Department of English and American Studies First Ladies

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Pavla Wernerová

First Ladies in Film and Literature

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Jeff Smith, M.A., Ph. D.

2018

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

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Author’s signature

Table of Contents Introduction ...... 2 1 First Ladies and Their History ...... 8 1.1 Development of the Title ...... 8 1.2 First Ladies and Their Influence ...... 11 1.3 Phases in the Depictions of First Ladies ...... 18 2 First Phase: Show Your Weakness ...... 21 2.1 Love Affairs, Emotional and Dependency Issues ...... 24 2.2 Other Issues ...... 34 3 Second Phase: You Can’t Have It All ...... 37 3.1 Give It Up Or Lose Completely: The First Archetype ...... 41 3.2 Good Girl: The Second Archetype ...... 51 4 Third Phase: Can I Have It All? ...... 59 4.1 I Can Be Without You ...... 64 4.2 Let’s Be Equal ...... 69 4.3 More Powerful ...... 80 4.4 I Am Here For You ...... 93 4.5 We Almost Had the First First Gentleman ...... 98 Conclusion ...... 102 Works Cited ...... 104 English Summary ...... 116 Resumé ...... 117

Introduction

The role and position of First Ladies have significantly changed when taking into account what position the wives of the presidents had at the beginning of the history of the US and what position they have now. Even though the official title

First Lady originated much later than people usually think, First Ladies now play a crucial role in American society. They influence public opinion and fashion, and usually aim to inspire American citizens by their own agendas. Especially with the recent presidential campaign of former First Lady Hillary Clinton, the position and power of First Ladies have become much more prominent. Even though even in the past, there were some powerful First Ladies, few would have imagined that any First Lady would run for president.

However, there were some powerful First Ladies even before Hillary Clinton.

Among them was Edith Wilson, who was a highly controversial figure during her time.

As Sharon Creeden writes, “in the 1990s, some bumper stickers read IMPEACH

HILLARY. In 1919, some bumper stickers –had they existed in those days– might have read IMPEACH EDITH. Edith Bolling Wilson, after all, actually did run the country”

(28). When Woodrow Wilson suffered from a minor stroke in 1919, “for several days”, he “paced in pain, unable to work. Then he collapsed with a massive stroke” (Creeden

29). Because the president was unable to work on state affairs on his own, his wife

Edith “organized the White House into a hospital” and started taking care of him while taking care of the state affairs (Creeden 29).

Apart from Edith Wilson, there were several other powerful First Ladies such as

Eleanor Roosevelt who during her terms as the First Lady focused on several issues such as “progressive advocacy policy, the media, education, and women’s issues”

(“First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt”). She was also active in writing and public

speaking and she frequently appeared in various broadcasts on the radio and wrote several books. Her career did not end with her role of the First Lady: after her three terms, she was designated by President Truman “to serve as the only woman among the five American delegates to the newly-created United Nations in December of 1945”

(“First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt”). It is also important to mention Jacqueline

Kennedy who was “instrumental in defining and portraying an emerging American style” (Mulvagh). She also appeared on TV when she “agreed to conduct a televised tour of the Executive Manson for CBS Television on February 14, 1962” (“Jacqueline

Kennedy in the White House”). Her tour “was so well received that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Mrs. Kennedy an honorary Emmy Award for her achievement” (“Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House”). Apart from the achievements of First Ladies, there were also some controversies surrounding them.

Among them, there was Nancy Reagan’s interest in astrology which after a consultation with an astrologer “influenced the scheduling of important events” (Roberts).

Even though there were several controversies related to First Ladies, these powerful

First Ladies definitely helped to shape the position of First Lady in a way we know it today.

Even though during the 20th century, First Ladies were becoming much more powerful, they were not often represented in films or books. Although there were some works featuring First Ladies such as films Wilson or Sunrise at Campobello or a novel

The President’s Lady by Irving Stone, it was not until the late 1970s that the works where First Ladies played important roles became much more mainstream. Even though the Presidents of the United States have always been popular characters in many films and books, with First Ladies, it was slightly different. Although they often appeared in the same films and books with the presidents, they often played marginal roles

or were completely omitted. Because of that, until the late 1970s, it is hard to see any regular patterns in their depiction. However, starting from the late 1970s, more and more books and films have been produced depicting the lives of First Ladies where the role of presidents is diminished and serves only as a background, and First Ladies assume the main role.

With the increasing depiction of First Ladies in popular movies and books, we can see some phases based on the way First Ladies were depicted. From the late 1970s up to the present, in the depiction of First Ladies there emerged three major phases (see table 1).

The first phase, from the late 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s, can be seen as a period in which works of popular culture stressed First Ladies’ weaknesses.

Significant problems for the First Ladies in these works included alcohol abuse, emotional problems, and their husbands’ extramarital affairs. Works in the first phase presented First Ladies as similar to ordinary people, with problems that are basically the same.

Depictions of First Ladies from the second phase, the 1990s, present us with two basic archetypes. The first one of them is a character of a powerful, ambitious First

Lady who is independent and sometimes more powerful than her husband. However, in the works which were released during this phase, the characters matching this archetype are strongly punished for their too powerful role, for example by death.

