age when
each time you turned on the radio you got sucker-punched by
Kim Carnes channeling Rod Stewart (a duo made in heaven, if
you think about it) then you might be able to understand why
Michelle Obama’s arms are becoming the new Bette Davis eyes.
Google them. Her arms are everywhere. They scandalize. They
inspire. They distract.
Or, to quote “Bette Davis Eyes”:
And she’ll tease you
she’ll unease you.
All the better just to please you.
She’s precocious and she knows just what
it takes to make a pro blush
She’s got M. Obama’s Arms.
And what a response they elicit. Chicago Tribune style
reporter Wendy Donahue opined about the First Lady’s attire
at the President’s first congressional address, “the season
is winter, the occasion was business and a sleeveless dress
was the wrong style at the wrong time.”
Fashion historians were quick to point out that Jackie Kennedy
wore sleeveless dresses—one during a State of the Union address,
if you can believe such effrontery!
M. Obama’s Arms elicit the analysis of cultural anthropologists.
One claims the public’s response is sexist (as if after the
public response to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s headbands and
ankles we don’t recognize sexism when we see it.) Another
claims it’s racist, inadvertently summoning a stereotype that
defines black women as emasculating and angry—not First Ladylike
enough.
William Jelani Cobb, a professor of American history at Spelman
College, thinks the uproar over “armgate” indicates something
malicious is afoot because people feel threatened by an accomplished
black woman who’s an imposing 5 feet, 10 inches tall.
And Maureen Dowd, always good for her thoughtful commentary,
said, “It is Michelle who looks as though she could easily
wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff, and all
the corporate creeps who ripped off America.”
This was part of the column that began with her and David
Brooks in a cab en route to the British Embassy where they
were talking about—no, not Bette Davis eyes, but M. Obama’s
Arms.
Or—my personal favorite is this carping comment from the blog
momslikeme: “If I came to work with bare arms, I would be
sent home to change, or requested to put a sweater/cardigan
on. I think Michelle should have done the same. First Lady
is a job. If she didn’t want it, she shouldn’t have supported
her husband’s campaign to be President. Her function isn’t
to be the White House fashionista, it’s to be a First Lady.
Next time, she needs to cover it up.”
Oh, come on, give me a break. Or give her a break.
She didn’t invent the bicep. Or the sleeveless dress. But
we’ve just invented Michelle Obama as an icon of both. And
maybe that’s OK, right? She doesn’t have to be Carla Bruni
Sarkozy, the scantily-clad chanteuse seductively spread across
the pages of French fashion magazines.
But can’t we love her for substantive things?
“Mrs.
Obama’s super-sculpted arms are the result of years of effort,”
writes Jodi Kantor in The Caucus blog. That
might more fairly be said of her Harvard law degree.
“In
many ways it’s [M. Obama’s Arms] the perfect accessory for
the times,” Wendy Donahue concluded. “They cost nothing except
maybe a gym membership or a couple of 15-pound [weights] that
you can use in your home.”
Lisa Armstrong of the New York Times Online doesn’t agree
that arms-as- accessory is low-cost.: “It takes time, effort
and probably a bit of money to hone a sightly pair, so maybe
toned arms are the new stealth-wealth, non-status status symbol.”
Wow. So-long Coach handbags. Armstrong goes on, “perhaps arms
aren’t being sexualized so much as fetishized and anxiously
courted as the latest emblems of girl-power and success.”
Hello amended Second Amendment: Give girls the right to bare
arms.
But as if all this isn’t silly enough, Mandi Norwood, whose
book, Michelle Style: Celebrating the First Lady of Fashion,
comes out in May, sees Michelle Obama’s arms as essential
to the future of the country.
She writes, “toned arms are one of the few signs of youth.
. . . When we see our first lady’s arms . . . they just remind
us that we have this very youthful presidency in office. .
. . If nothing else, we hope the strength and passion of youth
will get us through these trying times.”
And Bonnie Fuller on The Huffington Post assures us that “Michelle’s
also giving us another not-so-subtle message—she’s strong
and tough. Those arms with their well-defined biceps . . .
look powerful enough to wrap around a distressed nation and
lift it up.”
My, oh, my. She’s got a lot of weight on her shoulders.
And she’ll tease you
she’ll unease you.
All the better just to please you.
She’s precocious and she knows just what
it takes to make a pro blush.
But she’s got M. Obama’s Arms.
—Jo
Page
graepage@gmail.com
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