The Obamas as a Reflection of America
Philosophers, pundits, and people today never tire of asking, “What does it mean to be American?” This question will always resist an easy answer, but one as clear as any is provided by our president and first family. Americans have had fifty-seven opportunities to elect this leader, someone who can be viewed as “a sign of the times” and an indication of the values, hopes, and fears of their country. A careful examination can be a revelatory exercise, and for this reason, one need only turn to Barack, Michelle, Sasha, and Malia Obama, to begin a dissection of the American body politic.
By sitting down for interviews and opening up the White House for a look inside, by crafting a portrait of a marriage that’s both recognizable, and at the same time almost “too good to be true,” Michelle and Barack show the world what it means to be living in America in 2013. The Obamas are acutely aware of this position in society, and by carefully managing the presentation of their marriage and domestic life they use their position to project an image of “family values” that is both conservative and progressive at the same time. Over time, they have turned themselves into the most potent of political weapons, which they manage with incredible skill and aplomb. By placing this carefully nuanced portrait of family life at the intersection of politics, society, and history, the Obamas tell Americans where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re headed.
A good indication of where we are came from the pages of a magazine. The cover of Good Housekeeping in May 2010 issue featured a beatific Michelle Obama, hands gently clasped, wearing a pearl necklace and an elegant, demure dress. This was a collector’s issue; the magazine’s 125th year anniversary was being celebrated. If that wasn’t enticing enough, the headline text promised readers that they would hear of Obama “overcoming her biggest fear, keeping her marriage close, raising healthy kids– and her one secret vice” (Ellis1). In the pages that followed, editor in chief Rosemary Ellis queried Obama on a variety of topics, the questions ranging from the familiar, “What gives you the energy to get through your days?” to the more relevant to her elevated position, “What do you miss most about private life? Things like running out to Starbucks?” to the ones absolutely unique to her role as First Lady, “Do you worry more about his [Barack Obama] safety now that he’s President?” Throughout the article, Obama gives answers that are pedestrian and predictable, almost excruciatingly so. To the first question, she replies that “the hope and the excitement” of the American people is what energizes her; the answer about what she misses most is apparent before it’s even stated: “The little nothings in life.”
What do these exchanges reveal? About Michelle Obama, not very much - but about America, quite a bit. We hear through the voice of Ellis the questions of a public concerned with faith, family, and personal values. As the voice for these concerns, Ellis echoes her reading public. Good Housekeeping is one of the most popular of all the women’s magazines in the contemporary market, and has a long and storied history. It is one of the “Seven Sisters,” a family of magazines marketed to married women, and while the roles and expectations of women have undergone vast changes since it began to be published in 1885, it remains popular and can boast of being the sixth most popular magazine in America (“Top 25 U.S. Consumer Magazines”). It tries to stay resolutely “middle of the road” in order to appeal to a wide slice of the American public, and, in her carefully considered answers, so too does Michelle Obama.
It wasn’t always this way. The Michelle Obama of the Good Housekeeping article is a creation, a carefully constructed ideal made necessary because the Michelle who grew up Black on Chicago’s South Side, who attended Princeton and Harvard, who out-earned her husband while working as a lawyer, who spoke her mind as he was embarking on a political career was someone many Americans found threatening (Griffin 137). The Michelle Obama of Good Housekeeping exists in what Farah Griffin calls a “safe zone” (137), a zone in which topics like being the self-anointed “Mom-in-chief” (Ellis 6), your husband, and the importance of faith are paramount. By placing herself in this safe zone, Obama has defanged her critics, the ones who took such exception to her opinions early in her husband’s political career.
During her husband’s first run for the presidency in 2008, commentators made hay of her myriad comments regarding her family, identity, and opinions. She spoke her mind when she stated, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country” (Griffin 134). This was said in the context of a speech about hope, the theme of her husband’s campaign, in which she “was suggesting that people like her gain a sense of pride through working to make their nation better” (Griffin 134). The sentiment mirrors that in Good Housekeeping, but the words do not, and were too easy to take out of context. After that speech, the rival candidate’s wife, Cindy McCain – a wealthy, White beer heiress - began to emphasize often “I have always been proud of my country!” Argues Lauret (101), Americans weren’t quite prepared for her exclamation “You just haven’t seen us before!” on Good Morning America, “us” creaking under the weight of its many supposed meanings: successful, confident, outspoken, combative, and most importantly, African American women. These and other opinions led Parks and Roberson to speculate in 2008 that it “could ultimately leave voters fearing that she is an ‘angry black woman’ and too ‘womanish’ for her own and Barack Obama’s good” (Parks). In fact, her husband’s campaign ran focus groups in which she was perceived as “unpatriotic,” “entitled,” and “angry” (Griffin 137).