The second archetype is a character of a gentle, family-oriented First Lady who is devoted to her husband and her family while having no serious ambition. While in most of the works, characters of First Ladies only represent one of these archetypes, sometimes, it is possible to see a combination of these two, depending on the situation.

The third phase can be marked from the beginning of the 21st century up to the present. In this phase, both of the previously mentioned archetypes can be spotted, even though there is a slight change in the depiction of the powerful ambitious archetype of

First Lady. While in the previous period, the character matching this archetype was quite often punished, now, becoming powerful is perceived as an advantage and something desirable. During this period, empowerment of women is gaining more prominence and it is reflected in the works featuring First Ladies. Both of these archetypes seem to be blending together during this phase in several works, which is meant to demonstrate that it is possible to have it all: a happy family and a successful career. Also, during this phase the archetype of a powerful First Lady is much more common. These three phases have been reflecting their periods. Usually some of the real First Ladies served as inspiration for each of these phases and the topics which were portrayed there.

Another aspect which will be discussed in this work is how much the fictional works have drawn inspiration from real events and characters. In all of the three phases, there can be seen that even fictional works have drawn inspiration heavily from what were the main topics of the society during each period. There are also used certain techniques which create links between fictional stories and the real world. These references and links make the story more believable so that the audience can feel like they are watching or reading a story about real First Ladies.

While there has been a work focusing on the depiction of presidential characters in popular culture called The Presidents We Imagine by Jeff Smith, there is no work focusing on the depiction and portrayal of First Ladies. Because of that, this work is unique for its focus. Even though in this work, the main focus will be on films and

TV series, there will also be mentioned several books where the aspects corresponding to different phases are present.

Phases Period of Time Focus of This Phase From the late 1970s to the First Phase beginning of the 1990s First Ladies’ weaknesses. Two archetypes. A weak archetype portrayed as the one which was desirable while the Second Phase 1990s strong one was criticized. Two archetypes. A strong archetype portrayed as the one which was desirable. Both a weak archetype and a strong From the beginning of the 21st archetype are starting to blend Third Phase century up to the present together. Table 1 – Phases in the Depiction of First Ladies

As to the structure, at the beginning of the first chapter, we will discuss how the title of First Lady has developed. Even though First Lady is now an official term for the wife of the president, it was not until the 20th century that this term became much more frequently used. In the second part of the first chapter, there will be a discussion of the history of First Ladies and who were the most significant ones. Not only in terms of power but also who significantly influenced American society in some way.

In the third part of this chapter, there will be an introduction into the three phases of depiction of First Ladies.

The second chapter will focus on the first one of three phases of the depiction of First Ladies. As was mentioned, it was not until the late 1970s that the portrayal of

First Ladies in popular culture became much more mainstream and because of that, the beginning of the first phase is marked from this period and is continuing until the beginning of the 1990s. In this part, there will be an analysis of the works which

were produced during this period whose main focus was showing First Ladies’ weaknesses.

In the third chapter there will be a discussion of the second phase from the beginning of the 1990s until the beginning of the 21st century. There will be an analysis of the two archetypes of First Ladies which can be seen in the works which were produced during this phase and how these archetypes are used or twisted.

The fourth chapter will focus on the last phase and that is from the beginning of the 21st century up to the present. In this part, there will be an analysis of how the archetype of a powerful independent strong First Lady changed and what this change was based on. Also, different categories of this archetype will be discussed here.

1 First Ladies and Their History 1.1 Development of the Title

Before beginning the discussion about the depiction of First Ladies in films and literature, it is important to define first how this position has developed. First Ladies play a crucial role in American society. Even though the title is not based on the election and First Ladies gain their title based on their relationship to the president, they still assume an important role. The position of the First Lady is

“never mentioned in the Constitution” and also it is “unsalaried for the full-time work required” (Anthony 1). First Ladies play very important roles in the American society because they often assume the roles of icons. The role of First Ladies has evolved gradually “under pressure from the press and the public, and provided a window on American political, economic and social life generally” (Anthony 1).

The title of the First Lady is not official, it is “the unofficial title given to the wives of American presidents, or to the female relatives whom single or widowed presidents designated to serve as their hostesses” (Anthony 1). Although the term First

Lady is now usually used as a reference to wives of American presidents, it was not always so. The first usage of this title is unclear. Even though the wife of the first president George Washington, Martha Washington, could be considered to be the First

Lady, this term was never used to refer to her. She was “generally referred to as ‘Lady

Washington’ while her husband was leading the Continental Army and the term stayed with her after George was elected President” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”). As a result,

“it was subsequently used to refer to the wives of later Presidents” (“The Term

‘First Lady’”). Nevertheless, there was no:

“formal” term to refer to the “woman of the White House” when that woman was not the President’s wife, as occurred during the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, as the wives of all three had died before they became President and White House hostess duties were handled by whomever was available when the occasion called for one. (“The Term ‘First Lady’”)

Even though Martha Washington was never called First Lady during her term, there is a possibility that she was referred to as First Lady a little bit later. According to the sources:

In an 1843 article in the Boston Courier titled “Martha Washington,” the author, a Mrs. Sigourney, wrote: “The First Lady of the nation still preserved the habits of early life. Indulging in no indolence she left the pillow at dawn, and after breakfast, retired to her chamber for an hour for study of scriptures and devotion.” (June 12, 1843) (Deezen)

As there is no other evidence, it seems that “this was the first known reference to the First Lady in print” (Deezen). Nevertheless, the title First Lady was never used to refer to Martha Washington during her term.

