Showtime’s ‘The First Lady’ Sticks to the Official Stories When Profiling Presidential Wives

Alci Rengifo

Drama should give us a unique window into the actual lives of the elite and powerful. Since the days of Shakespeare, it has brought icons down to human scale. No one deserves a proper dramatic approach more than the wives of American presidents, who are participants in U.S. history that are all too readily reduced to backstage figures. The first season of Showtime’s “The First Lady” focuses on three Oval Office spouses without going further than what we already know, while giving some extra details on how they shaped policy. It’s America’s political past, the Lifetime version, where everyone speaks in slogans with hyper enthusiasm. Historical figures work best as drama when we can suddenly relate to them. These first ladies are portrayed as so superhuman that they remain as distant as the faces on our currency.

Season one plays it safe by focusing on three first ladies married to less than controversial presidents. Every episode crisscrosses through history, starting with Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson), wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Kiefer Sutherland) in the 1930s, Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer), wife of Gerald Ford (Aaron Eckhart) in the 1970s, and Michelle Obama (Viola Davis), who most readers will need no introduction as wife of Barack Obama (O-T Fagbenle) in the late aughts. If there is a centralizing narrative it is the Obamas making history as the first Black American presidential family. In the ‘30s, we see Eleanor Roosevelt supporting FDR as he is diagnosed with polio at the dawn of his political career, then becoming his conscience during the Great Depression. Betty Ford overcomes alcoholism to adjust to her husband being thrust into power after Richard Nixon resigns following Watergate. Closer to the present, Michelle Obama battles racist attacks from the right-wing while proving a first lady can be a real policy influencer in the White House.

Anyone who has read a serious biography on any of the presidents might be surprised at how corny “The First Lady” plays. Few conversations in this show feel like actual people living extraordinary moments while having private lives. Everyone acts as if they are aware they are historical icons, making proclamations instead of expressing ideas. Obama and Michelle don’t just watch the news and ponder White House life. He has to say with cheesy music in the background, “you are going to be a dope first lady. Michelle Obama has never failed a test!” Running the world’s mightiest state seems cheery as opposed to the intense blood sport of politics. While Betty tries to figure out plans for a dinner with King Hussein of Jordan, a White House worker beams, “It seems to me these are the moments that really, truly mattered! State dinners that first ladies made happen! This is your first chance to make history!” There’s never an attempt at imagining anything deeper, like Oliver Stone’s “Nixon,” where Pat Nixon, brilliantly played by Joan Allen, truly faces the implications of being married to an insecure man sinking in his own, corrupt ship. Of course that’s not light entertainment, yet real history is rarely light. A moment in “The First Lady” brushes closer to stark truth when Eleanor discovers FDR has been having an affair with a secretary, but the moment turns into shallow melodrama.

What first makes the show hard to get comfortable with is its style, which manically cuts back and forth through eras. Instead of finding one driving theme per episode, with the exception of one chapter that deals with how every first lady met her future president husband, it splashes around differing scenarios. It’s like a Greatest Hits of the First Ladies. One minute Michelle Obama is dealing with Fox News painting her as a mean person, the next Eleanor Roosevelt gets the idea for the famous “only thing we have to fear is fear itself” section of FDR’s famous inaugural speech. Roosevelt and Obama are shown as capable of taking command. Ford is the first lady whose story is more about learning the maze of White House life. She has to get to know the staff, learn protocols and find the confidence to organize functions. Dakota Fanning jumps in and out of episodes as daughter Susan Elizabeth Ford, who gives mom encouragement while linking her parents to ‘70s youth culture. 

“The First Lady” features a formidable cast reduced to performances that feel more like imitations. Gillian Anderson, recently acclaimed for playing Margaret Thatcher in “The Crown,” turns Eleanor Roosevelt into a cliché of the sweet, somewhat naïve grandmother. Viola Davis doesn’t try to just channel Michelle Obama, she also overdoes some facial mannerisms to try and literally imitate the real first lady’s voice. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Betty Ford is the more down to earth performance, maybe because the real Ford hasn’t been such an object of pop culture representation to begin with. As for the presidents, they too are a case of borderline SNL sketches or the kind of videos we used to watch in elementary school history lessons. They are playing caricatures of these men and not the real thing. It all boils down to history simplified. Per this show, it took Eleanor meeting struggling workers to get FDR to push through the New Deal. Michelle pushed for healthcare reform against doubtful staffers like a cold-hearted Rahm Emmanuel (Michael Aronov). Gerald Ford’s presidency was such a quick affair that the only villain the show can conjure is a young Donald Rumsfeld (Derek Cecil). 

The wives of the men who have sat in the most powerful office in the world most certainly need keen dramatic representation. They also have without a doubt contributed much to policy and history. A better way to reflect on their lives would be a show that doesn’t play it so safe, even with its choice of subjects. What was Jackie Kennedy going through during the Bay of Pigs? How did Pat Nixon deal with her husband’s dark nights of the soul? Did Melania Trump ever even enjoy her four years at the center of the hurricane? All the first ladies are worthy of attention because they formed part of the system that directly impacts our lives. We can surely admire Michelle Obama in the series when she insists on taking her girls to school without just letting the Secret Service handle it. But there is so much more to such an impressive, capable personality. “The First Lady” raises more intriguing questions than satisfying drama, while making very profound, complicated personalities and situations too simple. 

“The First Lady” season one premieres April 17 and airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime.