Our first lady, Michelle Obama, has graced the cover of many prestigious magazines. But Spanish Magazine, Fuera de Serie, has depicted Michelle as a slave. Click below to find out more.
The cover of Magazine Fuera de Serie, which is widely available in Spain as a newspaper lifestyles supplement, shows the first lady’s face superimposed onto an 1800 portrait of a female slave by Marie-Guillemine Benoiste, a French neoclassical painter.
According to the magazine’s editor, the picture is meant to honor Michelle Obama who they call the “gran mujer” (great woman) who “conquered the heart” of the man who would be president and “seduced the American people.”
Many commentators aren’t seeing it that way. “Let’s be clear: This image has nothing to do with acknowledging Obama’s enslaved foremothers, and everything to do with reinforcing and extending the historical denial of black women’s individuality…” writes Althea Legal-Miller for The Clutch. She continues “The portrait robs Obama of her identity, voice, and intellect, and visually shackles her to a politically passive subject, resigned to an assigned role as slave.” The Frisky writer Jessica Wakeman calls it “plain old tasteless.”
Karine Percheron-Daniels, the artist who created the image, isn’t shedding any light on its underlying message. She is quoted saying she depicted the first lady in such a manner “for obvious reasons.” She adds, “I’m sure [she] would love it, and I hope that someday she can see it.” We suspect the first ladies’ opinion would be, in her typically dignified fashion, “no comment.”
