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Love In Power

Duration: 1 x 52'

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Michelle and Barack Obama; the biggest couple in politics. But how did they create such a flawless public image? This documentary aims to uncover the secrets of love in power.

No other political couple has attracted so much interest and empathy since John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy. President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama are even more ubiquitous, more glamorous and more approachable than the Kennedys ever were. Every gossip column not only in the US but in the entire Western world has been fascinated with such questions as: did the dream-couple first kiss in an ice cream shop or in a dark movie theatre?

Love In Power takes stock of the rocket-like ascent of the Obamas not only in the White House, but also as a role model for millions of couples, who are only too willing to succumb to the magic of a presidential couple that seems to come out of a Hollywood script.

Yet beyond the spontaneous, affectionate relationship there is a political image-machine. At an early stage of the presidential race, spin doctors and campaign designers recognised what a secret weapon the couple ‘Michelle and Barack’ could be. Since then, they worked meticulously especially on Michelle. While at the beginning of the campaign she would talk very innocently and openly on tv shows about how her husband too would leave his socks around the house, and in the morning he too would be “snore-y and stinky”, in the course of the campaign Michelle’s commentary style was diverted more and more towards that of an adoring supportive wife.

Even her eyebrows were thinned, says the Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic Robin Givhan, so that Michelle would no longer look angry in the photos. Today the First Lady, Michelle Obama is first and foremost First Mom.

Love In Power describes the tightrope that the Obamas walk : a fine balance between being the couple whose genuine personalities have put a spell on people – and maintaining the image that has been carefully created by the omnipresent spin doctors. The campaign trail has continued relentlessly past the Inauguration: there has never been so much Love In Power.

For ARD

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