The documentary on First Lady Melania Trump, titled Melania, received harsh reviews from film critics. However, that did not stop the film from being praised by MAGA supporters, who are already highly engaged with the lives of the Trumps. The documentary, which was procured by Amazon on a $40 million budget, follows Melania through the 20 days leading up to Trump’s second presidential inauguration.
Discussing the film’s reception, producer Marc Beckman told Variety, “This isn’t a political, policy-oriented message. It’s just a nice story about this woman and her family and philanthropy and business, historically for our country.”
He added, “So we actually really wanted it to go to everyone. But obviously the fans go first, right?” His comments highlighted the fact that perhaps everyone praising the movie was essentially a supporter of Trump. Beyond the MAGA fanbase, the movie did not stand a chance of winning over anyone else.
View this post on Instagram
Beckman, however, does not see that as an issue and instead explained the logic behind it. He said, “That makes sense; it’s just like a majority of the people that would go to see a Spider-Man movie in the beginning would be fans of Spider-Man. We expected the fans to come out first, so it’s nice that they approve.”
While his argument is technically correct, since Melania is a documentary and not a work of fiction, the audience could have been more diverse if the subject had universal appeal. People who are already opposed to Trump and his policies would naturally not be interested in watching a film that essentially presents the family in a favorable light.
Instead of focusing on that, Beckman chose to blame critics and their political bias for the movie’s overwhelmingly negative reviews. Explaining further, he said, “What really is a critic’s job today? It’s worse than bias. It’s like they’re voting, with political ideology first. There were some critiques I read that didn’t even talk about the film; they only spoke about President Trump.”
He added that the film’s harsh criticism “just unfortunately shows where we are today in society.” Interestingly, Melania also displays a large disparity between critics’ and viewers’ ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
View this post on Instagram
While the critics’ score is only 11%, the audience rating is a staggering 98%, which shows how fiercely the fans of First Lady have rushed to positively review the film. Beckman also commented on this, saying, “And this huge disparity that you’re talking about—I did read that it’s the biggest ever in history—is just a sign of the times.”
One thing that should be noted here is that the film has been directed by Brett Ratner, whose Hollywood career was almost over after being called out for multiple se – -al assault allegations. Besides that, Ratner’s name has also come up in the Epstein files, much like President Trump himself.
However, Ratner is also free of the consequences of being mentioned in those files and is currently busy basking in the MAGA supporters’ applause for Melania.
