Michelle Obama: First They Laugh, Then They Listen

FLOTUS Michelle Obama is a force to be reckoned with and a tough act to follow. From changing the menus in school cafeterias to attacking childhood obesity, dancing with Ellen Degeneres on her show, and riding in a car rapping Missy’s ‘Get Ur Freak On’ for a recent episode of Carpool Karaoke, she has found a passionate, relatable way to get the world to listen and pay attention to some of the things that really matter. Recently, in an interview she explains how being her silly self is getting the message across. Peep the excepts below.

On her appearance rapping in the car on TV:

First of all, I was riding in a car with somebody else, without the Secret Service. So right there, [I said], ‘Let’s keep driving!’ I think we drove around the South Lawn about 100 times.

On her silly approach:

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way. My view is, first you get them to laugh, then you get them to listen. So I’m always game for a good joke, and I’m not so formal in this role. There’s very little that we can’t do that people wouldn’t appreciate.

On how she came up with her approach:

Reaching people where they lived on a day-to-day basis, and the next step was, ‘How do you do that? Where are the people?’ Well, they’re not reading the op-ed pieces in the major newspapers. They’re not watching Sunday morning news talk shows. They’re doing what most people are doing: They are watching TV.

On the silliest thing she’s done to get her message out:

I think it was probably ‘Billy on the Street,’ when I was literally pushing [Billy Eichner] in a grocery cart in a grocery store. You know, that’s when I thought, ‘This is crazy.’ But again, it resonated. It was something that was successful. Maybe if I’d done that in my first year, it might have been too much. But I think by the time we did this in the second term, people knew me. They understood the approach. It allows me to take a few more risks than in the first term, when people were just getting to know who I was.

On her platform:

It has been wonderful having the platform of the first lady’s office. But if you sort of look at who we are, we don’t have a budget. We don’t have congressional authority. But I still believe we managed to have impact on these issues, which sort of sets the foundation to think, ‘Gosh, we can do a lot, even when we’re not here, just with the power of public awareness.’?

(Photos: Variety) By –@mskay_marie