If you're a fan of the Obamas (aka you have a soul), last week was great. We got this delightful video of Barack and Michelle reading The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds. Over the weekend we got his commencement speeches for the HBCU and high school classes of 2020, where much shade was thrown on the people in charge who don't know what they're doing. However, if short snippets of their calm, articulate, and wonderful presences aren't enough for you, you should fire up Netflix and settle down with Michelle Obama's excellent Becoming documentary. It's the balm your weary soul has been seeking during quarantine.
I read Becoming last year and loved it (natch) and the documentary is like a distillation of everything that is so wonderful about that memoir. It follows Michelle during the country-wide tour she embarked upon to promote the book and offers up both her life story in her own words, and also a glimpse at the work she's still doing to empower women and girls today. We get to hear a lot of great anecdotes about her childhood, being one of the few black students at Princeton, how she met Barack (if you read the book, those sections genuinely read like a romance novel), and then eventually what it was like to be a politician's wife. She is candid about her struggles, and how she went to couples therapy only to realize that rather than resent Barack for going to the gym, she needed to work on just claiming time for herself. She talks about how disheartening it was to be labelled un-American if she was critical of how her country treats its most disenfranchised members, and how she had to become so careful about her words and her image as her husband's career progressed. And of course, there are plenty of juicy tales about their time in the White House, and what it was like on the last day (there were tears, but only after she had had to deal with the admin of kicking out her daughters' friends who had insisted on a final sleepover).
Michelle Obama knows what she wants to say and she's going to say it, and now that her husband isn't the President anymore, she is allowed to express a full range of emotions with her characteristic wit and empathy. It's wonderful to see how she treats the people around her, like her longtime Chief of Staff or the head of her security detail who has become like a brother to her. There are also some excellent parenting tips and it is clear she is so grateful to how she was raised and she wants to pass that down to her daughters, as well as the young girls she meets across the country. Her message is to believe in yourself, stand up for what you believe in, and never think of yourself as less than. Which are of course lessons that young girls (and let's be real, older women) struggle with the most. She also got decidedly angry when talking about the people who didn't vote during midterm elections when Barack was President, thereby impeding his ability to pass significant legislation. It's not Republicans that bother her - it's all the Democrats who just stay at home. Which seems like an ominous warning for November 2020.
Becoming is a classy and uplifting documentary, like the lady herself. It's warm, kind, and honest about what it's like to be one of the most admired women in the world - turns out life is still hard. Michelle Obama is a reminder of what you can achieve if you have a good team of people behind you, the courage of your convictions, and a desire to make positive and meaningful change and leave the world a better place. If you love the documentary, I highly recommend you also seek out the book and revel in her brilliance for some more time. It is such a pity she and her husband aren't still in the White House, but as this week has shown, they're still out there in the world, trying to help us out.
I read Becoming last year and loved it (natch) and the documentary is like a distillation of everything that is so wonderful about that memoir. It follows Michelle during the country-wide tour she embarked upon to promote the book and offers up both her life story in her own words, and also a glimpse at the work she's still doing to empower women and girls today. We get to hear a lot of great anecdotes about her childhood, being one of the few black students at Princeton, how she met Barack (if you read the book, those sections genuinely read like a romance novel), and then eventually what it was like to be a politician's wife. She is candid about her struggles, and how she went to couples therapy only to realize that rather than resent Barack for going to the gym, she needed to work on just claiming time for herself. She talks about how disheartening it was to be labelled un-American if she was critical of how her country treats its most disenfranchised members, and how she had to become so careful about her words and her image as her husband's career progressed. And of course, there are plenty of juicy tales about their time in the White House, and what it was like on the last day (there were tears, but only after she had had to deal with the admin of kicking out her daughters' friends who had insisted on a final sleepover).
Michelle Obama knows what she wants to say and she's going to say it, and now that her husband isn't the President anymore, she is allowed to express a full range of emotions with her characteristic wit and empathy. It's wonderful to see how she treats the people around her, like her longtime Chief of Staff or the head of her security detail who has become like a brother to her. There are also some excellent parenting tips and it is clear she is so grateful to how she was raised and she wants to pass that down to her daughters, as well as the young girls she meets across the country. Her message is to believe in yourself, stand up for what you believe in, and never think of yourself as less than. Which are of course lessons that young girls (and let's be real, older women) struggle with the most. She also got decidedly angry when talking about the people who didn't vote during midterm elections when Barack was President, thereby impeding his ability to pass significant legislation. It's not Republicans that bother her - it's all the Democrats who just stay at home. Which seems like an ominous warning for November 2020.
Becoming is a classy and uplifting documentary, like the lady herself. It's warm, kind, and honest about what it's like to be one of the most admired women in the world - turns out life is still hard. Michelle Obama is a reminder of what you can achieve if you have a good team of people behind you, the courage of your convictions, and a desire to make positive and meaningful change and leave the world a better place. If you love the documentary, I highly recommend you also seek out the book and revel in her brilliance for some more time. It is such a pity she and her husband aren't still in the White House, but as this week has shown, they're still out there in the world, trying to help us out.
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