A transformation was necessary. Griffin points to her speech at the Democratic Convention in 2008 as the turning point of this process: Gone were references to being the descendants of slaves and slave owners. Instead “she acknowledged her debt to the civil rights and women’s movement without lingering on these subjects. She stressed education without referring to her own elite educational pedigree. She was neither threatening nor loud. She was soft and feminine” (137). This transformation yielded results: Gallup tracked her favorability rating among Americans from a low of 43% on the eve of the Convention until it reached a high of 72% ten months later (Jones, “Favorable Ratings”). To the present day, she maintains favorability ratings in the high 60’s and Michelle Obama has consistently been ranked as the single most popular figure in her husband’s administration (Jones, “Remains Popular”).
It is this Michelle on full display in Good Housekeeping, whose constant refrain is singing the praises of her husband and the happiness she derives from her role as mother and wife. In a most telling exchange, Ellis brings up Obama’s elite schooling as she asks, “Here’s one thing I’m curious about: How did Harvard Law prepare you for parenting?” (Ellis 3). One could easily imagine the pre-transformation Michelle Obama bristling; she might ask, “How many male graduates would be asked such a silly question?” Instead, she replies, “Oh, goodness! [Laughs] I think it’s all the experiences along the journey, and Harvard was one of the many important stops along that journey. But it’s the culmination of experiences that prepares you. Parenting has so much to do with common sense and patience and remaining open.” Soft and feminine, neither threatening nor loud, spouting tropes and truisms, Obama has become keenly aware of the role she is required to play, and play it she will.
Is this calculated presentation of domestic life inauthentic? That’s arguable; what’s not is that there is very real evidence that the American public adores it. In a comprehensive study, Valerie Sulfaro examined the attitudes and perceptions of Michelle Obama’s two predecessors in the role of first lady: Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton. To explain the real differences in approach to the office, Sulfaro examines two types of modern first lady, the traditional and the activist. The former, as represented by Laura Bush, adheres more strictly to accepted gender and domestic norms; the latter, typified by Hillary Clinton, takes a more prominent role politically. The popularity of Laura Bush, attested to by Gallup’s consistently sky high approval ratings, is ascribed to her “more traditional role of first lady. She has focused her efforts on noncontroversial causes such as children’s literacy, which is generally considered to be a valence issue (no one is opposed to it)” (Sulfaro 489).
Has Michelle Obama taken this lesson to heart? One need only look back to Good Housekeeping to hear her speak of her two pet projects: combating childhood obesity (Ellis 6) and providing support for military families (7), valence issues if there ever were any. According to Sulfaro, “The relative absence of political activity by Laura Bush (she appeared in some campaign commercials in 2004 with President Bush and did not speak, but merely offered sympathetic nods) simply may not elicit the level of dislike that an active, highly partisan first lady such as Hillary Clinton does” (490). The invective hurled at Hillary Clinton is the stuff of legend; during her husband’s first run for the presidency she was pilloried in the press and labeled “The Lady Macbeth of Arkansas” by The American Spectator. Suffice it to say that Michelle Obama, who early in her husband’s campaign had been tagged by the National Review as “Mrs. Grievance,” no doubt wanted to avoid the pitfalls experienced by Hillary Clinton, a most activist of first ladies. She has steered a clear course, absolutely embodying Gil Troy’s idea that Americans “want equality, but find traditional sex roles soothing” (3).
This paradox, that Americans want their progressivism while at the same time rushing for comfort to conservative notions of tradition, lies at the very heart of the Obama mystique. This ideal, that we can make progress towards a more perfect union while still retaining the values that have grounded our country, has been seized by our first family, and rather than merely espouse this ideal, they embody it.
