Forget politics for a moment: "Becoming" is a reminder of what we have lost.
A documentary about Michelle Obama's time on the road, she toured the country on her book tour, doing Q&A-style "lectures" in arenas across the country.
Cynics may say...something, because honestly after watching this, I don't much care what cynics have to say. They had their say for 8 years, and said ridiculous shit like "Michelle Obama is a man," and "she doesn't really love her husband" and "she's ugly" and "she looks like a monkey," and dozens of other idiotic, hurtful, untrue things. It's time for the cynics to shut up and listen.
Just look at the political climate today. As I write this, just having watched this movie, in the midst of incredible ugliness from the White House every day, the games, and the blame dodging and the denying and talking out of both sides of their mouths, and despicable acts and words that every day somehow manage to continually sting even as they numb, Michelle Obama's message continues to be as positive now as it always was.
Sure, she covers some of the politically-motivated stuff that was heaped upon her, but she doesn't dwell on it. She doesn't call herself the most unfairly-treated first lady in history. She doesn't whine or complain or mope about the names people called her, or about how the press railroaded her (even though they did almost daily). Instead her message is one of positivity, even when she does address those things, it's in service of the larger truth: America IS a great country, the people in it, by and large, are great people, and you, as an individual, have the opportunity to make a difference in the world.
Instead of boasting about what her accomplishments were, she talks about her struggles. She's self-reflective and introspective, and discusses with Gayle King in one segment about how she and Barack went to marriage counseling and how she expected the therapist to "fix" him, only to discover it doesn't work that way.
And this is what presidents and first ladies are supposed to be: intelligent, thoughtful people with something to offer the world.
When she speaks, her goal isn't self-glorification. It's about imparting experience. Stories about how Barack disarmed her on their first date, charming her even in the face of being late for their first date, are wholly relatable. She's intelligent, insightful, thoughtful, charming, and has something of value to add to conversations. A discussion with her, from the outside, would be a largely pleasant experience, one after which you'd feel better about yourself and the world in general, even as you discuss some of the more horrific things that go on in the world.
And that's by design. In a time when we were seemingly at our lowest, the Obamas represented something good, and despite the world's best efforts, they weren't torn down. When there were no scandals to be had, certain people among us with a pulpit invented some. And that's what we lost: the innocence of a time when our biggest scandals were tan suits and blue sleeveless dresses.
It would be easy to dismiss "Becoming" as a vanity project, a way for Michelle Obama to get attention for herself as she talks to the youth of America, relates stories to rapt audiences of young women, and encourages them not to be feminist icons or advocates, but to be real people, to experience the empowerment of realizing you can keep up with everyone else, and that everyone else isn't smarter or better than you. Then her film
Particularly telling was a segment discussing how she was told she wasn't "Princeton material" by a counselor, and how once she got there she realized that most of the people there weren't even necessarily all that smart. She pointed out Affirmative Action students--legacy students who were there because their parents or grandparents had gone once upon a time, or athletes who were there largely to make the school money. Then she mentioned minority students, the only group of those three who are regularly marginalized, and it's not hard to see what someone is saying if they stop and take a look.
Today, in the mire of the Coronavirus, when our leadership spends as much time denying and politicking as leading (more, to be quite honest), the cynics and the haters are back on top. But if we can stop, maybe try not to be a complete asshole for just a moment, maybe we can see that maybe some of us have been wrong about a few things.