What is
Michelle Obama's Hugging Style?
What do
Michelle Obama’s Hugs Mean?
Here are
my rough notes describing the meaning and style of Michele Obama’s Hugs
followed by a piece I did for Daily Beast about Michele's
hugging body language.
Michelle
Obama is an amazing hugging powerhouse. She initiates hugs and she
likes to be "on top" when she is hugging. Michelle's preferred
way of hugging is to have her arms up and around and have the other person's,
(if they choose to hug back), arms below hers. Going first and hugging on top
are power moves and a maternal/matriarchs style of hugging.
Amazingly, she even does this with some political figures! Presidential wives
have always been "bottom huggers" But, there are many
photos of her hugging dominant world leaders with her arms on top. You
rarely, if ever, see women as "on top" huggers except
for big female stars of Hollywood.
Michelle also likes to wrap her arms fully around the head
or waist of her hugee to fully encompass them. This shows affection as
well has her power.
Typically
she does not cup her hands, rather than arching the palm in soft hold she
keeps the palm flat and the finger extended out and flat. That is a much more
formal way of holding the hands and it gives her more property dominance. That
is she takes up more space across the back. That can also send the signal, “I
am strong.” And “I have your back.”
One of
the most interesting and what I find is the sweetest aspect of her hugging
style is that she likes to place her head right next of the head of her
huggee. Sometimes, even brushing her cheek against theirs as she goes
in. That is a very giving and intimate way to hug. Many huggers are only
halfway huggers and don't give their full upper torso. You see them actually
have conflict about being too close. You can see them hold their head slightly
back and I can see tension in their necks as they make a real effort to not be
too close or too intimate. Mrs. Obama wants to have that head connection.
I would
call Mrs. Obama a Big Bear hugger which is defined by the arms being
wrapped fully around the person and being pulled in tight with a quick but
tight secure squeeze. This shows enthusiasm for seeing someone and can also
show someone’s need to show power over or protection of the huggee.
Here is the link to the Daily Beast article I did on this topic.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/28/how-michelle-obama-became-hugger-in-chief.html
Hold
Tight
04.28.155:20 AM ET
How
Michelle Obama Became Hugger In Chief
At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, forget the jokes and
schmoozing. The real power lay in FLOTUS’s embrace.
Even
though Ezra Kaplan was awarded $5,000 towards his journalism studies before a
room full of the nation’s most acclaimed reporters and glittering celebrities,
the true highlight of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the hug he
received from Michelle Obama.
“Seriously,
I’ve been telling everyone this, she is the best hugger ever,” Kaplan tells me,
his enthusiasm bubbling over the phone from halfway across the country in
Evanston, Illinois. “I’ve been trying to describe it to many of my friends.
It’s a solid hug, not a dumb politician hug with a pat on the back. It’s a real
hug that makes you feel like she legitimately cares.”
Sure,
the Commander-in-Chief got in some good yucks at the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, especially with Keegan-Michael Key
playing his “Luther, the anger
translator.”
But
more intriguing to analyze was the onward hugging march of Michelle Obama, who
embraced nearly 20 journalism scholarship recipients, a gesture of physical
intimacy that is now a trademark for the current FLOTUS.
After
speaking to multiple body language experts, the consensus is clear: Michelle
Obama is an exceptionally pro-hug first lady, and what she communicates via her
willingness to embrace others says much about her personally.
It’s
not just the frequency of Obama’s hugs, but the types of hugs she gives,
which is unique for first ladies, says Woods. “Typically, it’s been fairly
formal. There’s more restraint, holding the pelvis back and the head back. You
see a lot more body tension around former first ladies, a lot more upper body
going forward but the rest of the body going straight down. It’s less giving.
There’s less intimacy,” she says.
That
stiff, restrained embrace—the kind that have all the artificial, unfulfilling
sweetness of a pack of Sweet’N Low—is not Obama’s style. Noor Wazwaz, another
scholarship recipient who received a coveted FLOTUS hug on Saturday night, can
certainly attest to that.
“She was holding onto me. People were like ‘Wow, that’s a tight grip.’ I
think that genuine love and compassion comes out.”
“She
definitely gives the best hugs, that’s for sure,” she says, noting friends even
remarked on the embrace from a photo she took. “I have a picture of me and her
at the VIP party. She was holding onto me. People were like ‘Wow, that’s a
tight grip.’ I think that genuine love and compassion comes out.”
Michelle
Obama separates herself from her 45 FLOTUS predecessors because she’s an
“initiator hugger,” says Woods. “She’s the one who does it all the way. There’s
no hesitation. It’s not ‘Now, I must hug.’ Instead of it being a formal ritual,
she wants to do it.”
However,
it’s not as if Obama exactly had stiff competition to become the most huggable
first lady. Historically, the White House spouses are not known as the most
physically affectionate creatures.
