“Of Course I’m Proud of My Country!”

Abstract

Chapter 1 scrutinizes the First Lady’s response to her racist and sexist treatment in mainstream media in the 2008 presidential election campaign. Michelle Obama faced many attacks from the McCain-Palin campaign and the conservative media in the 2007–8 election campaign season, including ridicule over her “fist bump” with Barack Obama at a St. Paul, Minnesota campaign rally and the parody of her as a Black Panther on the cover of The New Yorker. But no attack was as brutal and sustained as the one that came after her “pride” comments during a stump speech in early 2008. In this chapter, Joseph analyses Obama’s response: coming out as a postracial, postfeminist glamour goddess on The View. The chapter asks: how did such a strategically ambiguous performance allow Obama to speak back to negative popular media representations without incurring additional racist and sexist wrath? Why did Obama’s reframes, redefinitions, and coded language work so effectively in this particular case?