Where can you see Hillary Clinton going to clown school in Paris while wearing, yes, a clown nose?
The answer is Gutsy, the new docuseries from the former U.S. Secretary of State and her daughter, Chelsea, which debuts on Apple TV+ on September 9.
“[There are] things I did on this show that I not only hadn’t done before, but never thought I would do,” Hillary Clinton tells me, “and the clown nose ranks right up there.”
The show, which is based on the Clintons’ New York Times bestseller The Book of Gutsy Women, follows the mother and daughter as they interview noteworthy activists, entertainers, and community leaders whose work has been just as transformative for them as it’s been impactful for others. Each episode’s interviews coalesce around themes such as justice, motherhood, and combating hate.
For Chelsea Clinton, part of the reason for adapting the book into a show was to push back against the people who’ve criticized their scope of storytelling and suggested they include stories of men as well.
“I was like, that’s history,” she says. “If that’s still the mentality, we need to do whatever we can with our platforms to continue to highlight, share, tell, amplify stories of women and girls that we find inspiring, we find gutsy, and that we want people to know.”
The Clintons’ decision to use their platform to elevate these women comes at a fortuitous time. A study published earlier this year upended the misconception that overall, women are more risk-averse than men in the workplace. The truth is, men and women are on par for their willingness to take the initial risk. It’s just that women tend to suffer negative consequences for doing so, making them less likely to take that same risk in the future. The study runs parallel to other research highlighting how ambitious or assertive women tend to meet similar friction.