There’s
Barbara Bush, who, according to a Vanity Fair
profile in 1992, terrified the White House staff—“when she frowned it had the
capacity to send shudders through a lot of people,” one Bush associate told the
magazine.
“Barbara
Bush had her shoulders back and was more regal, stately,” says Susan Constantine,
another body language expert. “Michelle Obama is inviting the hug, and she’s
giving you the green light.”
No
first lady was more regal than Nancy Reagan. Her Dynasty-era glamour was
strictly look-don’t-touch. She was more famous for lecturing the youth of
America on the perils of drugs, not holding them close. Any physical intimacy
was strictly for her husband.
Even
Jackie Kennedy, one of the most adored first ladies in U.S. history, was not a
woman to be hugged—publically at least. The young and stunning Mrs. Kennedy was
an alluring asset to JFK’s 1960 presidential campaign. However, her hair was so
perfectly coiffed, her Oleg Cassini ensembles so pristine, her accent so
utterly patrician, one could not imagine embracing her, lest we blemish her
with our plebeian impurities.
“When
we look at Jackie Kennedy, she had that untouchable look, even though she was
lovable,” says Constantine. In contrast, Obama “has the look of an everyday,
approachable woman. The difference between the two is that Michelle Obama does
not come across as stuffy. She’s opened up her arms. Naturally, her guard is
down, rather than seeming very prissy.”
Jason Reed/Reuters
Obama’s
move to be less formal and more intimate is not without precedent among iconic
women on the world stage.
Princess
Diana was one of the first female heads of states to relinquish the stately
distance for a physical closeness. For Princess Diana to hug a 7-year-old AIDS patient in 1989 was actually a landmark
physical gesture, a hug that had social and cultural significance. “She would
lean down and look at children at eye level. She was always warm,” recalls
Constantine.
Far
from exhibiting the usual royal parental reserve—Prince Charles famously said
he could not remember being hugged by his mother, the Queen—Diana relished
hugging her own boys.
Indeed,
both Diana and Michelle Obama have shown personas crafted around warmth and
accessibility. As such, their hugs may be the ultimate power move, a subversive
way of showing strength and authority.
Most
surprising of Michelle Obama’s hugs was her infamous embrace of Queen Elizabeth
in 2009. British pearl-clutchers recoiled with surprise when FLOTUS put
her arm around Her Majesty, even though it was the famously formal Queen who
initiated the move.
Compared
to the first lady’s usual style, this was barely a hug, but a warm, firm hand
on the back to match the Queen’s own move. Yet even that level of physical
intimacy was unprecedented for official White House interactions with royalty.
“At
some level she [Michelle Obama] made a decision to do what she wanted,” says
Wood, “and to show her warmth and personality, but also her power. It was her
saying, ‘We will take care of you. We will protect you.’ To me that’s very
strong.”
For
Wood, “In that moment, it totally took away her [Queen Elizabeth’s] power, and
that’s why the country was horrified. We will always just have that image of
the Queen looking diminutive and uncomfortable, and Mrs. Obama looking
incredibly comfortable and incredibly confident.”
Many
would disagree with that: The Queen looks very comfortable, and it more seems a
wonderful, impromptu, expressive moment for both women to have shared.
For
Wood, Obama has hugging moves that convey unusual strength for a woman. “She
likes to be on top—to have her arms up and around—when she hugs. She even
sometimes does that with powerful males. I’m amazed by that. Usually, women go
under [reach down to a waist] when they’re hugging powerful men.”
Of
course, there are those who doubt how genuine the hugs are in the first place.
“Are
the hugs truly because she wants to connect on an emotional level, or are they
robotic? That’s still a question to be answered,” says Constantine.
She
sees Obama’s hugging as a way to combat the more negative press she received
when her husband was first campaigning for president in 2008.
That
summer, a Pew Research Center poll noted that Michelle Obama was in the
press more often than her Republican counterpart, Cindy McCain. But, a higher
percentage reported hearing negative stories about Mrs. Obama than Mrs. McCain.
“The
way she [Obama] wants to be portrayed is countering the bad publicity of
seeming mean, angry, bitchy that was out there.” Her excellent, personable
hugging has been good PR for her. “The pendulum is swinging the other way over
to being sociable, arms around the waist, the girlfriend thing,” says
Constantine.
Her
hugging has also distinguished the image the Obamas want to portray of a more
accessible, “normal” White House.
“I
think with their whole strategy was about connecting with people. The president
and FLOTUS [traditionally] stay in the White House, they don’t intermingle too
much. I think they [Michelle and Barack Obama] have broken the rules,” says
Constantine.
“I
think they’re setting trends with a new connectivity with the American people.
I think people want to feel like they can talk to people in leadership. I tend
to like it, and I’m not even a Democrat,” she adds with a laugh.
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at
www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at
www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at
http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
