Bowing to the Imperial Wig
January 31, 2013
DIANA writes:
Reading the pervasive, fawning praise of Michelle Obama’s new bangs is no different from reading propaganda in Pravda, back in the unlamented days of the U.S.S.R. (Only the designer Karl Lagerfeld has had the guts to say her hairstyle is ugly. He said Michelle looks like a French news anchor.)
Michelle’s hairdo is certainly a wig. It reminds me of what was said about the fad of Roman matriarchs for blonde wigs. I think it was Ovid who said that the compliment should not go to the matriarch, but to the Rhinish maiden from whose head the locks were taken. So the compliment to Michelle Obama should go to the Indian lady whose hair she is now wearing. If you want to compliment her at all.
—- Comments —–
Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:
Regarding Michelle Obama, her outré wig, and her persona generally – she invariably throws my mind back to Gilbert and Sullivan, and more particularly to the second act of their Mikado (1885), where the Emperor of Japan in company with his “daughter-in-law elect” makes his entrance into the town of Tittipoo. Here is the moment (starting at 1:11 into the clip). In Katisha, the “daughter-in-law elect,” Messrs. G and S have economically summed up the attitude of someone without political office who nevertheless presumes to pose as a rightful ruler and demands various perquisites. “Bow, bow,” says Katisha, “to the daughter-in-law elect!” The clip, by the way, is from the Mike Leigh film Topsy-Turvy, which is enjoyable despite Leigh’s complete lack of understanding of The Mikado, as made evident in the interview with him, which makes one of the “fillers” on the DVD. I especially like Louise Gold’s waspish Katisha.
Karen I. writes:
I agree that Michelle Obama’s new hair style is a wig. It isn’t even a particularly good one, especially for a woman who could buy any hair in the world. The bangs are actually a big indication it is a wig, because thick bangs are often cut into wigs to disguise the hairline. Many celebrities are wearing bangs these days, and my hairdresser said they are nearly all clip-in hairpieces. She said she cringes when a client comes in with a celebrity picture for her because they have so much fake hair now, she can’t possibly duplicate the styles.
I don’t have a problem with Michelle Obama wearing a wig. Many black women wear wigs or weaves because it is easier to style or because they experience hair loss after years of harsh treatments like straightening. However, the wig does not make her look any better. She is an unattractive woman in so many ways that the prettiest hair in the world wouldn’t help her appearance.
As a side note, I don’t think Karl Lagerfeld should be making comments on anyone’s appearance. Really, look at him:
Chris of Rochester, NY writes:
The Vanity Fair article linked in Diana’s comments about Michelle Obama’s haircut/wig shows a picture of the First Lady that made me cringe for a reason other than her hair. You may have commented on it already, but I’m fairly certain that I can see Mrs. Obama’s cleavage. If so, do you recall a similar sight from previous First Ladies?
Laura writes:
She’s a low-class, undignified First Lady. A commenter at Vanity Fair writes:
I love her dress! It affectionately reminds me of the slipcovers on my grandma’s couch in the 1950’s. But her hairstyle would be much improved if the bangs went down to her chin.
The worst thing is the cleavage. She looks like a hostess at TGIF.
Laura continues:
Another commenter at Vanity Fair writes of Michelle’s new hair, which the entire Western world is hailing as wonderful:
It’s a Shemp wig, and that’s actually an insult to Shemp, and that probably doesn’t even capture it. It’s worse than that; it’s a Halloween-costume wig. It’s lank, it’s disproportionate, it’s ridiculous. And the drooling, gushing, Dear Leader and Marie Antoinette -fawning sycophants at Vanity Fair think — with nauseous predictability — that it’s “undeniably adorable.”
Michelle is, after all, “Jackie-O beautiful.” Or so we’ve been told (over and over and over).
The commenter is referring, I assume, to Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges. But Michelle’s wig is more like the one worn by Moe Howard, another Stooge.
Jeanette V. sends a variation on this theme:
Diana writes:
Vanity Fair has scrubbed the comments. The ones you mention have disappeared.
Pravda, anyone?
Jeanette writes:
Not only were the comments scrubbed but the comments button has been disabled. Vanity Fair knows Michelle Obama is not an attractive woman just like the rest of the public knows. But, heaven forbid that one acknowledge the truth, that would be racist.
Diana writes:
I am nearly uniformly pessimistic about the state of affairs in this country but this disabling of comments at Vanity Fair gives me a glimmer of hope. If the readers of VF, a trashy liberal gossip magazine, realize that Michelle Obama is a low-class phony in an obvious, hideous wig, maybe not all is lost. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got hundreds of comments about how phony and ugly that wig is, and they realized that showing those comments would look terrible, so they disabled the comments.
This happens all over the ‘net. Unmoderated comments always show that most people aren’t fooled by what the media are trying to shove down our throats. But they keep shoving, because they’ve got all the power.
