Culture

Michelle Obama Does Funny or Die, Because Junk Food is Killing Us All

And it's not funny. At all.

|

Funny or Die released a new video today featuring a very special cameo from Michelle Obama. It's a parody of The Hunger Games, Divergent, et al, crossed with a healthy eating PSA.

The resulting video, "Snackpocalypse," is not remotely funny.

Yeah, yeah, kids are not eating healthy enough, whatever. The joke falls flat, though—it's too generic. The creators could have replaced junk food with any other perceived social problem and made pretty much the same video. Snack food-shaming fits here only because it's what Michelle Obama is best known for.

This isn't the first time an Obama has appeared in a Funny or Die video; President Obama sat down for a scripted interview with Zach Galifianakis on his awkwardly hilarious "Between Two Ferns." The video was a plug for Healthcare.gov and did earn some laughs, despite being propaganda. "Snackpocalypse," on the other hand, is unfunny propaganda.

Interestingly enough, the Barack video was conceived by the administration as a deliberate ploy to market the Affordable Care Act to increasingly skeptical millennials. Obama's people pitched the idea to Funny or Die's creative team, which accepted. It's not clear whether Michelle Obama's video was also planned by the administration (to be fair, this video is not promoting a specific policy the way the other one was). I've asked for clarification from Funny or Die, but have not heard back yet.

Funny or Die is also perfectly capable of pushing leftist policy ideas without help from the Obamas. Check out the pro-minimum wage video, "Mary Poppins Quits with Kristen Bell," and then watch Remy's rebuttal video.