As was mentioned before, several subsequent wives were not referred to as First

Ladies but their surnames with the title “lady” were used. Even though even during the 19th century, the usage of the title First Lady was not common, there is another legend which is talking about the title First Lady. According to this legend, this title was also ascribed to “Dolley Madison, the wife of James Madison,” who “was one of the most popular Washington, D.C., hostesses of her day” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”).

She did not stay in the house only during her husband’s presidency but even earlier.

Dolley Madison “acted as White House hostess during the administration of Thomas

Jefferson, for whom her husband served as Secretary of State, and was well known

for her social events during her husband’s administration.” She died in 1849 and

“her funeral was a semi-public event.” The first usage of the title First Lady during a speech is connected to her funeral. According to a legend, “president Zachary Taylor used the expression ‘truly the first lady’ during his eulogy of her, but no confirmation of this story has ever been found” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”).

Even though there is some evidence that the title First Lady was used to refer to some hostesses of the White House even before, the first official usage of the title First

Lady during her term which has been confirmed is ascribed to a woman who was never married to a president of the US. When James Buchanan, the 15th U.S. President,

“entered the White House as the nation’s only bachelor President he brought along his niece, Harriet Lane, who assumed the role of White House hostess with ease”

(“The Term ‘First Lady’”). She was often “much more popular than her uncle” and as a result, she was “the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles, and one of the most popular songs of the day was dedicated to her” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”).

Even though she received quite a lot of attention, there was “no clear consensus as to how she should be addressed” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”). “Lady Buchanan” was considered to be inappropriate and the same problem went with “Lady Lane” (“The

Term ‘First Lady’”). The problem was solved by “a reporter for Frank Leslie’s

Illustrated Newspaper, whose name has been lost to history” who “solved the problem by dubbing her ‘First Lady in the Land,’ and that phrase was first used in print on March 31, 1860” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”). Even though Harriet liked the title, there “is no evidence that any of her immediate successors were called ‘First Lady’ or anything similar” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”).

The first time when the title “First Lady” was officially used in a public speech was when Lucy Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, was introduced

in a public speech by her husband. The term was later repeated by “Mary Clemmer

Ames in an article in the Independent describing Hayes’s inauguration” (“The Term

‘First Lady’”). The term was later “more firmly established” in 1912 when “a Broadway comedy about Dolley Madison called First Lady of the Land” even more popularized the term and “it has been in common usage ever since” (“The Term ‘First Lady’”).

Even though the term “First Lady” was not always used as a reference to a wife of the President, now it is an important position and a role whose keeper influences the whole nation on many levels.

1.2 First Ladies and Their Influence

Even though First Ladies are not officially elected by the voters, their influence on the country and its society is very strong. There are many issues which First Ladies can influence, even though not in all of those issues, their influence is clearly visible.

One of the first issues which First Ladies can often indirectly influence is the nation’s policies. The impact of First Ladies on the presidents’ decisions and policies can be discussed a lot. “The opportunity for a forceful First Lady to involve herself in policy had been present from the beginning of the Republic” because

“the Constitution left a president free to choose advisers at will, without the constraints of a parliamentary system that tied a leader tightly to a party” (“The Role of First

Lady”). Although “chief executives rarely admitted to relying on the counsel of their wives,” the fact is that “much of the communication between presidents and First

Ladies was personal and private” and for this reason, “it is impossible to assess precisely what role each woman played” (“The Role of First Lady”). Even though the influence of First Ladies can be most of the time only guessed, “by the late twentieth century, accounts were more plentiful” (“The Role of First Lady”). It was due to the fact

that “presidents’ wives often wrote books to tell their own life stories; staff members revealed what they observed about the First Family” and also “reporters covered the entire White House entourage in detail” (“The Role of First Lady”). Even though the influence of First Ladies on presidents’ policies was rarely admitted, when their influence was obvious, they were often criticized for that.

As one of the examples where First Lady definitely influenced the presidency

Edith Wilson can be mentioned. Edith Wilson was not only Woodrow Wilson’s wife but also his important advisor: “the president discussed affairs of state with her; they red diplomatic dispatches together” (Creeden 29). Because in 1919, he suffered from a minor stroke, “for several days”, he “paced in pain, unable to work. Then he collapsed with a massive stroke” (Creeden 29). As a result, “his left side was paralyzed, his speech slurred, and his eyesight blurred. His body was incapacitated, but his mind was clear” (Creeden 29). Woodrow Wilson “had eighteen months left in the office” and there arose a discussion whether he should resign (Creeden 29). “Edith Wilson, who knew of the unfinished fight for the League of Nations, thought the resignation would kill her husband” and because of that, “she organized the White House into a hospital” and started taking care of him while taking care of the state affairs (Creeden 29).