For proof, one need only open the pages of O magazine. More than an interviewer, Oprah Winfrey herself is a willing participant in a dance between reality, image, and idealism. As the only Black female billionaire in the world, she built a media empire from nothing, pioneering a type of “confession-as-entertainment” that became a phenomenon. An interview with Oprah means a lot more than answering questions; it means confessing, opening up, and stripping away all pretense. As one of the few Americans known on a first name basis by the whole country, Oprah wields incredible influence and has the trust of a vast segment of the American populace (The Oprah Effect). She is a perfectly constructed ideal herself, an up-from-poverty American Dream success story, and it is only fitting that she was invited to interview the first politician that she ever endorsed.
In July 2012, four years into Obama’s presidency and in the middle of his reelection campaign, he and Michelle sat down in the White House with Oprah Winfrey. She sets the stage for her audience:
You could almost see the weight of the job resting on his shoulders as he strolled past the silk-covered walls and gilt framed oil paintings, yet he still had that easy positivity and casual flair. (He may be the leader of the free world, but Barack Obama was down-to-earth enough to help move a coffee table for the photographer.) Michelle Obama, meanwhile, had a poise and bearing that emanated “First Lady” – until the president jokingly told her she had something stuck in her teeth.
Already, before the interview has even begun, we have the choreographed dance. There is very little tension between the image of majesty and power on the one hand, and the “They’re just like us!” moments on the other. As the passage above shows, their presentation to Oprah of who they are is carefully built around subsuming the ideal (“leader of the free world” “poise and bearing”) within the familiar (“down-to-earth” “something stuck in her teeth”). There is nary an example of power or ability that isn’t quickly minimized. Importantly, by choosing Winfrey as their medium of presentation, the Obamas have an ally, someone more than willing to perpetuate the image they want disseminated.
The image of themselves the Obamas create is that of a traditional American family, but they don’t stop there – it’s undeviatingly, ferociously perfect. Barack is effusive in his love for his family, “I already love them so much,” and “They are my balance” (2), showing not a trace of the remote or emotionally distant father. Michelle too, sings his praises as family man when asked what he does to make her feel “loved and appreciated”: “...when he walks in the door every night, it’s like the light goes on in him and he is all focused on us” (2). This is a family that functions well, but lest the audience think they function too well, Michelle and Barack do disagree: when asked by Oprah about what chores they’re good at, Michelle answers and then asks her husband the same question pointedly, to which he responds, “Well, according to you, none. [All laugh.] But what I lack in skill I make up for in enthusiasm”(8). A husband gently ribbed by his wife on the topic of household chores, then laughter all around: a tiny wrinkle quickly smoothed over in the perfect domestic tapestry.
The parade of the familiar is unrelenting. A story about daughter Malia telling her Dad that he’s “just the right amount of embarrassing,” segues into her adding that “when I’m happy, you’re happy,” to which Oprah purrs, “That means you’re doing a good job” (7). Michelle and Barack name pizza as their favorite meal to share (8) and the audience gets to hear Barack’s personal prayer, which, to no one’s surprise, exalts his family: “Thank you for the joy of my family, and making me an instrument in your world” (7). Overall, the portrait is of an almost perfect, faith bound, traditional nuclear family, positively Rockwellian in its existence barely within the realm of believability.
Why such a carefully scripted presentation? One could argue that politicians always try to present themselves as paragons of virtue and morality in order to win votes. I will accept this, but take it one step further: for Obama and the first family, rather than merely using their projected family image for political benefit (which they do), it has become an absolute necessity because of who they are. The progressive/traditional paradox of American society and politics mentioned above demands a counterbalance to the fact that Obama is the nation’s first non-White president; the First Family provides it in their strict adherence to the image of a traditional family.
Bewilderment, hostility, misinformation, and unease have accompanied Barack Obama’s political rise. As noted by Sandman, “As the [2008] presidential campaign began, surveys found a good number of voters expressing a lack of familiarity with Senator Obama’s background and an uncertainty about his values” (7). Addressing these attitudes four years later, Oprah herself confronts Obama with the fact that “11 percent of Americans overall still think you are Muslim”(Winfrey 6). The image of the First Family became, in effect, the reply to all those who would find the interracial son of a Kansan and Kenyan, who is married to a Black woman, uncomfortably progressive.
Obama turned what could have been one of his biggest challenges into an electoral positive, and he did this by using his family as an illustration of the American dream. To Obama, his youth and the unfamiliar aspects of his identity wasn’t something to be feared, it was something to be embraced and celebrated. And furthermore, it was to be celebrated as progress, as something distinctly American.
