Gutsy | Courageous Women, Clinton Style

Valerie Simard
The Press

Yes, another!

Powerful women who conduct interviews with inspiring personalities: you have to have lived far from all digital distribution platforms to see an innovation there. Hillary Clinton did it herself in 2020 in a podcast. Michelle Obama too. And Meghan Markle, most recently, with Archetypes, a series of interviews in which she discusses “the labels and stereotypes that try to hold women back.” Her friend Serena Williams was her first guest.

It is also in these waters that the former senator and secretary of state of the United States and her daughter sail, setting out to meet women they consider courageous. Women different from those presented in the book, by the way. By focusing on the balance between well-known personalities and shadow activists, from comedian Amy Schumer to Katrina Cooke Brownlee, a survivor of domestic violence turned police officer, this series still manages to distinguish itself by offering us another nothing but discussions between “friends”.

The stories of these extraordinary ordinary women are truly touching and completely overshadow the rather bland TV presence of the hosts.

Humor, hate… and Kim’s victory over Hillary

Gutsy is a very popular feminist exercise that casts a wide net by addressing themes such as hate, justice, love and the environment. It is their vision of the world and the democratic values ​​that the Clintons put forward.

With polished photography and a loose, sometimes a little too forced staging, they take us by canoe with former members of the white supremacist movement, in a demonstration against child marriage led by a woman who fled her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. and in a Yurok Indigenous community that experienced the trauma of residential schools.

But, product marketing requires, the series does not do without the power of attraction of Hollywood stars. In “Gutsy Women Refuse Hate,” one of the show’s most interesting episodes, rapper Megan Thee Stallion discusses the hate for her while painting a landscape alongside the Clintons.

In another, Kim Kardashian goes head-to-head with the former politician in a law quiz that she hands down wins. What place for this reality TV star in this series? The one who has started a journey to become a lawyer is campaigning for a reform of the criminal law system. Interview ‘hard to take too seriously when Kim Kardashian says she tried to prevent an execution by tweeting about it — at least until she had to leave her phone to do a photo shoot for her collection of sportswear”, writes the journalist Caroline Framke, from variety.

Warm Hillary?

It is an accessible and empathetic Hillary Clinton that this series certainly tries to show, qualities that she has often been criticized for lacking, especially during her presidential campaign against Donald Trump. This warm and relaxed Hillary, the series shows us half. If her sensitivity towards the story of the women she meets is beyond doubt, we clearly feel her less at ease when she is placed in situations as surprising, even a bit ridiculous, as those of playing Jenga, crocheting or to take part in a clowning workshop in Paris.

Each time a former politician lends himself to this kind of exercise, we hope for revelations. These are rather confidences to which we are entitled, especially when Hillary Clinton explains her decision to stay with her husband after his affair with Monica Lewinsky was revealed in broad daylight.

“How did you stay? asks Reverend Whittney Ijanaten, wedding celebrant. “I had to make the decision that I thought was the right one for me, answers the then first lady of the United States. […] It was a decision about who I am, who we are, and who he is. I thought to myself that he was basically a very good person. She is a loving, caring, thoughtful person, and I love her with all my heart. »

And politics?

Politics is never far away in this kind of business. The Democrat does drop some anti-Trump charges that are sure to fuel her detractors, who were already criticizing the series last week based on its trailer.

Is this a way for Hillary Clinton to boost her potential return to politics? Or for Chelsea to set the stage for a first jump? So argued commentator Chris Kenny, of the conservative Sky News Australia television channel, denouncing “this celebrity who seeks attention by commercializing fame”.

It must be said that the rumors of a return to politics of Hillary Clinton persist while voices were raised to demand his return following the invalidation by the Supreme Court of the judgment Roe v. wade. She gave no clue as to her intentions. And it is not this series that will give us the answer.

Gutsyon Apple TV+