Why MAGA won't rally for "Melania" documentary

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Why MAGA won’t rally for “Melania” documentary
Jeff Bezos' big gamble to impress Trump isn't paying off with fans

By Sophia Tesfaye
Senior Writer
Published January 31, 2026 10:45AM (EST)


(Salon) After spending $40 million to acquire the rights to “MELANIA,” a film about President Donald Trump’s third wife and first lady of the United States, and another $35 million on the film’s marketing and release, Amazon’s project is projected to flop. Contrary to the president’s claims, there are no sold-out screenings or lines around the block. There are no viral clips, no TikTok reactions from red hat superfans and no manufactured outrage that turns into free publicity. The film is opening to near-empty theaters not because critics hate it, or because liberals are boycotting it, but because MAGA voters simply do not care.

Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, appears to have believed that overpaying wildly for a lavish documentary about Melania Trump, promoting it aggressively and rolling out the black carpet at the Kennedy Center would curry favor with Trumpworld. (To be fair, after sitting on the dais at the president’s inauguration in January 2025 and donating a million dollars to the festivities, his company secured a billion-dollar cloud computing contract with the administration.) But MAGA is not moved by “cinematic viewing.” It only shows up for grievance theater.

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Whatever MAGA imagines Melania to be — “classy” and “Jackie Kennedy-like” — it’s not relatable. Trump rallies work because they are loud, ugly, combative and fueled by a sense of shared resentment. Right-wing media succeeds when it feeds that anger. Melania offers none of it. She has never been a participant in the MAGA movement. She does not speak its language. She barely appears alongside her husband, and when she does, her body language often reads as reluctant at best, contemptuous at worst. That’s why, in over a decade, MAGA has never developed emotional attachment to Melania as a cultural figure.

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Melania gives nothing and expects the world. Her solution to political division is simply submission to her husband. But MAGA voters know it’s not that simple. The MAGA creed depends on the idea that Trump is fighting corrupt elites on behalf of ordinary people. Watching his family collect a payday equivalent to decades of presidential salary from one of the richest men on Earth punctures that story. The involvement of director Brett Ratner, who has faced multiple accounts of sexual harassment and assault, doesn’t help. Even for MAGA, there is little thrill in watching the powerful protect the disgraced. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/01/31/why-maga-wont-rally-for-melania-documentary/