Hollywood Zeitgeist

As photogenic celebrities go, she is at the pinnacle. Not only is she very visible and accessible, but she is also the First Lady of the land, wife of the President of the United States of America. Poised, articulate, passionate, intelligent, a professional in her own right, and high-earner to boot. That she has been genetically endowed with grace and beauty, and is engaged in acting as a symbol and a model wife, mother and businesswoman to her fellow countrywomen, is a plus in her favour.

She has pioneered a new role for her successors, many of whom will have no wish to emulate her. Most of whom would not be capable of doing so. Her style and flair are all her own. She enjoys being a person of ability, one whose exploits and fashionable appearances are followed by so many who approve of anything and everything she does.

Is she overexposed in her role as First Lady, a complementary presence to her husband, no slouch at commanding attention himself, aside from his role as Commander in Chief of all that is America for the time being - perhaps, perhaps not. She is not someone whose presence can be ignored; she attracts notice just as a magnet attracts iron filings. A natural force of nature, in other words.

A kind of grand majesty all her own.

Reuters, Mario Anzuon

"So when Michelle Obama suddenly takes the focus in an electronic age that we have on all levels -- social media and public TV -- I think it's very appropriate that she plays the role that she does because she not only gains credibility for the programs that she promotes, but at the same time she says 'I don't just sit in the office and knit."
"That said, what I think has made her critics come alive even more [Sunday night] is the fact that Obama seems to have engendered almost exclusively solid support from the Hollywood camp."
Gerald Shuster, professor political communication, University of Pittsburgh

That, without one scintilla of a doubt.

Will her larger-than-life persona in the public eye distort her self-regard, or is it already sufficiently hubristic?