Opinion | The Empty Propaganda of ‘Melania’

So a lot of people are referring to this film as a piece of propaganda. But one of the definitions of propaganda is that it has an intention to promote a worldview or belief. So what is this film promoting. It’s interesting because Donald Trump is the master of creating a different, false reality. He’s done that with the election, for his fans, that he claims was stolen from him. He’s done it with Jan. 6. And so this is Melania’s version of that. In her world, Donald Trump is a unifier and promotes dignity and compassion. And it’s mostly her getting in and out of cars while in the split screen of the real world, we’re seeing ICE agents shoot people in the face in their cars. So it’s absurd propaganda the way his is. Yeah. Carlos, what do you think? What is the film trying to promote from a propaganda perspective? Yeah. The first thing I’ll say is that we often speak of propaganda in a pejorative sense, I find propaganda to be utterly fascinating and incredibly useful to understand politicians, whether it’s political memoirs or movies like these where the subject of the film had a lot of control in how she’s presented. Propaganda tells you two things. It tells you how people wish to be perceived, and it tells you what they think of us, what they think of the audience. What’s going to appeal to us. And so in that sense, it’s a great mirror, too. I think that in a sense, they try to sort of soften this administration a little bit, to glamorize it, humanize it, to give you just a very different sense of what it’s about. Melania speaks in these almost like ChatGPT-generated voiceovers that are just very —— I was also thinking ChatGPT! —— Yeah. —— It’s that really flattened A.I. voice. Yeah, but also the words that she chooses, right? She says stuff like every day I live with purpose and devotion, orchestrating the complexities of my life while nurturing my family’s needs. I don’t know what that means.