Michelle Obama Replaced With Blond Doll in Magazine Photo Shoot

Normal women are used to being made to feel inferior by fashion mags but now even the likes of First ladies Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni are getting the makeover treatment from the Japanese edition of Bazaar. So how does one improve upon two women already known for being gorgeous with an impeccable sense of style? You make them into a blond doll. Literally.

In this bizarre piece (See what I did there? I'm awesome.), a big-eyed blond-haired couture-dressed doll takes the first ladies' places in several iconic photographs. If this spread had come out in any of the western editions of this magazine, cries of racism would abound. Yet the Japanese did this. And they Stepford-ized Carla Bruni and Jacqueline Kennedy as well as Ms. Obama. While the replacement doll does look vaguely manga, she's certainly not Asian. All of which leaves me with... no explanation. Welcome to the never-good-enough club, ladies!

If I were Michelle Obama, I'd be very very disturbed by this one. And not the least because that doll's outfit is clearly upstaging President Obama. Has a first lady ever done puff-sleeved animal print at a press conference?

Even J.F.K. looks like he's laughing at this chick. But maybe that's just because if you put her on the same step as him, she'd tower over him in height.

That there is threatening to be plastic cleavage in an amount not seen since Debbie Did Washington. Will no one think of the children?! (Well, not her of course - she can't even look at the children. Or maybe she just doesn't bend that way.)

At last, I get it! You can't see her reflection in the mirror! Ergo, Barbie's a vampire succubus who accomplished a soulless domination of world politics! It's all a subtle metaphor for the decline in international relations!! Or maybe it's just lazy photoshopping.

You got a better theory?

Comments

[Oxonian2001]

Without the captions, it's difficult to assess "racism." What if this was meant tongue-in-chic? (Pun intended.) Perhaps it's a comment on all-American plastic beauty. Or the expectation that all important American women MUST be blond. (Think of all the bleach blonde CEOs, attroneys, and trophy wives) Who knows? The fact that the Japanese were wild about Obama makes me suspect a bit of irony.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

***So how does one improve upon two women already known for being gorgeous with an impeccable sense of style?***

I think that's a bit of an overstatement when it comes to Michelle Obama.

She is decent looking and dresses pretty well, but "gorgeous" with "an impeccable sense of style?"

I don't think so.

[humaneismyth]

a social statement about sexism?

[tony4sure]

I am surprised at the insinuation that the Japanese, "The Japanse!", as the author emphasizes, can't, for some strange reason, be racist. Of course they can be racist. Humans often are.

However, I don't think this spread is racist in the least. I think it is more about Barbie being good enough to be First Lady, than about a First Lady not being good enough to be a Barbie.

And as any Barbie collector will tell you, since the 1960s, Barbie in Japan has looked like a Manga doll.

As for a culture's acceptance of its own beauty, I think the US best keep its mouth shut here. Are we not the land of plastic surgery and bottle-blondes?

[hellameangirl]

Exactly how the first lady would look if McCain had won..

[bootpdx]

lol

[TheBeave]

Fanned and Faved Hellameangirl. I guess people don't think Japanese are racist. Yeah, right.

[TinaOrange]

Hell, if I can really say what I want to here, but I will not; I will say, Blondes I adore are Cyndi Lauper, her song "Girls, just Want to Have fun" and Blondes that do not speak, as in Barbie, but not next to President O'Bama and my thing to ALL BLONDES, TAKE UP ON CYNDI LAUPER'S GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN, STOP THE HATRED, HATE MEAN FILLED SPIRITS, RACISM, WE ARE ALL IN THIS BIG SOUP ON EARTH, TO MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR GENERATIONS TO COME, THAT IS WHAT I AM ABOUT, WATCH FOR ME, TINA OF SOUTH FLORIDA

[humaneismyth]

"oh ,ma,you know were not the fortunate ones.."

[cbat]

This is sick even the Japanese have a problem with their own standard of beauty.

[cbat]

This is the dumbest weirdest thing I have ever seen.

[MichelleB]

Poor Japanese, why not set their own beauty standard and forget about the blond barbie?

[MsWright]

@ Mihal..

I agree.

I keep think of different reasons as to why they would do this, but i get nothing.

This is Tasteless and Wierd!!!

[CitizenKane16]

Fembots.

[redsongia]

Alien Eyes.

[DaisyDooks]

Everyone should embrace their OWN beauty standards.

[JScott]

Folks please this was not for world consumption it was for the JAPANESE domestic market, they think nothing of this, it's only the rest of the world that thinks it's weird. C'mon even in the rest of the world,
fashion mags are kinda weird anyway.

[Knowitall]

If this seems OK to you because you know the market in Japan, can you please TRY to explain it here. This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen.

[Michele Himmel]

While I can`t agree Michelle has impeccable taste, this photo shoot is indeed odd.

[t iessa]

How odd.

[iplaw]

No, How Japanese.

[Pema]

tiessa. gee i thought for sure our "buddies" would be all over this and subsequenty us. funny the defenders on haunt one thread at a time. i guess two threads would be taxing....

was vouge out of money they couldnt afford more than one doll? how cheesy. i thin they were maing a statement about american first ladies, i could hazard to guess but will wait fpr my friend from japan to let me know.