According to Karen Oakes:
Implicit [in the American Dream] is a sense of moving forward, of exceeding limitations and transcending current realities. The dream posits America as a promised land where progress is possible, even probable. (895)
As answer to Oprah’s first question about the changes wrought by four years as president, Obama launches into a peroration on this American Dream and his family. He speaks of his being in office as making him “even more appreciate of my family in ways I didn’t think I could be,” and then exclaiming “My abiding faith in the American people is undiminished” (2). At the end of his interview he again weaves together the American Dream and his family, “I want America to continue being on the side of expanding justice and freedom and opportunity so that Malia and Sasha…will be able to look back and say this was one more turn in a better direction for humanity” (9). Family and the Dream: these are the twin pillars that Obama has used to define his image to the American public, and it is with these subjects that he bookends his answers in the interview.
Has this image worked? Winning two presidential elections argues that it has, though ascribing these wins solely to the carefully worked image and rhetoric is difficult to prove conclusively. Far easier is to analyze the impact and implications of this image of the First Family on the political landscape. Elayne Clift, in detailed interviews with non-White women voters, describes how the image of both Barack and Michelle Obama compelled these citizens to vote for them in 2008. “It says to every child of color and every poor boy and girl that you belong too, and you do have a future,” reported Civil Rights movement veteran Marian Edelman. Clift adds many voices in concurrence, such as that of Shaniqua Lee, a high school senior, who says that Obama symbolizes a “step towards equality. It’s about more than race. It’s about unity” (2). What all voices have in common is that none of them address the words spoken by Obama, they are concerned solely with he and his wife as symbols. This phenomenon, the symbolic aspect of the Obamas and its reverberations through American society and politics, was given a name by the punditocracy: the Obama Effect (Younge 1).
John White echoes Clift in his book Barack Obama’s America as he details the deep impact of the Obama image on American politics, especially during the critical 2008 presidential election. He looks not at the impact of the words of Obama, but at the image and representation of Obama, that is, the Obama Effect. Interestingly, he relates the way that Barack Obama was introduced into the households of countless Americans for the first time:
Introducing Obama to adoring audiences, talk show host Oprah Winfrey recalled reading The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, which describes how the enslaved Pittman searches for “the one” who would lead her to freedom. Winfrey told rapt audiences that she had discovered “the one” in Obama: “Well, I believe, in ’08, I have found the answer to Ms. Pittman’s question. I have fo-o-u-und the answer! It is the same question that our nation is asking: ‘Are you the one? Are you the one?’ I’m here to tell y’all, he is the one. He is the one. Barack Obama! (214)”
No doubt recognizing the electoral potential of, and resistance to, such strong sentiments, Obama allowed surrogates like Oprah to make claims and draw the obvious distinctions about what he would mean if elected. Also, by understanding the traditional/progressive paradox of the American public, he was able to ameliorate the inherent progressiveness of his identity by offering a very traditional image of his family’s values. Who better to help disseminate this comforting image of domestic tranquility than Oprah?
This understanding did not come overnight, and he made a number of stumbles as he was constructing the image that became Barack and Family as America. As Sandman relates, like many Democratic candidates, “post-nationalist” in outlook, Obama was initially [in early 2008] reluctant to wear an American Flag pin on his lapel. When questioned, he offered a rather complex explanation, and the “negative response led to a quick change of mind and dress. His American flag lapel is now a constant part of his attire”(5). The Obama who was interviewed by Oprah learned that lesson and his rhetoric includes countless patriotic references. Early 2008 was also the time when his wife was actively campaigning on his behalf. As Ann McGinley notes, “Ironically...Michelle Obama’s open and strong statements…actually helped her husband by feminizing him and reducing the chance that he would appear too aggressive or dangerous to the public” (723). By speaking critically on issues of race and gender, she “took the heat from the right wing press….so that he could remain silent” (Lauret 101). While it did serve its purpose, this activism also began to undermine the image of Michelle Obama, moving her steadily towards the “progressive” side of the paradox and getting her labeled “Mrs. Grievance.” A correction was necessary; Michelle Obama’s image underwent its “softening” during the summer of 2008.
