I waited until Amazon Prime was streaming it for free before I forced myself to sit through all 104 minutes of Melania, the documentary about the First Lady for which Jeff Bezos paid a ridiculous $40 million, in an obvious attempt to curry favor with the Trump administration. I knew it would be a chore — but it seemed one hate-watching assignment I couldn’t avoid.
The film is worse than I even imagined: an unrevealing, stage-managed infomercial for the notoriously aloof First Lady. It purports to be a candid, behind-the-scenes look at her activities in the weeks leading up to the January 2025 inauguration: fussing over her outfits, interviewing prospective staffers, getting briefed on the inaugural rituals. Melania is the film’s producer, and it’s her show from beginning to end: no interviews or outside voices of any kind, just the First Lady’s own stilted narration (“Walking through the Capitol Crypt reminds me how much my reverence of our nation’s military is rooted in their mission to defend the Constitution”), clearly the work of speechwriters aiming to give the “I really don’t care” gal some gravitas. It is boring beyond belief.
There is only one surprising, seemingly spontaneous moment. On the day before the Inauguration, Melania and her camera crew wander into a room where Trump is rehearsing his inaugural speech, before a handful of staffers. “My Presidential legacy will be that of a peacemaker,” he intones at one point, before pausing to consider what comes next. “And unifier,” Melania calls out from her seat. Trump mulls the suggestion approvingly. Cut to the next day’s speech before the Inauguration crowd: “My presidential legacy will be that of a peacemaker — and unifier,” Trump pronounces, as Melania beams from her seat nearby.
A real glimpse of the First Lady’s hidden contribution to her husband’s presidency? Or a concocted anecdote, aimed at boosting her image as more than just a White House fashion accessory? Given the Administration’s history of falsehoods and fabrications, it’s not hard to guess which way the betting markets would turn.
Yet in truth, Melania is scarcely less believable than most of what passes today for “reality TV.” I’ve pretty much sworn off the genre since the first couple of seasons of Survivor, but whenever I tune in to sample one, my defenses go up. The tropes and formulas and narrative arcs of these shows have become so familiar that the participants — all those Bachelors and Real Housewives and Big Brother housemates — know exactly how to play their parts.
Take Neighbors, the new HBO reality series chronicling the knock-down, drag-out feuds between next-door neighbors, over things like property lines and beach access. Aside from the overcaffeinated editing (each half-hour episode cuts back and forth between two separate disputes) that sometimes makes it hard even to discern exactly what the feuds are about, the show’s gaggle of eccentrics, recluses, hotheads, gun toters, and preening assholes are simply too outlandish and camera-ready to be believed.
The difference, of course, is that most reality shows are tailored to gin up suspense, competition, and conflict; Melania does just the opposite, draining its subject of any drama whatsoever. Yet the film does crystallize what, to my mind, is the most cogent way of explaining the disastrous Trump presidency. It is the ultimate revenge of reality TV on the sane, fair and responsible functioning of our American democracy.
Donald Trump, of course, rose to a new peak of fame (and revived his spotty business reputation) by playing a ruthless CEO on a TV reality show. And he has spent five-plus years in the White House, not by actually doing the work of being President (reading briefing papers, understanding issues, consulting with experts, even learning the names of countries whose wars he has supposedly settled), but simply playing one on TV. The blustering rhetoric, the cabinet packed with TV pundits, the fetish for medals and monuments, the flippant treatment of war as a video-game highlight reel — everything is a performance, grounded in little but ego, show without substance. And in a nation immersed in two decades of reality TV, it has been a shocking success.
But a reckoning may, at long last, be at hand. Trump started the war in Iran impulsively, and thought he could skate through it with bullying rhetoric and celebratory war videos. Instead, he is suddenly facing the real-world consequences: a global energy crisis, soaring gas prices, and a stubborn regime that refuses to conform to Trump’s version of reality. He can threaten and boast as much as he likes. But as The Bachelorette’s Taylor Frankie Paul found out — and even Melania would likely admit, once the cameras are turned off —reality TV has a way of being spoiled by reality.
Richard Zoglin 