“During the day, she met with government officials, screened mail, memos, and documents, and identified the most urgent matters” (Creeden 29). Evenings were spent with her husband when “she sat by his bed and chatted” with him (Creeden 30).

Many rumors circulated at that time, among them that “the president was dead or insane and chained in the basement” (Creeden 30). As Sharon Creeden writes, “Edith Bolling

Wilson, after all, actually did run the country” (28). The fact that it was Edith Wilson who mostly took care of the state affairs and not her husband gave rise to many debates about her being too powerful as the First Lady. For example “the president’s chief

assistant, Joseph Tumulty, said she was power-hungry” and “Senator Henry Cabot

Lodge called her ‘the Iron Queen’” (Creeden 30). Probably the strongest criticism of her position was when “one Republican senator labeled her “the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of the suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to ‘Acting First Man”” (Creeden 30).

Apart from Edith Wilson, there were two other remarkably powerful First

Ladies: Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton. Eleanor Roosevelt was the longest- serving First Lady of the United States, “twelve years, one month, one week and one day“ from 1933 until 1945 (“First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt”). As the First

Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt held an important role:

Unique to her tenure was the fact that the President was physically limited by his then-hidden condition of polio. Thus apart from finding a way to integrate her own professional interests and experiences into the public role of First Lady and assume the traditional management of the mansion’s functioning as a political-social arena, Eleanor Roosevelt worked closely with the President and his staff as an unofficial Administration representative and on policy-related issues. (“First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt”)

Eleanor Roosevelt was also a strong advocate for civil rights and equality of all races.

During her terms, it caused quite a strong controversy: “She showed her opposition to segregation laws when she came to the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in November of 1938, in Birmingham, Alabama and moved her chair into the aisle, between the ‘whites-only’ and ‘colored-only’ sections” (“First Lady Biography: Eleanor

Roosevelt”).

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in the office in 1945 and was succeeded by the Vice-President Harry S. Truman, it seemed that Eleanor Roosevelt would withdraw from the political life. However, she was such an important person that she

was appointed by President Harry Truman “to serve as the only woman among the five

American delegates to the newly-created United Nations in December of 1945. She was in attendance at the historic first meeting of the institution in London, in January of

1946” (“First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt”).

The last example of a powerful First Lady is Hillary Clinton who definitely belonged among the most influential First Ladies during her two terms as First Lady.

Nevertheless, she was often criticized and ridiculed for her desire to enforce her own political agenda in spite of the fact that she was not the one who was supposed to come up with it. As was mentioned before, even though Hillary Clinton was definitely not the only First Lady who was trying influence the president, quite often, the influence of First Ladies on certain decisions and policies could be only guessed and is never to be confirmed.

While the influence of First Ladies on presidents’ decisions can often only be guessed, one of the very important facts about First Ladies is that they usually take up some agendas which they are interested in and they promote this agenda while their husbands serve in the White House. Among the few examples, there can be mentioned Nancy Reagan with her campaign “Just Say No” which fought against drug abuse or Michelle Obama with her promotion of well-being among the youth.

First Ladies do not take care only of their agendas but they also strongly influence public opinion of their country. Apart from the political influence on the decisions and policies of Americans presidents and also their own agendas, the influence of First Ladies is also visible in the sphere of fashion. First Ladies often been “idealized on the national and then the global stage as a symbol of American womanhood” (Anthony 1). First Ladies are often perceived as role models for women, not only for their interests and opinions but also as role models in fashion. They are

often praised not for what they are saying but for what they are wearing. This fact can be seen many times in the newspapers where the president is usually judged based on what he said and the First Lady is usually judged based on her choice of clothes or her appearance. Even though the appearance of First Lady and her choice of clothes is an important issue in American society because she also represents the country during the state visits and having designed clothes is a must, there has been some discussions about who actually pays for the clothes. As has been pointed out many times by the public for example about the wardrobe of Michelle Obama, “it’s no small matter” because “her high-low fashion choices mix everyday, off-the-rack fare with custom creations from top designers whose gowns can run into five figures” (“First Lady

Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”). Even though some critics mentioned that the taxpayers are the ones who “foot the bill,” it is not the truth. Nevertheless, financing the First Ladies’ wardrobe has been discussed repeatedly, mainly because of the fact that “first ladies are expected to dress well, but the job doesn’t come with a clothing allowance or a salary” (“First Lady Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”). Many of the First Ladies were surprised at the price for clothes which they were supposed to wear. One of the examples is Mary Todd Lincoln who “racked up tens of thousands of dollars in clothing bills and considered selling manure from the White House grounds to pay them off.” In the case of Jacqueline Kennedy who was perceived as “instrumental in defining and portraying an emerging American style” (Mulvagh), it was her father-in-law who “stepped in to finance her Oleg Cassini wardrobe to keep clothes from becoming a political liability for President John Kennedy” (“First Lady

Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”). Also thanks to her taste in fashion, Jacqueline became the fashion icon she was:

The glamour that this beauty, still in her early thirties, brought to the Camelot presidency cannot be underestimated. It glittered. Mrs. Kennedy had a keen interest in, and knowledge of, the workings of aesthetics. Her cosmopolitan upbringing and international education, partly in France, made her familiar with the European world of high fashion. (Mulvagh)

Jacqueline “also stood for pin-neat grooming. For the ordinary woman, unable to afford couture suits, her greatest influence was to get them to aspire to being a well-groomed woman, before it became a dirty word” (Mulvagh). Even “when she got off a plane, or was seen playing on a beach with her children, she always looked smart, neat and totally in control” (Mulvagh).

