Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary Becoming just saw a 13,000% spike in views—jumping from 354,000 minutes watched to 47.5 million minutes—over the exact same weekend that Melania Trump’s new vanity project hit theaters.
Of course, viewers had some options to weigh: a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score versus a 5% one. Tough call.
WHAT’S GOING ON: Amazon spent $40 million making Melania and another $35 million advertising it. The film pulled in $7 million its opening weekend—technically the best documentary opening in over a decade. But here’s the thing: according to the Guardian, international audiences aren’t buying what the Trumps are selling. The film debuted at number 29 in the UK and number 31 in Australia.
Meanwhile, a nearly six-year-old Netflix documentary about Michelle Obama suddenly became must-watch television again. The audience spoke with their remotes.
THE DETAILS: The Melania audience was overwhelmingly white women over 55. The film’s director is Brett Ratner, who was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women in 2017. This week, Ratner had to defend himself after appearing in a photograph with Jeffrey Epstein in newly released documents. “I didn’t have a personal relationship with him,” he said. “You get thrown into these things. It’s crazy. It’s horrible.”
The Guardian’s Xan Brooks gave Melania zero stars, calling it “a gilded trash remake of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest.”
BUT BUT BUT: Melania Trump herself is using every opportunity to plug the film—even at the White House while meeting with freed Israeli-American hostages. She referenced a meeting with Aviva Siegel, whose husband Keith was held captive, then told the press: “It was captured on camera and available to see in my new film Melania. It was very emotional.”
She later claimed this was “not a promotion.” Sure.
Q: Why do you feel it's appropriate to use an official White House event to promote your movie?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 4, 2026
MELANIA TRUMP: This is not a promotion
(She promoted her video literally 5 minutes ago during this same event) pic.twitter.com/Rkp7pO1Rdy
OF COURSE: When an Oregon cinema owner dared to make jokes about the film on his marquee—writing “To defeat your enemy you must know them. Melania starts Friday”—Amazon pulled the movie from his theater entirely. Free speech for me, not for thee.
WHY IT MATTERS: This is a $75 million propaganda project backed by one of the world’s largest corporations, directed by a man credibly accused of sexual misconduct, promoting a first lady who can’t stop hawking it at official government events. And Americans responded by streaming a five-year-old documentary about the previous first lady instead. Sometimes the resistance is just clicking a different button.