Alright, just a bit more about people I disagree with (and find ugly)...
It seems that some really sad, persnickety British people are upset about Gordon Brown and Co.'s recent White House guest experience, particularly the gifts they received from their hosts, the Obamas. I love a tradition, but I'm not so keen on policing formal rules of engagement--people ought to give gifts whenever the spirit moves. But if we're getting down to the technical stuff, isn't it the guest that typically gives a gift to the host, not the other way around? You come to someone's home and you give them a gift in return for their hospitality, warmth, food, wine, beds. Granted, it seems a little off for the President to be giving the Prime Minister a collection of DVDs...but this is all beside the point, a smidgen of background information.
The real object here is the much sadder and persnicketyer American essayist and famed "anti-feminist," Caitlin Flanagan, formerly of The New Yorker (Lord knows why). She's penned a piece for New York Magazine's dippy Michelle Obama issue about how "frazzled" and "tasteless" our new First Lady is (as evidenced by the gift-giving fiasco and what she terms "her big-and-tall gal ready-to-wear"). What?! Odder still, Flanagan attempts to pass off her catty, inaccurate criticism as some sort of positive recognition of the new values of a new economy. All schlock. I've never seen Ms. Obama appear the least bit "frazzled," on the contrary she's slick as can be, clean, brightly attired, young, healthy, brilliant, confident, chicer than most of her predecessors, a stunning mannequin for American Sportswear. And I'm sorry, but I still haven't gotten over the whole first black family in the White House thing, the breathless joy of overcoming historical binds and limitations (essentially, wholly beautiful). Also, they've come to us as equals; Mr. and Mrs. President Obama exude such professional and personal/parental respect for one another (and a good share of discernible passion). I just think there are loads of reasons why Michelle Obama is terribly chic and stylish and beautiful and perfect for right now not because of some malarkey about the lowered standards of a recession but because she is strong and smart and hope-inducing and independent and bold (things we need a dose of when the chips are down). There is supreme substance in our First Lady's stylishness.
Refer to the picture above (of the errantly critical Flanagan)...who does she think she is doling out opinions on taste and style? I mean, really?! The woman seems shrill, corny, confused, stilted, beige, and self-loathing. And, ugh, the orchid in the fireplace. Can you stand it?
3 comments:
I am tempted to elaborate on the "Dyson" tag, which is perfectly perceptive (and probably already sufficient in itself). Its presence here is emblematic of this species of consumer goods company: what they sell to their customers is not really "game-changing" industrial design (what is denoted) but rather the tone of the denotation: self-satisfaction; improving for one's person what is called in advertising "the market position". Along with Bose, Method — dare I say Apple? — one at first is inclined to criticize the excess of spending principally on marketing, before she realizes that in fact that's what is for sale.
Naturally, that she chooses this designer vacuum at the center of her ludicrous "Just What Is It That Makes To-day's Homes So Different" jacket pic is an admission of which she is certainly aware, and which speaks for itself.
To clarify, it's not self-marketing in itself that is aggravating, but Flanagan's willingness to conflate it with other kinds of value. (Also my pronouns are confused as usual; the first "she" is panderingly referring to "one"—the second to Flanagan.)
the picture just seemed so cheap and strange to me, chockablock with signifiers of poor taste and then that damn vaccuum. and evidently she writes articles about how she doesn't know her guatemalan gardener's last name.
Post a Comment