From Cosmopolitan

A few days before Michelle Obama smoldered a permanent hole in America's heart with her impassioned speech at the DNC, she sat down with Variety for an in-depth interview about the power of pop culture has to change and influence society.

In the interview, just published Tuesday, she highlighted the importance of showing people of color and women on TV. She noted that, "For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren't like them."

One show in particular that influenced Obama at a young age was the Mary Tyler Moore Show, a groundbreaking show from the '70s that starred a single woman who was obsessed with her job (and not a man!). Obama was 10 when she learned that women can have as many opportunities as men do in their lives. And that it's OK not to get married or have kids:

"She was one of the few single working women depicted on television at the time," Obama says. "She wasn't married. She wasn't looking to get married. At no point did the series end in a happy ending with her finding a husband - which seemed to be the course you had to take as a woman. But she sort of bucked that. She worked in a newsroom, she had a tough boss, and she stood up to him. She had close friends, never bemoaning the fact that she was a single. She was very proud and comfortable in that role."

Obama has focused her work on empowering women and children, specifically through programs like global education initiative Let Girls Learn. Looking at the current TV landscape, Obama wants to see more shows that empower young women of color too - especially now that the most prominent black family in America will be leaving the White House:

"And when I come across many little black girls who come up to me over the course of this 7½ years with tears in their eyes, and they say: 'Thank you for being a role model for me. I don't see educated black women on TV, and the fact that you're first lady validates who I am….'"She adds, "My mom says it all the time: 'People are so enamored of Michelle and Barack Obama.' And she says, 'There are millions of Michelle and Barack Obamas.' We're not new. We're not special. People who come from intact families who are educated, who have values, who care for their kids, who raise their kids - if you don't see that on TV, and you don't live in communities with people like me, you never know who we are, and you can make and be susceptible to all sorts of assumptions and stereotypes and biases, based on nothing but what you see and hear on TV. So it becomes very important for the world to see different images of each other, so that, again, we can develop empathy and understanding."

Sigh. And this is why Michelle Obama should be in charge of everything, forever.

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