欢迎来到米歇尔•奥巴马秀，前第一夫人打造营销机器 [美国媒体]

Welcome To The Michelle Obama Show The Former First Lady Builds A Marketing Machine

欢迎来到米歇尔•奥巴马秀，前第一夫人打造营销机器



The cover of Michelle Obama's memoir, Becoming MILLER MOBLEY

米歇尔•奥巴马回忆录《成为》的封面，图：米勒•莫布里

Michelle Obama is in the middle of a 12-city book tour, and as the whole world knows by now, this is no ordinary tour. She’s selling out sports stadiums that seat tens of thousands of people, and the people who fork over between $30 and $3,000 for a ticket get no ordinary bookstore reading or Q&A. There’s swelling music – think Steve Wonder, think the Jackson Five – there’s an interviewer who’s usually something of a celebrity herself (think actress Sarah Jessica Parker or the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). There’s a slickly produced photo montage. There’s video. There’s even a warmup act, in the form of a varied group of girls and women who, each in her carefully choreographed turn, briefly explain who they are and what they are in the process of … becoming.

米歇尔•奥巴马正在进行一场12个城市的图书之旅，众所周知，这不是一次普通的旅行。在容纳成千上万人的体育场里，她正在销售其图书，而且那些花费30到3000美元买票的人，也没有如普通书店里阅读或问答的体验。有聒噪的音乐——比如史提夫•汪达，比如杰克逊五人组——有一位采访者，通常是已成名的名人她本人（比如女演员莎拉•杰西卡•帕克或小说家奇玛曼达•恩戈齐•阿迪奇），有一张制作精美的蒙太奇照片，有视频。甚至还有一场热身活动，形式是一群各式各样的女孩和女人，她们每个人都在精心设计的回合中，简要地解释她们是谁，以及她们正在干什么……想要成为什么样的人。



This is a woman who understands optics very well and who has expressed her opinions on everything from her right to straighten her hair (the subject of black women’s hair often being a vexed one) to her mixing-and-matching of high fashion with J. Crew. She must have had a carefully delineated thought process about that shoulder. In going for the glam, was she foreswearing Hillary Clinton-style pantsuits and Elizabeth Warren Type A glasses, thereby telegraphing her desire to stay away from politics? Was she embracing her celebrity status, her post-White House role as Netflix producer, talk show habitué and mega-earning author?

这位女士对光学非常了解，她对一切都展现出了自己的观点，从她理直头发的权利（关于黑人女性的头发常常就是一个令人烦恼的话题）到她与J. Crew混合搭配的高级时装。她一定对那个肩膀有过仔细的思考过程。在追求魅力的过程中，她是否预见到要穿希拉里•克林顿式的长裤套装，戴伊丽莎白•沃伦式的A型眼镜，从而表达她远离政治的愿望？她是否欣然接受自己的名人身份，她在离开白宫后扮演的奈飞制片人、脱口秀主持人和超级收入写作者的角色？

All these moves are her right, but I have to confess disappointment. And since I’m an ardent Michelle Obama fan, I also have to ask myself: Why on earth do I have this feeling?

所有这些举动都是她的权利，但我不得不表示失望。而且既然我是米歇尔•奥巴马的忠实粉丝，我也不得不问自己：我到底为什么会有这种感觉？

The disappointment may be related to the reaction I and many others had while she was First Lady when, rather than grappling with weighty policy issues, she opted for safe, traditional, nonthreatening projects centered on veterans’ families, fitness and the White House garden. All very worthy, but I wanted her, with her law degree and her big brain, to do so much more than that.

这种失望可能与我和许多其他人在她担任第一夫人时的反应有关，当时她选择了安全、传统、无威胁的项目，而不是处理重大的政策问题，主要集中在退伍军人家庭、健身和白宫花园这类事情。所有这些都很有价值，但是我希望她，以她的法律学位和她聪明的脑袋，可以做的远远不止于此。

And what is it that I want of her now? For her to rescue me – us – as we face a yawning vacuum in political leadership?

而我现在又期望她做些什么呢？当我们面临政治领导的巨大真空时，她来拯救我——我们？

That isn’t fair, but it just may be true. I long for the Michelle Obama who stirred our hearts and minds with her famous “When they go low, we go high” line, seemingly unafraid of any situation.

这不公平，但这可能是真的。我渴望米歇尔•奥巴马，她以她着名的“他们要堕落，我们就积极向上”的口号打动了我们的心和思想，似乎对任何情况都毫不畏惧。



But that, very clearly, does not seem to be what Michelle Obama has in mind. We may want to follow, but if she's going to lead, it's probably not going to be in a way that has much of anything to do with ballots, campaigns or elections.

但是，很明显，这似乎不是米歇尔•奥巴马想要的。但是如果她要领导，我们可能想跟进，这种方式可能不会与投票、竞选或选举有太大关系。