Apart from the other previously mentioned First Ladies, also Laura Bush mentioned a remark about her wardrobe during her term as the First Lady in her memoir where she said the “she was ‘amazed by the sheer number of designer clothes that’ she ‘was expected to buy’ as First Lady” (“First Lady Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”). As can be seen, most of the time, First Ladies pay for their own wardrobe.

Nevertheless, there are a few exceptions. As Joanna Rosholm, who worked as press secretary to the former first lady Michelle Obama, writes:

Mrs. Obama pays for her clothing. For official events of public or historic significance, such as a state visit, the first lady’s clothes may be given as a gift by a designer and accepted on behalf of the U.S. government. They are then stored by the National Archives. (“First Lady Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”)

Nevertheless, when the First Lady buys the clothes on her own expenses, she still can get extra benefits such as discounts:

In a 2011 Washington Post story about Mrs. Obama’s personal assistant, Meredith Koop, the first lady’s office said Koop acted on Mrs. Obama’s behalf “in arranging for purchases, including considering the best offered price and buying on discount if discounts are available.” (“First Lady Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”)

Also “Anita McBride, chief of staff to Laura Bush during her time as first lady, said

Mrs. Bush paid for all her clothes” (“First Lady Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”).

In case of Hillary Clinton, she also paid for her own clothes with a few exceptions, such as her inaugural gown:

New Yorker Sarah Phillips, who designed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 1993 inaugural gown, puts the full cost of that violet beaded lace sheath in the range of $50,000, with the Presidential Inaugural Committee paying $10,000 and Phillips and the workshop covering the bulk of the costs. Phillips isn’t sure whether Clinton herself paid anything toward the dress, but the Smithsonian’s website describes the gown as a “gift of Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Presidential Inaugural Committee.” (“First Lady Michelle Obama’s fabulous clothes”)

Even though First Ladies are perceived as fashion icons, it does not come for free. As was mentioned before, most of the time, they have to pay for their high-fashion clothes by themselves and even though they often get a discount, they still have to dedicate a huge part of their assets to buying the fashionable dresses. Nevertheless, even though the office of the First Lady is not paid and First Ladies are also not officially elected, they play an important role in the public opinion of the US citizens because they are influential on many levels. Even though their power is sometimes hard to be judged because their private conversations with presidents are not available to the public, their power may be stronger than many people think.

1.3 Phases in the Depictions of First Ladies

As was mentioned before, the term “First Lady” was firmly established when

“a Broadway comedy about Dolley Madison called First Lady of the Land” was produced in 1911 during William Howard Taft’s term (“The Term ‘First Lady’”).

Even though at that time, the role of First Lady was not as developed as it is now, it was very important. As Carl Sferrazza Anthony, historian for the National First Ladies

Library in Canton, Ohio, mentions, First Ladies:

were influenced in part by the British model and tried to balance a public image as both a commoner and a queen. Being the White House’s hostess was considered so crucial, it was unthinkable for a president to entertain without one -- thus the scores of female relatives who substituted at public events if a president’s wife was unwilling, unwell, out of town or in her grave. Dolley Madison was so successful at the balancing act, she was held up as the ideal role model for at least the first century of the presidency. (Puente)

Even though before the release of the comedy, the title First Lady already appeared in some newspapers, this comedy helped to popularize it even more, which could be seen in a more frequent usage of this title when referring to the spouses of the presidents.

In spite of the fact that by the 1930s, the title First Lady became widely used and it even spread to other countries, especially during the first half of the 20th century, it is quite hard to find any representation of First Ladies in films or literature. What is quite interesting is that while during the first few decades of the 20th century, there were released several movies focusing on American presidents, most of them did not even include a character of First Lady or it was only briefly mentioned. Many of the books and films which were produced during that period focused on presidents and

their lives and First Ladies did not play any significant roles there. For example during the first few decades of the 20th century, “with the rise of motion pictures” there were produced several movies focusing on the life of Abraham Lincoln (Smith 117). Among them, there were films such as “D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), John

Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924), and Griffith’s later ‘biopic’ Abraham Lincoln (1930)”

(Smith 117). In 1939, Young Mr. Lincoln by John Ford was also released (Smith 117).

In these movies, Mary Todd Lincoln is either not present at all or only briefly mentioned.

