Yes She Can.
Change. 10 years ago if I told you we'd need it again a decade later you'd think I'd gone backwards not forwards...but we really have. I remember former presenter of The Daily Show before Trevor Noah, Jon Stewart back in 2008 after the Obama inauguration, comparing the final months of the Bush administration to seeing a new bike wrapped up under the tree for Christmas. "I know it's a new bike. I can see what it is. Why can't I have it now?" Now like a New Yorker driving past a previously M.I.A. Bruce Springsteen in N.Y.C. after 9/11, shouting, "We need you" and inspiring The Boss to get back on E Street and write 'The Rising' for all those who fell the day the towers did, we need the Obama's back more than ever like that same beautiful bike. Its bell ringing the memory of nostalgia. Especially when there is a man in the White House so bad he makes Bush look good. One man who claims he wants to make America great again but doesn't realize those MAGA hats act like white hoods. A man who didn't believe in Coronavirus like he doesn't climate change. And now the amount of dead in New York alone is at epidemic levels not seen since September 11th, 2001. And as for the rest of the country let alone the world, it's an all out war against the most terrifying enemy...an invisible one. And what's scary as that those in power are too busy trying to play the blame game than affect real change for the good of the world. We need hope back. We need Barack and Michelle. We need a President again and someone who shows that the First Lady is more than a title, but the responsibility to the nation and every boy and girl raised by it. When they go low...you know where we go.
Donald Trump as usual went to the only podium he really thinks he can make a speech from...Twitter. Mocking Michelle and her autobiography like the (I can't say it, I have a mother) grabber, class act that he (thinks he) is. Little did he know that Michelle Obama's book would be even more of a major success than her husbands amazing autobiographies, 'Dreams From My Father' and 'The Audacity Of Hope'. Becoming (no pun intended...I actually wrote this out with no intention, but like I'm going to backtrack and backspace it now), even more of a cultural influence on young women in independent inspiration than Canadian Margaret Atwood's long awaited, decades in the making like a Harper Lee 'Mockingbird', 'Watchmen' sequel to 'The Handmaid's Tale', 'The Testaments' a year later in testimony. So much so Trump went and took his book home. Now Netflix following their own beautiful 'Barry' biopic (we may not need the ears of Will Smith, but if 'Da 5 Bloods' of 'BlackKklansman' director Spike Lee is still doing it like the right thing we are game like 'He Got') and showcasing the more famous 'Southside With You' ice cream kiss, love story (which came out the same year as 'Barry' (there's a moment in this movie were a young Barack walks out on his high school sweetheart at a wedding (albeit in the nicest way like the nicest man in the world possibly could. He didn't leave anyone at the altar) and treads the golf grass lawn outside (literally and figuratively in a bunker) that sounds the same as the cigarette he lights that sparks off nostalgia throughout the whole film. Pacing around in anxiety. Not knowing he's about to meet the love of his wife) like a 'White House Down' and 'Olympus Has Fallen') and the end of the eight wonder of 4 by 4 wonderful years in 'The Final Year' documentary put their name on another one. All at the same time they are holding us down during lockdown, really stepping it up for us alone in social isolation. From giving us '23 Hours To Kill' out of nowhere with legendary, Mount Rushmore comedian Jerry Seinfeld in James Bond mode, who doesn't have a licence to swear and never curbs your enthusiasm and the 10 part story from the golden era of the 90's when the Chicago Bulls were King and Michael Jordan was (is) the G.O.A.T. for ESPN's brought forward and brought to everybody, 30 For 30, 'The Last Dance'.
'Becoming' like the same name of her amazing autobiography that has propped up my shoulders in the weight of the world worst year of my life, aswell as my and everyone else bookshelf. Being like Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code', or F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby'...every household has one. Netflix's new documentary signed off by Michelle's book tour has inspired another, 'I Be Becoming' social media Twitter trend for other people to share their own stories. Which this book, documentary and her families presidency was all about...I'm sorry, will be about. Forgive me...will always be about. "I'm from the Southside of Chicago. That's about all you need to know," says the world's most powerful woman (the one who tells you, you are) married to a "former Chicago resident". Who only really appears in this documentary majorly once, demanding a rewrite. But how about his reaction from staff when he walks through the auditorium before the arena all standing ovation he actually receives when he takes to the stage with flowers for the woman he's loved ever since he showed up late for their first date. Now you know who wouldn't get that kind of reception...right? Oprah. Gayle King. Conan. Stephen Colbert. They're all on hand to interview Michelle. City to city. State to state. Visit to London. Serving as present or as this wonderful writer delivers her own jokes with the same authority that will see her do what Hilary didn't and Biden might not. Yeah we said it. This may not be about the next Obama becoming President, but if it was it'd be one top ballot box billing, campaign trail. "With all the highs and lows and what seems so ordinary and what seems like nothing to you is your POWER (clapping her hands with emphasis on that last word)", she tells one girl like she's telling the whole world. Albeit whilst not making the girl a statistic...instead speaking to her individual spirit. One that shines within all of us, even in our darkest times. As this documentary, like her book a mere half term ago shows you that even though times are troubled the good ones were just a mere moment ago. There's a moment in this movie were Michelle Obama talks about the changes they made when they moved into their Washington residence. Were she made sure that the White House workers didn't dress up like butlers and maids of backwards times, but instead looked like the individuals they were and an indelible image to their young, impressionable daughters that was no longer rooted in inequality, but in inspiration. Just one major example treated as minor by the press in how its forgotten (like sneaking outside to join in the amazing grace of people coming together, not long after bullets were fired at this very house), whilst the man in charge does so much bad every day with all he says that you forget the last ten bad things he's done because you can't keep up with the last 20. But even all the hurt of a weary world can find its soul again when it's shown heart. The first black President changed the world. The first female one will heal it. And when that day comes maybe we will all end up becoming the same thing. Hope. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: 'The Final Year', 'Barry', 'Southside With You'.
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