To many on the left, this amounted to a renunciation, a betrayal of sorts. Gary Younge, writing for The Nation described Obama’s success as due to “making every effort not to act ‘too black’” (16). Be that as it may, the success of the of the course steered by Obama through the political minefields of his first election campaign is apparent in its result: “52.6% of the popular vote, the first Democrat to win a majority since Jimmy Carter’s minimalist 50.8% victory…in 1976….365 electoral votes for Obama to 173 for John McCain (White 213).” Even more impressive were the voting patterns within the larger context. Again, Clift:
But it was African American women…voting in ever larger numbers, who helped put Barack Obama over the top, especially in key battleground states. In North Carolina, for example, it is estimated that 100 percent [emphasis added] of African-American women voted for him. Virginia nearly matched that, with 94%. (2)
As shown in data such as these, the identity of Barack Obama and the First Family is a weapon wielded with consummate skill by the political apparatus of Barack Obama. It is for these reasons that the Michelle Obama who appears on the pages of Good Housekeeping is a veritable Stepford Wife of the Beltway, and the back and forth banter of the first couple as reported by Oprah is so ruthlessly perfect.
It may seem obvious to argue that politicians employ their family image for political gain. What distinguishes the Obamas is that they have used this consciously created ideal of the first family to straddle both sides of the traditional/progressive paradox of American values. We are a society innately pulled towards the promise of progress and the American Dream; how else to account for the relentless optimism Obama pours out on the pages of O? Simultaneously, we demand the comfort of tradition, historicity, and safety. We demand that our first Black president and first lady do not appear “too Black” and for these reasons, unrevealing banal chatter about secret vices accounts for an interview with our First Lady. The Obamas have constructed an identity that attempts to have it both ways.
The questions remain: is there a path beyond our central societal paradox that doesn’t necessitate such an entombment of authentic identity and the construction of perfection? Is an “elegant and poised” first lady who confesses to liking French fries too much worth the rejection of an outspoken “Mrs. Grievance” who brings up her ancestry and speaks truth to power? I’ll turn for the answer to Michelle Obama, using her last words during her interview with Oprah: “What I know for sure is that all the sacrifice and challenges we face are worth it if we’re creating a better future for our kids.”
Works Cited
Clift, Elayne. "USA: Obama Effect: Proud to be A Black Woman." Women's Feature Service (November 17 2008). ProQuest. Web. 11 Nov. 2013 .
Ellis, Rosemary. “Michelle Obama at Home in the White House.” Good Housekeeping (25 October 2012). Web. 21 October 2013.
Griffin, Farah Jasmine. "At Last ...?: Michelle Obama, Beyonce, Race & History." Daedalus 140.1 (2011): 131+. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Jones, Jeffrey. “Michelle Obama’s Favorable Ratings Eclipse Her Husband’s” Gallup Politics, 2 Apr 2009. Web. 1 Dec 2013.
Jones, Jeffrey. “Michelle Obama Remains Popular in the U.S.” Gallup Politics (30 May 2012). Web. 1 Dec 2013.
Lauret, Maria. “How To Read Michelle Obama.” Patterns of Prejudice 45.1/2(2011): 95-117. Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Nov 2013.
McGinley, Ann. “Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Obama: Performing Gender, Race, and Class on the Campaign Trail.” Denver University Law Review 86 (2009): 709-725.
Parks, Gregory S. and Roberson, PhD, Quinetta M., "Michelle Obama: the "Darker Side" of Presidential Spousal Involvement and Activism" (2008). Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers 39. Web. 1 Dec 2013.
Sandman, Joshua. "Family, Faith, Freedom & Flag: The Value Factors That Motivate Value Voters in Presidential Contests" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association, Omni Parker House, Boston, MA (Nov 13, 2008).
Sulfaro, Valerie. “Affective Evaluations of First Ladies: A Comparison of Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37, No.3 (Sep. 2007): 486-514.
“Top 25 U.S. Consumer Magazines in December 2012.” Alliance for Audited Media (2013). Web. 1 Dec 2013.
Troy, Gil. Affairs of State: The Rise and Rejection of the Presidential Couple Since World War II. New York: Free Press, 2000.
Oakes, Karen. “Individual Prosperity and the American Dream.” Beacham’s Encylcopedia of Social Change – America in the 20th Century, edited by Veryan B. Khan. Nokomis, FL: The Beacham Group (2001). 847- 895.
“The Oprah Effect.” Dir. Carl Quintanilla. CNBC Original Productions. CNBC. (26 May 2009).
Winfrey, Oprah. “Oprah Talks to the Obamas.” O Magazine (November 2012). Web. 21 October 2013.
White, John Kenneth. Barack Obama’s America. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. 2009.
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