By the 1930s, the title First Lady became widely used and then it “spread from the United States to other nations, often without translation of ‘first lady’ into the native language of those nations” (“First Lady of the United States”). Even though after the 1930s, the depiction of First Ladies in popular culture became more frequent, until the 1970s, there were still not enough works portraying them. Because of that, it is hard to see any regular patterns or archetypes in these works. However, it is worth mentioning a few. One of the key films focusing on a character of the First Lady was made in 1937 called First Lady directed by Stanley Logan. Even though the name of the movie itself contains First Lady, the movie is more about two women wanting to assume this title than about them holding it. First Lady is a movie about political conspiracies in Washington, D.C. In the movie, “Kay Francis stars as the ambitious wife of the secretary of state (Preston Foster) who pushes him into running for president against a corrupt judge (Walter Connelly)” (Carter). Both of the main female characters,

Lucy Chase Wayne and Irene Hibbard want to become First Ladies and they are willing to do as much as they can do reach this mission. The movie was well accepted and by some critics, it was regarded as “ahead of its time” (Carter).

Later, there were produced a few other movies featuring First Ladies. The 1944 movie Wilson (directed by Henry King) portrays a life of the presidential couple

Woodrow Wilson (Alexander Knox) and his wife Edith Wilson (Geraldine Fitzgerald).

This movie is especially significant for its portrayal of Edith Wilson. As Christopher

Campbell points out, “the woman portrayed is someone who basically served as the first acting woman President of the United States after her husband, Woodrow Wilson, had a stroke while in office.” In the movie, we can see how powerful Edith Wilson was during her husband’s term and also what impact she had on her husband’s presidency.

As a few other examples, there can be mentioned a 1946 romantic comedy

Magnificent Doll about Dolly Payne and her courtship by Aaron Burr and James

Madison which “was criticized for being less than historically accurate” (Casano) or

1960 Sunrise at Campobello which narrated the life of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Ralph

Bellamy), his wife Eleanor (Greer Garson) and their family. Among the novels, there was for example The President’s Lady (1951) by Irving Stone narrating the story of Andrew Jackson, his courtship of Rachel Donelson and his rise to presidency.

Even though, there were some works in popular culture featuring First Ladies, as was mentioned before there were not enough of them to analyze them properly and to see any regular patterns in their characters. However, from the late 1970s, the characters of First Ladies became much more popular and mainstream to be featured in movies and books and because of that, it is possible to analyze them in a more complex way.

2 First Phase: Show Your Weakness

“I don’t see any reference to alcohol.” “I don’t have a drinking problem.” “That’s not what I have been hearing from your family.” “Well, I don’t care what you have been hearing, I do not have a drinking problem. If I were an alcoholic, I’d know it. If I were an alcoholic, the whole world would know it.”

A dialogue between Betty Ford and a head of the treatment center in The Betty Ford Story

Even though there had been several works featuring First Ladies before, it was not until the late 1970s that these works became much more mainstream and First

Ladies became popular characters to be portrayed. Thanks to that, it is possible to see certain patterns in their depiction and also different phases of this depiction. The first phase, starting from the late 1970s until the beginning of the 1990s, can be perceived as a period where the main focus of works in popular culture was First Ladies’ weaknesses. Among the major topics of the works where First Ladies were featured during this phase was not only alcohol abuse and emotional problems but also affairs of their husbands. The works which were produced during this phase stressed the fact that even First Ladies suffered from the same issues as ordinary people did. These works also showed that even though First Ladies were often perceived as icons for American citizens, they were the same as the rest of them; they were also humans.

Also, this pattern of depiction correlated with the problems of the person who hold the title First Lady at the beginning of this period: Elizabeth “Betty” Ford. She can be seen as a person who set up trends for depicting First Ladies during this phase.

The works which were produced during and after her term reflected the weaknesses which Betty Ford admitted as the first First Lady and it focused on stressing them in many of the works featuring First Ladies in this phase.

Because Betty Ford can be seen as an inspiration for the pattern of depicting weaknesses of First Ladies during this phase, it is important to mention something more about her. When Gerald Ford became the president on August 9, 1974 after Richard

Nixon’s resignation, Elizabeth “Betty” Ford became First Lady. Even though “Betty

Ford was thrust into the role of First Lady with no time for planning any goals or agenda,” she quickly managed to set up her priorities. At the press conference conducted on September 4, 1974, “the new First Lady announced areas of interest that she would foster, such as the performing and fine arts, and disabled children.” However, this conference was remarkable in a few other aspects. Betty Ford also there “reiterated her support of the Equal Rights Amendment and the Supreme Court decision in favor of legal abortion, and her having divorced and having consulted a psychiatrist.” Her statements were rather controversial at that time because “these were extremely rare expressions not only of a First Lady’s genuine opinion on controversial domestic issues of her time, but also of personal revelations the likes of which had never before been disclosed by a First Lady” (“First Lady Biography: Betty Ford”).

