Writing about the documentary Melania is to write about the Trump fluke.

The Amazon documentary “Melania” would not become a topic of this blog; users would not award it 1,4 (out of 10) on IMDb. This is exactly the seventh-lowest score on IMDb, with six of the others having lower scores that aren’t even worth mentioning.

The apparent, however, wrong question here would be: Is Melania really so bad?

This would be the wrong question for several reasons. The first one is hidden in the IMDb statement below the scoring table: Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title.

Astroturfing

IMDb does not use the technical term of astroturfing, a coordinated, deceptive activity designed to create the false impression of grassroots opinion, negative in this case. Not surprisingly, the score rose from 1,3 to 1,4 over the last three days, supporting the idea that, after the initial negative astroturfing, newer ratings pushed the average score higher.

Even more interesting is the Rotten Tomatoes evaluation. All critics give it a 11%, while top critics give it only 8%. However, the real drama happens on the Popcornmeter, the public voting. The movie scores 98% (4,9 out of 5) among verified audiences, while unverified audiences score it 30% (1,9).

The real questions, thus, are: what triggered the unverified audience to score Melania so differently from the sincere popular vote, and why do critics score it even lower than the astroturfed, unverified public?

I’m sure that you already have a correct answer to this question; however, let me delay my response with the Guardian case.

The Guardian Fluke

The Guardian noticed the fluke on Rotten Tomatoes, however, with a conclusion that is 100% consistent with the Guardian’s ideology (and thus utterly wrong):

Rotten Tomatoes’s parent company, Versant, has rejected speculation that the latter figure was the result of a flood of fake reviews, telling Variety, “there has been NO manipulation on the audience reviews for the Melania documentary”.

They added: “Reviews displayed on the Popcornmeter are VERIFIED reviews, meaning that it has been verified that users have bought a ticket to the film through Fandango.”

However, there appears to be a striking disparity between the warmth of those reviews labelled “verified” because the users have bought a ticket through a particular site and those collected in “all audience reviews”, which do not count towards its rating.

The former contains – as the 99% rating suggests – blanket praise and evangelism, with users urging “every red blooded American to see this movie to recognise the grace, sophistication and power of Flotius [sic]” and applauding the lack of nudity and profanity. (Guardian, Mon. 9^th Feb 2026)

How could The Guardian have made such a blatant mistake? Verified reviews, those that are linked to actual ticket purchases, voted the movie positively, while those that are anonymous scored it only 30%. 30% on Popcorn is still higher than IMDb’s 1.4; however, it is much lower than the 98% awarded by the verified audience. The Guardian’s mistake, though, is predictable, as it stems from a deeply rooted ideology that prevents it from seeing reality as it is. They could not recognize negative astroturfing, as such recognition would contradict The Guardian’s ideology.

The question of what provokes such mistakes involving Melania is thus highly relevant.

Answering this question, I must say something about the movie itself.

Documentary or feature?

First of all, Melania is much more of a feature film than a documentary, at least in terms of its expression. It is a documentary, as it follows the 20 days leading up to the Trump inauguration and the inauguration itself. However, if you remove some shots from the inauguration itself, it becomes a well-thought-out feature that presents an orchestrated portrayal of Melania’s personal traits, while strictly avoiding many others that would be just as interesting for the audience, if not more so. Melania is not a documentary but a feature.

And why not?

While Melania often says her family is her first priority, Barron stays out of the camera’s focus, which aligns with her values of protecting the family. On the other hand, her father, old enough to protect himself, appears just enough to add the flavor of her Slovenian origins.

Those parts of her life that she (and the movie) wants to point out are well thought out, elaborated, and presented in the immaculate rhythm. Personal fashion – inauguration social events setup direction and preparation – a tribute to death, with three reiterations and with an inauguration finale. Three tributes, the first one to her mother, the second to President Carter, and the third to the anonymous soldier, are strategically interrupting the flow of the spectacular fashion and design festival. Not even once is the sequence too long or too short. Very good filmography.

To conclude this short critical evaluation, Melania is not the best documentary of all time, nor could it be included in the top 100 feature films of all time. Still, it is definitely in the top section of both genres.

One might object to the glamorous décor, immaculate fashion, blacked-out SUVs, private Trump jets, Mar-a-Lago’s golden shine, and so on. But we all knew that before! Melania used to be a model and still dresses like one. And Trump loves a golden environment. A movie that wouldportraye them differently would be lying. In this sense, this movie could not be more sincere. It is sincere, has excellent dramaturgy, and is professionally executed in every detail.

What is then triggering the controversy?

The imposter

Let me list documentaries of First Ladies, and the answer will reveal:

• Becoming (2020) – A Netflix documentary about Michelle Obama, following her on the book tour of her memoir and offering personal insights into her life and role as First Lady.
• Hillary (2020) – A feature-length documentary about Hillary Rodham Clinton, directed by Nanette Burstein.
• Hillary Clinton: The Power of Women (2015) – A BBC documentary featuring Hillary Clinton’s groundbreaking speech on women’s rights and her influence on global policy, including material from her time as First Lady.
• The Lady Bird Diaries(Hulu documentary about Lady Bird Johnson) – Uses personal diary recordings to shed new light on First Lady Bird Johnson’s life and influence.
• Eleanor Roosevelt documentaries – There are several historical documentaries about Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the most influential First Ladies; many are available online or on history channels.

A hint: all four presidents featured in existing documentaries about First Ladies were Democrats. Should I suggest that Melania spoiled the game? Yes, I do. Do I want to suggest that there is a Hollywood conspiracy here? Yes, I do.

And here we come to the final answer about the flukes in the ratings.

The inconvenient truth

With Melania’s approval, one also approves of Trump. And since it is politically incorrect to say anything positive about Trump (at least in public), even a hint about the possible qualities of Melania would compromise the cultural fight against Trump.

This is the main reason an anonymous individual can express positive views of Trump or, for that matter, of Melania. At the same time, that same person, when exposed, cannot help but condemn both wholeheartedly. That is why critics, all stemming from progressive Universities (are there any universities that are not progressive in the US?), cannot afford to evaluate Melania positively.

Even more: it would be wrong to think that critics personally think otherwise. They do not lie when they say that Melania sucks. They are so deeply infected that they cannot think differently, even if confronted with contradicting arguments. It was not an option for Melania to be good, or at least look good, even before the idea of producing Melania was considered.

The Melania/Trump fluke is a symptom of progressivism that governs the present intellectual landscape of almost all Western societies. A symptom of a deeper internal destruction of societies stemming from the …

Check other posts for hints about what triggers the Western decline.