Onassis, Elders, Obama: dignity, arrogance and anger in discourses of modern (white) American femininity

Abstract

Upon her death in 1994, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was repeatedly lauded for her ‘grace, dignity, style, class’, and this has remained the dominant discourse surrounding her public image in the years since. This article will historicize this dignity discourse in its contemporary political context, establishing the cultural contingency of the posthumous biographical accounts and revealing how the intimate public that “Jackie’s” narrative comprises has historically been embedded in, shaped by and reinforced ideologies of race and racialized American femininity. Analysis of the intersection of Onassis’s biographical narrative with those of Joycelyn Elders (Surgeon General of the United States, 1993–1994) and Michelle Obama (First Lady of the United States, 2009–2017) illuminates the ways in which Onassis’s image and the traditional femininity it has come to represent have been used to denigrate and reprimand Black women in the public sphere.

Keywords:

• Biography
• celebrity
• femininity
• First Ladies
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
• Joycelyn Elders
• Michelle Obama

Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to the three peer reviewers, whose rigorous, generous feedback had tremendous impact on the work published here. Thanks also to Nina Mühlemann, Nanette O’Brien, Kristina Ogilvie, and Alistair Forbes, all of whom contributed helpful feedback on early drafts and ideas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oline Eaton

Oline Eaton teaches literature and rhetoric at the University of Memphis. She writes about media, gender and affect at www.FindingJackie.com.