Even though Betty Ford was a very popular First Lady, she had her own issues which she had to handle. For a long time, she suffered from alcohol abuse and a “growing dependency on prescription pain medication” (“First Lady Biography: Betty

Ford”). After her term as the First Lady ended, “on 11 April 1978, she registered herself at the Long Beach Naval Hospital’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation program” (“First

Lady Biography: Betty Ford”). After “realizing that there were no recovery facilities specifically established to help women process the unique problems that were often the roots of their drug and alcohol problems,” she decided to found “the non-profit

Betty Ford Center,” which was focusing on these issues (“First Lady Biography: Betty

Ford”).

As can be seen, Betty Ford was very controversial in many ways. Not only did she share her personal issues while being the First Lady, which was very uncommon, but she also suffered from serious alcohol abuse to which she was treated. This showed that First Lady was not somebody superior to other citizens but that she was the same as ordinary people when suffering from the same issues.

Betty Ford exposed her weaknesses publicly and she can be perceived as an inspiration for the works which were produced following the start of her term and later. Many of the works which were produced between the start of Betty Ford’s term until approximately the beginning of the 1990s focused on this notion of First Lady having her own personal issues.

There were several different issues which the creators of the works focused on.

Among them, there were issues such as depressions and emotional problems, alcohol abuse, love affairs and money problems. They were quite often related to each other and in some works more of them were combined together.

2.1 Love Affairs, Emotional and Dependency Issues

In 1976, ABC broadcasted a television miniseries focused on the lives of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Edward Herrmann) and his wife Eleanor Roosevelt (Jane

Alexander). The miniseries consisted of two parts and both of them were told in flashback from Eleanor Roosevelt’s perspective after her husband died. First part

Eleanor and Franklin talks about their lives until Franklin became the president. It tells a story of how they met as children, their courtship and marriage, Franklin’s affair with

Lucy Mercer (who worked as Eleanor’s social secretary) and his progression in his political career.

Even though the miniseries portrays Eleanor Roosevelt as a strong, powerful and smart woman who was always able to take care of herself and who supported her husband, the main focus of the miniseries is on their complicated relationship. The first part of the miniseries starts with a scene which is taking place after

Franklin’s death during which Eleanor was not present and after which she arrived in the cottage where he died. She was questioning Franklin’s cousin Anna Lee who was present there about what happened. Anna mentioned that a painter madam Schoumatoff was doing Franklin’s portrait and when Anna looked at him, he was smiling at somebody so she thought he was okay:

[Eleanor] “Smiling at home alone?” [Anna Lee] “May I pardon?” [Eleanor] “You said a moment before he fainted, you looked over to saw him smiling at someone. At whom? At Daisy? At madam Schoumatoff?” [Anna Lee] “No, no.” [Eleanor] “Who else was in the room?” ( . . . )

[Anna Lee] “Well, it’s about to come out one way or another. Missis Rutherfurd was here.” [Eleanor] “Missis Rutherfurd?” [Anna Lee] “You see! You remember. She used to be Lucy Mercer. Married old Winty Rutherfurd. He died not too long ago.” [Eleanor] “And they started seeing each other again? She and Franklin? She came down here to visit him?” [Anna Lee] “Last Monday. With madam Schoumatoff. You see it was Lucy .... it was Mrs. Rutherfurd who commissioned the portrait.” (Eleanor and Franklin)

Anna’s calling of Franklin’s lover by her first name suggests that she did not disapprove of their relationship. Later, Eleanor goes to see Franklin’s dead body. When she is sitting by his bed, we can see how sad she is (see fig. 1). Later in the first part of the series, Eleanor’s and Franklin’s depiction of their complicated relationship continues.

Also a strong disapproval of their relationship by Franklin’s mother Sara is portrayed there.

Fig. 1 – Eleanor Roosevelt sitting by the bed of her dead husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt, mourning, in Eleanor and Franklin.

The second part of the miniseries Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years

(1977) talks about the period of Franklin’s presidency, especially during the Great

Depression and World War II. The beginning of this part is linked to the beginning of the previous one. Franklin’s cousin Anna is apologizing to Eleanor for telling her about Lucy, assuring her that even though Lucy and Franklin saw each other a few times during the past few years, it was all “very innocent.” In the following parts, the story of Franklin and Lucy develops and the chemistry between them is visible there. Lucy Mercer who worked as social secretary of Eleanor met Franklin this way and the miniseries depicts their courtship (see fig. 2).

Fig. 2 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt courting Lucy Mercer who worked as social secretary of his wife Eleanor in Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years.

When comparing Franklin’s relationship with Eleanor and with Lucy, we can see that while his relationship with Eleanor was rather formal and serious, his approach towards Lucy was more playful and maybe even shy. As if he wanted her but he was not sure whether she would like him back. The focus of the series on the ordinary issues which the First couple had is visible there. What is also

interesting is that the creators of the miniseries decided to include Lucy because it was not until the 1960s where Franklin’s affair became much more widely known (Winkler

202-3). The focus of the whole miniseries can be seen clearly: weaknesses of Eleanor’s and Franklin’s relationship and her suffering caused by his affairs.

The miniseries focused on the issues which showed that even the president and First

Lady suffered from the same problems as ordinary people did.

