On The Cover Hillary Clinton Making History…
The former First Lady and fearless force of nature sets the record straight on her long and eventful life
No one could accuse Hillary Clinton of being a quitter. The former First Lady, mum of one and 2016 Presidential candidate has a knack of weathering a storm and coming back stronger.
In 2016, film cameras followed Hillary during her campaign in one of the most divisive elections in America’s history. Some of this incredible footage now features in a new four-hour docuseries beginning this week on the new Sky Documentaries channel. The film – Hillary, directed by Nanette Burstein – was made using around 35 hours’ of interview footage, along with footage from her campaign as well as interviews with those who know her, including her husband Bill and daughter Chelsea. Nothing was off limits, Hillary says.
“This did not start out as the film it ended up being. It really started out as maybe a campaign documentary. Nanette, who I was very impressed with when we interviewed her as the person that was going to direct the film, came back and said,
‘Look this is a bigger story. It needs to be told. It’s part of the arc of women’s history, advancement, choices that are made’.”
Hillary became First Lady of the United States and one of the most famous women in the world when Bill won the 1992 election.
In his campaign, he promised the electorate would get “two for the price of one” if they voted for him.
“I became a kind of Rorschach Test for women and women’s roles as soon as I burst onto the public scene when Bill was running for President,” she recalls. “I’d lived more than 40 years before that, and I had no real understanding of what it meant to be thrust into this highest, brightest platform and to try to live your life and kind of go along with what you’d always done.”
Over his eight-year term Hillary drew on her successful law career and was active in politics, but she was often accused of interfering. People either loved her or hated her.
When her proposal to give all Americans access to free healthcare failed, segments of society turned on her. The documentary shows old footage of a burning
Hillary effigy.
“Part of it was the timing that I came on the national scene, what I chose to do – which was extremely controversial – the fact that I was the sort of ‘first First Lady’ of my generation and had been working ever since I was a young woman in the professional workforce.”
Hillary admits people had a “challenging impression” of her which influenced how they viewed her political work.
As well as raising Chelsea and writing a few books, she spearheaded law changes focusing on the rights of women and children. She was committed to fulfilling the “two for the price of one” promise of her husband.
One thing that Hillary wasn’t prepared for, though, was handling the fallout of
Bill’s affair.
When his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was exposed, Hillary stood by him. This decision divided the American public and even became a campaign tool used against her in the
2016 election.
She was drawn into an unusually dirty battle – even by political standards – and was accused of being dishonest and an enabler of abuse.
Speaking about the new film, which includes behindthe-scenes footage from her showdowns with eventual
“I was this lightning rod, and I was someone who people were quick to judge”
winner Donald Trump, she says there were lots of humbling moments.
“One was the recognition that I have been often, in my view, mischaracterised, misperceived, and I have to bear a lot of the responsibility for that. That whatever the combination of reasons might be, I certainly didn’t do a good enough job to break through a lot of the perceptions that were out there.”
Hillary, who didn’t choose who was interviewed for the film, says the final edit forced her to ask whether she could’ve done more to show people who she really is.
“But I also know that I was this lightning rod and I was somebody who people were quick to judge, often having nothing to do with me but with the times and with the attitudes about women. And all of that was tied up together. So it was complicated.” MW