Michelle Obama and Sarkozy's Wife Carla Bruni - First Meeting, Not Fashion Face-Off

In the world according to media headlines, there's a battle brewing overseas. Not between heads of state, but their wives.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni (fashion model, singer, ex-lover of Mick Jagger) has come face-to-face with American style icon First Lady Michelle Obama in a much-heralded photo op just hours ago.

And when two attractive fashionable women meet, you know what happens...

CATFIGHT!!!

I'm kidding, of course. But many mainstream media outlets are not. They want to pit Carla against Michelle in a match-up that goes from a glam-off to a war. Even before the two women met, their get-together was framed by the language of conflict. According to the Washington Times:

[A] besotted international press corps is breathlessly awaiting a clash of international style icons: the first meeting between the toned and sporty Mrs. Obama and the Dior-donning cabaret-style singer Carla Bruni Sarkozy, the slinky wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

With the stage already set, the headlines describing the event followed suit:

• New York Magazine - "First Lady Fashion Battle: Michelle Obama Versus Carla Bruni"
• Huffington Post - "Fashion Face-Off! Michelle Obama And Carla Bruni-Sarkozy Finally Meet In France"
• ABC News - "The Glam-Off Has Begun"
• Times Online - "War of the First Ladies begins as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Michelle Obama meet"

Maybe it's just me, but I regard this media impulse - to force an audience to view the meeting of two attractive, powerful women through a lens of conflict - as the "Dynasty" effect. It's an outdated concept from the 1980s that takes its name from the primetime TV soap opera Dynasty. Every week the dirty laundry of the wealthy was aired and catfights between the two female leads (dark-haired, ever-conniving Joan Collins and blonde-haired, ever-gracious Linda Evans) ensued. The show seemed hell-bent on communicating the idea that women with opposing viewpoints and any sense of fashion could not live in harmony with each other.

Whether or not Carla and Michelle genuinely like each other (as Queen Elizabeth and Michelle seemed to) or have nothing but jealously and disdain for each other is almost irrelevant, because the media have already decided that the best way to approach this meeting is to promote it as a fashionista catfight.

Here in the US, we had a woman running for President. Things were looking up for us. Now we're back to square one and what matters isn't what our intelligent First Lady is thinking, but wearing...and how she stacks up to the other power wives of the world.

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