Author Spotlight
Ellie Cook
Design by Lucy Hoffman This month, the country mourns the loss of a great woman in the White House. Sure, Barack Obama’s departure is upsetting — but Michelle, you will be greatly missed. To add to the despair, you’re being replaced by a Slovenian former model and even worse: a Donald Trump supporter.
Michelle is one of my personal heroes, and I think most of America agrees with me. She has transcended the office of First Lady to a celebrity in her own right. She’s one of the most popular First Ladies and is currently ranked as the 13th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes — that’s higher than Queen Elizabeth, Anna Wintour and Oprah. That’s right, Oprah. Michelle is a well-informed, active FLOTUS who’s known for relating to the public and serving as an every-woman role model.
Michelle is America’s sweetheart: she comes across as down-to-earth, kind and relatable. She has integrated herself into pop-culture, she’s active on social media, modeled on the cover of magazines like Glamour and Vogue (twice!) and she’s made countless TV appearances. What does Melania do? Laugh at protesters from Trump Towers while spoon-feeding caviar to Donald?
I’ll give it to her, Melania isn’t all that bad. She has a some things on her resume: she speaks five languages and has fantastic hair. After moving to New York with then-new husband Mr. Trump in the ‘90s, she made a successful modeling career for herself. But this is nothing compared to the impressive history of Michelle, who graduated from Princeton, then went on to earn her law degree from Harvard. Talk about goals.
Oh, and let’s not forget Melania’s racy half-nude GQ photos that recently surfaced without much media coverage. I don’t have a problem with this — you do you, girl — except that people yapped at Michelle just for bearing arms (sorry for the pun) in a sleeveless dress. The haters were probably just jealous that as much as Mel shows off, she’ll never be able to compete with those Obama biceps.
The biceps are just the beginning of Michelle’s pyramid of fitness perfection. Because of my own personal beef with nutritious food (I’m more of a Diet Coke and french fry gal myself), I’m not a huge supporter of Let’s Move! — Michelle’s healthy eating and fitness initiative. But the program has actually proven successful: Michelle has made significant changes by working with the FDA, Walmart, McDonald’s and other organizations and has become a voice for healthy living in children. Besides Let’s Move!, Michelle has also taken steps to support military families, empower college students and ensure secondary education for girls around the world. She’s a busy woman.
Considering Melania dropped out of college after a year, I’m not crossing my fingers for any major education reforms from her. Melania plans to focus her initiative on cyber bullying. Maybe she should start with the bully she shares a bed with.
In case you were wondering, they share that bed a lot. Melania has said she and Donald “have incredible sex once a day. Sometimes even more.” I’ll just leave that quote there for you to think about. Really let that dedication to marriage soak in.
On a more PG topic, Melania is no Michelle when is comes to public speaking. Michelle’s speeches are well known for being inspirational, candidly touching on everything from family to honesty to race. Melania, on the other hand, can’t seem to even coin her own ideas. Not only were many sections of her first major public address at the RNC similar to Michelle’s, some were identical. This doesn’t need any special statistics or fact-checking to prove; just watch both speeches and tell me that’s not the cheap work of a middle schooler cheating on a Social Studies test. On her speech Melania has said, “I read once over it, that’s all, because I wrote it, with as little help as possible.” Yeah right, girlfriend.
Michelle doesn’t just sound professional in public, she has the look down, too. She’s hailed as a modern fashion icon, known for classy outfits that mix couture with the everyday, like when she famously donned J.Crew gloves at her husband’s inauguration. In fact, it’s statistically proven that Michelle is a style goddess: New York University business professor David Yermack calculated that her “style choices have contributed $2.7 billion to the retail sector.”
People seem less excited about Melania’s future outfits, including the fashion industry itself. The most Melania has made style headlines for was her notorious Gucci shirt, called a “pussy-bow blouse.” Some American designers have already called for “fashion boycotts” of the FLOTUS-elect, and style blogs such as Fashionista.com have announced they plan to minimize coverage of Melania in protest of her husband. Most designers and magazines formally endorsed Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail; Melania’s entrance into the White House may mean a hiatus in the long-standing relationship between fashion and politics.
OK, so I admit we haven’t seen enough of Melania yet for me to bag on her too much more. She’s laid pretty low so far, so I really do hope she’ll surprise me. But I do know that Michelle will be missed. Melania has some pretty big – and fabulous – shoes to fill.
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