Flip This

It's been an increasingly apparent sign of the demise of television news that the stories that make headlines on TV newscasts rarely make it onto the front pages of respectable newspapers, while front page stories in the papers rarely get similar mention on TV newscasts. One could argue that my standard is arbitrary since I am privileging the news judgement of the papers over that of the TV news directors, thus suggesting that whatever the papers print is the "real" news. Well, I am. And today I offer more evidence to prove that I am right. Even though I was out of the country when the Northwestern University women's lacrosse team, which won the NCAA championship this year, met with President Bush at the White House, I was made well aware of their fashion violation on every news broadcast I viewed. Had I stuck to reading the International Herald Tribune (an international edition of the New York Times) or even the Philadelphia Inquirer, I would have been blissfully unaware of this exceptionally trivial incident. Silly me.

Let's abjure for a second whether or not those athletes should have worn flip flops to be received by the President and focus on whether this story should have made the three network nightly newscasts, "Anderson Cooper 360," "Countdown," or "Fox Report." It's not like nothing happened in the world in the last week. The investigation of Karl Rove and the White House over the CIA leak continued, though the President subtly changed his standard for firing a staff member if they were found responsible. The President also named a replacement for Justice O'Connor-- and shocked many people by picking someone who, though Conservative, is brilliant, a complete lock to be confirmed, and likely to be a fair-minded justice. London was nearly hit by bombers again. In the Sudan, Andrea Mitchell of NBC was dragged out of a photo opportunity after doing something awful-- asking questions of the Sudanese leader after being told not to. Secretary Rice managed to elicit an apology from the Sudanese, but you have to wonder how far her diplomatic efforts will go if they get that bent out of shape over a Penn alum with some moxy. Typically, most stories focused on the incident, and not on the purpose and efficacy of Rice's visit. Go figure.

With all of this going on, you'd think TV news would be sated for now. But, no. College women wearing flip flops to the White House has weaseled its way into the news cycle and, one week on from the incident, it is still getting mentioned on the news and on news websites. We can gather two conclusions from this. First, TV news is completely divorced from reality and has no clue about what news is. We knew that already. Second, wearing flip flops, regardless of the style of your dress-- and these ladies worse some very nice dresses-- is unacceptable in formal situations. On a first look, I agree. It will surprise no one that I don't even own a pair of flip flops. I don't own a pair of jeans, either. I wear a coat and tie to work (except on Fridays), so I don't buy nearly the volume of t-shirts I used to. I don't particularly feel comfortable displaying my feet at the beach, and would certainly not show them to the President.

Yet, fashion has always been malleable and, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. And, the funny thing is that in the 1920s when women started showing some knee with their skirts, we heard the same thing. Scandalous. Inappropriate. Disgusting. When women pushed the skirt line even higher in the 60s, older men and women (who do most of this kind of complaining anyway) had to reach for the oxygen again. Men's fashions have changed, too. When guys started wearing T-shirts in the 50s, they were often labeled rebels and dangerous. First came a T-shirt, then came a motorcycle, then came eloping with your daughter, then... well, you've seen Brando's films from that period. In the 60s, it was short shorts, a trend that admittedly began with women, but really became a guy thing, especially when the running craze took hold circa 1975. The point is: what's gauche now rarely remains gauche for long.

But, wait, you say. While women might wear their short skirts to the White House, no one would dare wear T-shirts and shorts. Well, you clearly haven't seen the group photo the women's softball team from the University of Michigan took with President Bush the week before the flip flop flap. These ladies decided it would look best if they wore something approximating their uniforms, so there they are, standing with the President clad in short shorts and sporty polo shirts that may as well have been T-shirts for as formal as they looked. How much outrage was there about this? Well, I had to do some research to discover that said picture was taken, so that should answer that. It's particularly telling that Manolo Blahnik, the last word in women's foot fashion, makes about 100 different styles of flip flops, many of which, according to a saleswoman at the New York store, would be fine for formal wear. It's also interesting to notice how similar flip flops are to open-toed dressy sandals, which would be completely appropriate for such an occasion. If these ladies had splurged on Manolo's flip flops or bought your basic bair of dressy sandals, would this controversy have happened at all?

As with everything else, it's a matter of degrees. Somehow what the UM team wore didn't rise to the level of a national crisis the same way the Northwesterners' dress did. This is even more odd when you consider the number of Medill School (NU's first-rate journalism school) grads working in the news industry. You know I'd bury a similar story about my beloved Quakers, so where were all the Wildcat news directors and producers when their lacrosse team needed them to run some interference? The only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that TV news saw an opportunity to show off some admittedly attractive ladies and their piggies to keep the eyeballs glued to the set. Paris Hilton hasn't done anything stupid in the last few weeks, so they needed a substitution. Oh, the things we care to care about.