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With one simple human gesture, world leaders made a powerful statement at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in Johannesburg yesterday.
No, I'm not referring to the historic image of us president Barack Obama shaking hands with his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, for the first time. Instead, I have the ignominious task of writing about the selfie seen 'round the world – or more specifically, the media's absolutely bonkers reaction to the photos.
Unless you have consigned yourself to a life of hermitage, you're likely familiar with the pictures captured by the intrepid photojournalists on hand. Obama, British prime minister David Cameron and Denmark's prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt scrunched together in the stands of the FNB football stadium and took a picture together with a cell phone belonged to the latter. In 2013, this action is known as a "selfie" (although whether it was technically a selfie was a subject of hot debate).
The media, as it is wont do in these situations, lost its mind.
The photo elicited vicious delight across Twitter and the internet's major media publications for two reasons. The first had to do with a popular Tumblr blog called "Selfies at Funerals", which documented the rude trend among teens to take selfies at funerals. The leaders weren't at a funeral, they were at a memorial service, but the internet isn't fond of making such distinctions and the photo fit perfectly into an already viral meme. The blog itself even got in on the fun, declaring "Obama has taken a funeral selfie, so our work here is done." I imagine Selfies at Funerals then proceeded to drop the mic and strut offstage (or write a commentary for the Guardian).
But the second media reaction was far more pernicious. It essentially turned a memorial service for one of the greatest modern leaders into a soap opera. And like any good soap opera, it divided the female players into sexist archetypes: in this case Thorning-Schmidt played the blonde, ditzy seductress and foil to Michelle Obama, the jealous, shrewish wife. The following tweet summarizes the narrative nicely:
LOL, she made him switch seats? pic.twitter.com/D5vlmNrlma
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) December 10, 2013
Thorning-Schmidt is beautiful, but she is also a powerful female head of state – something the world could use a few dozen more of, may I add. As she sits between two powerful men, Obama and Cameron, Michelle looks on, unamused and declining to take part. It was almost too easy to corner Michelle into that tired angry-black-woman role that the media loves to saddle her with.
There is no proof whatsoever that Michelle was jealous that her husband was joshing around with a beautiful woman. In fact, this morning Roberto Schmidt, the photographer who took the iconic picture of the leaders taking a selfie, dismissed any claims that she was angry:
Photos can lie. In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance.
The fact is, the internet didn't know what was happening between the two, and decided to fill in the blanks in the lowest way possible. It just couldn't accept as normal that two vibrant and smart women sat shoulder to shoulder with two of the world's most powerful men. Instead, the media chose to imagine that Thorning-Schmidt clearly like to hit that, and Michelle Obama was about to fly into a jealous rage.
Most headlines about the picture didn't even bother mention the Danish prime minister's name (yes, the Guardian was guilty of this as well in our headline). The Daily Mail even dismissed her as a "flirty Dane". If Obama had taken a picture with someone more "homely", like German chancellor Angela Merkel, the media probably wouldn't have had created the same kind of sexist narrative (though there would have been plenty of NSA jokes).
I admit that I was amused when I first saw the photo of the selfie. But then the reaction kept getting uglier and uglier, until we wound up with dreck like this:
Wow. RT @joelcifer: Michelle exacts swift revenge pic.twitter.com/V0qvGsrsFf (via @JamelleMyBelle h/t @jozenc)
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) December 10, 2013
Any sane person who takes a step back and examines how the the media reacted to this should realize that there's nothing to laugh about.
Should Obama have been more mindful of his actions? Probably. Is he aware of the obscene tween phenomenon that is "Selfies at Funerals?" Considering he's a bit tied up running one of the most powerful nations in the world, probably not. Should he, Cameron, and Thorning-Schmidt feel a little embarrassed for acting a little too chummy at a sombre event? Maybe. But when you look at all the players involved in this fictional telenovela, it's really the media who failed to observe the proper decorum.
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