ABSTRACT
In 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama began her ongoing campaign Let’s Move! , designed to end childhood obesity. Obama promoted the campaign through speaking engagements, online social media, and guest appearances. However, Obama did not simply work as spokesperson for the Let’s Move! campaign: Her body, and the discourse surrounding her body, functioned as ways to read the success or failure of the campaign and, correspondingly, herself as a social advocate. This case study builds on scholarship by Quinlan, Bates, and Webb (2012) who argued Obama and her body faced different standards than former First Ladies due to her race and answers their call to perform critical interrogation of discourses surrounding her body (p. 124). Additionally, I extend previous notions of the body as argument (DeLuca, 1999) and display (Prelli, 2006) to argue Obama’s body functions as advocacy and display in relationship to gender, race, and weight.
