The picture is from a New York Times story by Katharine Seelye, about presidential candidate wives, “They Stand By Their Men, Loudly.” The story is a little bit weird in its construction, though I guess it wants to be about the changing presence of wives in the campaign.

Indeed, the story suddenly made me wonder if I should come up with a campaign equivalent of the “weight statement,” a term I’ve used to describe these sort of non-stories that are frequently trotted out by celebrithon media, in which a female actress declares that she “loves her curves,” or so on. It becomes a way for the media to talk about women’s bodies without saying anything directly, instead reporting what women are saying about themselves.

There’s a tinge of nonstory around this NYT report, so must ask, what is it really trying to say?

Well, the story takes up what I hinted at a month or two ago in “Michelle, my belle“– the question of what it means for wives, who in some past presidencies might have been understood as working “behind the scenes,” to emerge as public agents in their husband’s candidacies. Rather than be strategically deployed by campaigns, they go out and campaign. This is good, right?

But then the story picks up to the two most controversial statements made by Madames Obama and Edwards this season: Obama’s misquoted “family values” statement and Edwards’ oft-quoted (and genuinely precious) comment on the financial efficacy of being black or female in this election, versus a white man. We then come to this ambivalence:

With spouses less programmed than in the past, the line is blurrier between what women like Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Obama want to say and what the campaigns need them to say.“These are two women lawyers who have been in the professional world where they’re expected to speak up,” Mr. Anthony said. “But they still serve as windows into their husbands’ character.”

That’s right: there’s a concern that Obama and Edwards, careerwomen, won’t know how to keep their big mouths shut. That is, after all, the problem with women who work; they too often “run their yappers.”

I think this easy play on stereotype is what’s been nagging me about the story’s title, and why I have written many words on what I’ve already claimed to be a nonstory (though in a way I guess the nonstory is more interesting than a story, because it tells us so much in its efforts to not say anything too much!). This is the stereotype of women in power as compulsive loudmouth’s– they have the power to speak, but, as women, nevertheless lack restraint. As “windows into their husbands’ character,” their independence is emasculating– he can’t keep her under control.

But this is, again, an ambivalence: by ending with Hillary Clinton, Seelye also (perhaps consciously but regardless fortunately) offers up the outcome of being a loudmouth as, well, running for president! I totally think there’s some political ambition evident in Michelle Obama’s campaigning. As I’ve noted elsewhere, remember Hillary’s “It takes a village”?

So yes, be annoyed by them and their big mouths, but also know that its exactly what they need.

This is Lou Cabron:

“Public diplomacy” in Hollywood isn’t exactly an exercise in subtlety. But sometimes, publicists, studio executives, or whoever dreams up these boob-headed propaganda schemes, actually try to trick us by presenting “authentic” incidents of titillation. Which are totally not authentic.

Indeed! Cabron continues:

In fact, call us paranoid, but we strongly believe there is a well-established, but never openly-acknowledged, plan among movie marketers and star handlers to manipulate the constituencies of female celebrities. Shocking? Yes.

The post then goes on to list breast statements from some of the summer’s big stars, Knightly, Alba, Diaz, Dunst, and Lohan, and also the resulting headlines. It’s a pretty solid display of tails wagging dogs, and is notable to me for its illustration of how female celebrity bodies are asked to do all this work in our cultural machinery.

Or, to put it another way: is there so little news that the media needs to make news out of non-news? News about things that are less important (Keira Knightly) than other things (the Iraq war), is one thing, because technically there should be enough public attention span to go ’round. But when news agencies are constantly putting up these self-generated non-stories– that is when I get suspicious….

Of course what contradicts each story’s positive message is the fact that the story exists at all. Gee, might it not be the case that, when one is put in a position of defending why one is loveable, one might already be in trouble?

Well, close on the heels of MeMe Roth’s facist anti-fat fanaticism (is it fanaticism or gross opportunism? I’m still working through that one…), here comes Jordin Sparks’ weight statement in People magazine, the link to which I caught over at Jennifer Weiner’s blog, Snarkspot. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jordin Sparks loves her curves.

This notion of having “curves” is totally fascinating. It’s often staged as meaning not super-thin, but still “okay” (and there’s that caveat again “but still…”). Curviness, supposedly, makes a space in which one is allowed to be not skinny, because one has been determined as not fat…in the sense that “fat” denotes being unhealthy and undesirable, as opposed to just meaning “not thin.” Curvy = Beyoncé, Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet, and America Ferrera– women who are not even remotely overweight, but who nonetheless have to explain justify not being underweight, á la Kate Hudson or Keira Knightly.

Celebrities are granted meaning by their places in the star system, but because they come into being in that closed system, they can only really sustain meaning in relation to each other. As a way of describing bodies, and thus attributing a relational meaning to those bodies, “curvy” marks an interesting differential.

I am thinking, for instance, of Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé in Dreamgirls, whose plot hinges on all these contrasts between “regular” women (Effie) and symbolic, “exceptional” women (Deena). The contrast hinges on weight, with Hudson gaining weight for her role and Knowles starving herself for hers. As regular women, Effie and Hudson are “real women.” As stars, Deena and Knowles aren’t to be taken seriously.

The real and the cinematic converge on the song “Listen,” which Knowles wrote. “Listen” is Deena and Knowles’ demand that they be, well, listened to–rather than only looked at, and the convergence is a matter of Knowles’ relationship to the Dreamgirls movie and Deena’s plight in the film. Knowles wanted to play Effie, but was told she would be unconvincing as the plain one with an exceptional voice, and Deena sings of being loved as a performer but not recognized as a “real” singer.

Huh! Nordette Adams, by the way, has a nice series of posts on Hudson, Knowles, and all the stuff with them around Dreamgirls, including some pretty interesting clips of Star Jones interviewing Beyoncé. And speaking of weight, PopMatters has a nice post on Jennifer Hudson on the cover of Vogue, as well.

And there are many ways in which this new attention to the curvy might prove to be a good thing. Even though there’s still a bunch of rhetoric to plow through around her being so acceptable (not the least of which is racial), I do think the congratulation Hudson has received is good and real, not the least of which is the now-famous Vogue cover. I mean, all Beyonce got for losing a bunch of weight was a stupid Sports Illustrated cover.

Okay, nevermind. It’s clearly time to come down from the stars…

CNN.com has this article on Ugly Betty’s America Ferrera, about her feelings on her own body image.

It’s a little bit of a non-story, which is why I find it interesting.

I’m sure Measuring Beauty, Beauty as Power, Celebodies, and Celebrities and Paprazzi might have more context on this, but it seems to me that, as stories on every pound gained and lost by celebrities grow more ridiculously ubiquitous every day, there is also this impulse to publish these little tiny non-stories– let’s call them “weight statements.”

On the one hand, weight statements make opportunities for celebrities to assure us that everything is all right, despite what you might have heard about other girls and women. On the other, something about them also speaks in uncomfortable ways to the intensity of our looking at these women. There’s a weird touch of “Be Yourself and Be Perfect Too” in this–or maybe it is the other way around?

And of course we should ask, what does it mean that Ferrera has to say anything at all?