I know it has been bouncing around the internet for a couple of days, but I think I’ll flag this up today. Truth be told, I don’t really know what to make of it: President Obama has made a ‘retirement video’, a sort of self-referential spoof of himself planning what he’s going to do after leaving the White House. The americans seem to think it’s hilarious. I think it was an attempt at rereading formal hierarchies, much the same as we brits did with Happy and Glorious. But it doesn’t quite work for me: perhaps I’m not as familiar with american politics as I should be, so I don’t get a few of the jokes. It is not clear to me what this film is trying to do or say, or whether it’s supposed to be comic or straight; it just leaves me cold. I realise Obama is talking to the opposition leader, which, given how acrimonious American politics can get, is pretty cool; but I still think the Queen parachuting out of a helicopter with 007 is cooler. Granted, the two films were made for entirely different audiences; rather than trying to make the entire world’s jaw drop, this film is a gentle satire made by a retiring president trying to poke fun at himself. On that level, I suppose it’s okay, just not quite as awesome as the Americans seem to think. If they were trying to break ground in terms of playing with their national codes, conventions and structures, they get second prize. We brits set a high bar for this sort of self-referential spoof in 2012, and the yanks have yet to meet it.