Michelle Michelle Michelle

You’d think that the new Democratic hegemony would have brought on a PC bonanza, politically correct-ifying everything and leaving no heart unbled. Instead of lessons in bleeding thy heart, though, we’re getting a lecture on the bloody “butcher’s apron” that was Michelle Obama’s election night dress.

The effect of the strong contrast was to turn a mere frock into a poster in the most disturbing colors known to man, the colors of chaos. The juxtaposition of a rectangle of red on a black field is what we might expect to find on a flag or a shield. Coral snakes and venomous spiders signal their destructive potential by the display of similarly violent contrasts.

Those remarks, written with nary a smidge of irony by iconic feminist Germaine Greer, are just a taste of the backlash against Ms. Obama by those who pretend to know better – women.

For months now, we’ve heard that Hillary Clinton’s electoral failure was a direct consequence of “sexism” in the media and everywhere else. Feminists preach that Clinton was portrayed as witchy in her womanness, a depiction which situated her eventual demise as a Wizard of Oz-esque “melting away.” This feminist meme, predicated on the idea that Clinton is more Glenda the Good than Witch the Wicked, relies on the media’s preoccupation with Hillary’s pantsuits, cleavage, and crow’s feet.

So, then, it should certainly come as a surprise to see those same feminists obsess not over Michelle Obama’s gray matter, but rather the gray in her wardrobe.

Admittedly, the post-election coverage of the entire Obama family has been decidedly fluffy: What kind of dog will they get? Has Barack stopped smoking? Public, private, or charter school for Malia and Sasha? The truth is, such glossy curiosity is probably the appropriate aperitif to the meaty inauguration season.

But the headiness surrounding Michelle Obama’s clothing – from her quotidian choices to her inauguration dress – is incredible not in its existence (clothes are fun; Michelle wears them well) but in the feminist embrace of its existence.

In politics as in pop, in turns out, looks matter. Also in politics as in pop, so do butts. And that’s another topic of interest to feminists.

Writing at Salon.com, black feminist Erin Aubry Kaplan filled an entire column with appreciative exposition on Michelle Obama’s butt.

As America fretted about Obama’s exoticism and he sought to calm the waters with speeches about unity and common experience, Michelle’s body was sending a different message: To hell with biracialism! Compromise, bipartisanship? Don’t think so. Here was one clear signifier of blackness that couldn’t be tamed, muted or otherwise made invisible.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the sexed-up feminism that has emerged as an answer to the movement’s sexless roots. You know, “the sexual revolution” – the woman who strips because that’s her way of “taking back” her body, the girl who sleeps around just because she’s that casually, carelessly detached, or the student who’s selling her virginity to fund her women’s studies degree.

I’d be tempted to call it ironic, except that this particular brand of feminist would interpret that as a compliment, a cheer.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The interest in Michelle Obama’s image is not wrong or bad or negative. The opposite, actually. Thankfully, it’s a de facto repudiation of feminism, of political correctness, of that stale attempt to neutralize and neuter.

All of the so-called sexism and racism of the past year is not the story, either, or even part of it. The story is in the steady, streaming rebuke of that sexism and racism – and in what followed, in the still and distilled settling of indignant debris.

Emboldened by their own perceived “otherness,” the most devotedly disenfranchised have joined forces with their very oppressors.

It’s bittersweet. Finally, political discourse has made room for Narciso Rodriguez and big black booties. But the proletariat paean is laced with the all the same sour undertones: Kaplan’s otherwise fun article drowns in the contrived connections between butts and slavery and miscegenation; Greer’s piece is bogged down with references to Grant Park (where?) and the Cuban flag.

It is in this flimsiness that the true intention is revealed. Instead of allowing themselves to be buoyed by the self-actualization that underlies the articles, Greer, Kaplan, and their ilk ground themselves with weighty proclamations that veil their army of –isms in gauzy denial.