Serenity… an expedition

Random Confession – I love fashion stories about Michelle

dream a little dream

dream a little dream

Obama, that is,  although I think she has almost reached one name status.

I do, though, love the fashion stories – I know it’s reductive, that they often focus on her looks and what she is wearing instead of her intellect and personal achievements, and so on, but still… I love them. I even have been seeking them out, now that she’s doing the overseas thing, just to see what they are saying about her.

It’s not, mind you, that I care much about fashion and style – I don’t. I’m a jeans and t-shirt person myself, whose hairstyle can best be described as “no style at all” and while I might slap on a bit of lipstick before leaving the house (if I can find it), that’s about the extent of it.

It’s just that… well, it’s like my feeling about the new (one of these days?) Disney movie with finally a Black princess. If I was making it, that little princess would be as girly as could be – treasured and coddled and full of lace and ruffles and girlitude because, for our girl babies, in the view of some in the wider world, that IS the fairytale.

That little Black girls can be princesses instead of baby hos. Or that they can dream of gardens full of flowers and butterflies, singing birds and talking trees instead of hopped up cars and malt liquour and booty shaking.

I guess what I’d really love is for our girl babies (of color and not) to have a model – a bunch of real person or animated models, but not only actual runway type models – of coddled, pedastaled, pure and innocent, even helpless Black femininity to rebel against, as well known and accepted, expected by society as the Jezebel, Mammy or brute beast models of Black feminity are.  I don’t think the other images will ever be replaced- and I’m not sure they should be, as all those personalities and more exist within all cultures and societies, in females and males and they are not shameful in themselves, just when used as weapons.

That’s why I want a strong, valorous, straight backed, stern chinned, hero-complexed Black prince, too, but that’s another story.

Anyway, all the hoopla over our Black first lady’s fashions, looks, statuesque bearing and height and yes intelligence, grace and all of that, on a worldwide stage, is just one more step towards that fuller, complete image of Black womanhood and, I’m sorry Mrs. Obama, but I welcome each and every story about that. For now.

Update: Okay, I lied. This is too much even for my newfound love of fashion news. It is rather hilarious, though.

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Nanette is | Topic: drama queens beloved, feminism, random confession, womanism | Tags: None
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This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 am and is filed under drama queens beloved, feminism, random confession, womanism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. maia

    6:48 am on April 4th, 2009 2

    this is the way i feel too about michelle. the lil girl in me is just jumping up and down in glee. may we cross post this to raven’s eye. raveneye.org if so please drop an email at ravenseyeblog@gmail.com
    thanks!

  2. Nanette

    6:32 pm on April 4th, 2009 3

    Hi maia,

    Thanks much for commenting. I left a comment over at raven’s eye (which is a great site!), letting you know you can take what you want when you want.

    I have another piece I’m working on about Michelle, in response to a post someone put up a few days ago, will hopefully have that done soon (am a very slow, easily distracted writer ;) .

  3. Theriomorph

    1:08 pm on April 11th, 2009 4

    I react in a similar way – couldn’t care less about fashion, hate the value people put on ‘attractiveness’ – and, every time I see one of these media celebrations of how chic and cool and poised and gorgeous and etc. Michelle is, it makes me happy, because she is, of course, but of many kinds that aren’t usually celebrated so openly by our warped culture – she’s a woman of color who is tall and strong and not emaciated and athletic and unpretentious and undeniably graceful and attractive and grounded and visibly, audibly much more than her looks and style no matter how narrow the focus on her coolness – maybe more than anything she’s unapologetically all these things. And thank all that is divine for that – for role models, for general overdue rightness, for general sense of relief. And while I love artists and value artists as much (or more than) anyone, I notice that there’s relief for me, too, in the fact that she is a role model for women that is not about being an entertainer.

    Now can we talk about how freakin’ smart she is?

  4. Nanette

    6:51 pm on April 19th, 2009 5

    Yep, you’ve got it exactly, I think.

    Now can we talk about how freakin’ smart she is?

    Always! Also, though, I think we’ll be doing much more of that a bit later on. I believe that Michelle said she was going to do the “mom -in-chief” thing for a year, while she and the kids settled in. I’m really anxious to see what she does after that, especially after spending this time sort of establishing herself and building up a huge swell of support and popularity.

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