Probably the most frequent focus of this phase in works featuring First Ladies was depressions, emotional problems and dependency issues. These were quite often visible in relations to other characters, usually the presidents. These issues are visible in most of the works featuring Jacqueline Kennedy during this phase. Even though she

“occasionally overshadowed her husband” (“Politician’s wives through the ages”), in the works produced during this phase her role is quite often diminished to the role of a wife to her much more powerful husband who does not care much about her while she is dependent on him. Among the examples, there can be mentioned a 1981 movie

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy directed by Steve Gethers. It is a biography movie which covers Jacqueline’s life (Jaclyn Smith) from her childhood through her romance with John Kennedy (James Franciscus) until her days in the White House. The producer of the movie, Louis Rudolph, said that he “wanted to do a positive portrait of a woman who” he “thought had been very much maligned” (O’Connor). Even though the producer of the movie aimed to portray Jacqueline in a more powerful way than it was common, he managed the opposite. As John O’Connor, a reporter for The New

York Times points out, “there is a concerted effort to transform Mrs. Kennedy into a figure far more charismatic than she appeared to be on those occasions when she was allowed to be something more than a beautiful and silent adornment for her dynamic husband.” There was for example:

an Edward R. Murrow interview with the newly married couple or, also on network television, Mrs. Kennedy’s tour of a refurbished White House. Beneath the surface glamour and charm, the soft, hesitant voice always betrayed an intense shyness, an ingrained aloofness. The public charisma was monopolized by the Kennedy side of the relationship. (O’Connor).

Summarizing these facts, O’Connor correctly argues that even though “the extent of Mrs. Kennedy’s charisma is perhaps arguable, ( . . . ) this television portrait has done her the unjustified disservice of making her dull” (O’Connor). In the movie, Jacqueline is portrayed as a very sensitive woman who is easily manipulated by her husband John and who usually does what he wants her to do. Her dependency on him is strongly visible. Jacqueline’s husband John quite often played the main role, a fact that the movie further stresses.

A similar pattern as in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is also present in 1983 TV mini-series Kennedy. This TV series focuses on the life of J. F. Kennedy (Martin Sheen) and the people from his environment during his 1961-1963 presidency.

In the mini-series, Jacqueline (Blair Brown) is portrayed as a sensitive, thoughtful and artistic woman who is very fond of her husband. However, it sometimes seems that her husband John cares more about his presidency than about her. John plays the main role in the mini-series and he is portrayed as a very charismatic figure that overshadows his wife. She serves only as a background for her more powerful husband who does not pay much attention to her. Another TV mini-series Robert Kennedy and His Times from

1985 was very similar in its depiction of Jacqueline. While this TV mini-series features

Jacqueline (Juanin Clay) during several occasions, she does not play an important role there. Her role is diminished to wife of Robert’s older brother Jack (Cliff De Young)

and her character is quite flat there. She is portrayed only as a wife of her very powerful husband who is the head of the family and to whom Jacqueline is subordinate.

In the previously mentioned works featuring Jacqueline, her character serves more as a background for her husband and she is portrayed as a character dependent on her husband who cares much more often about his career and politics than about her. In a three-part TV miniseries A Woman Named Jackie from 1991 broadcasted by NBC, she plays the major role. A Woman Named Jackie is divided into three parts: A Woman

Named Jackie, Part 1: The Bouvier Years, A Woman Named Jackie, Part 2: The

Kennedy Years and A Woman Named Jackie, Part 3: The Onassis Years and all of these parts focus on different eras of Jacqueline’s life.

While Jacqueline is portrayed as a very ambitious woman, the miniseries stress her dependency on two men in her life: her father and later her husband. In the first part of the miniseries, the complicated relationship of Jacqueline’s parents is depicted.

Her father (William Devane) was an alcoholic and had sexual affairs with other women, which is depicted at the beginning of the first part. Even though Jacqueline’s mother

(Wendy Hughes) is angry with him and calls him “selfish drunk” after seeing him in the newspapers with his another lover, which Jacqueline hears, Jacqueline (Marianna

Bishop) is still more fond of her father than her mother (A Woman Named Jackie, Part

1: The Bouvier Years). Their close relationship is visible in one of the scenes where

Jacqueline’s father is telling her that he and her mother might get divorced

(see fig. 3). Her father then calls her his “pet” and tells her: “you have brains and you can run like the wind” while calling her also “beautiful” (A Woman Named Jackie, Part

1: The Bouvier Years).

Fig. 3 – Young Jacqueline sharing a private moment with her father who is telling her the he and her mother might get divorced in A Woman Named Jackie, Part 1: The Bouvier Years.

Later, we can see that Jacqueline (Roma Downey) discusses everything with father: her new stepfather, her career ambitions and even her new boyfriend Jack

Kennedy (Stephen Collins). However, at the same time, Jacqueline’s relationship with her mother is more distant. When Jacqueline is packing for her trip to London and they are talking about Jack Kennedy, her mother is telling her that Jack’s father is having affairs. And then she adds:

[Jacqueline’s mother] “I am sorry to say that Jack has the same reputation.” [Jacqueline] “That’s just gossip.” [Jacqueline’s mother] “I should have listened to the gossip about your father.” [Jacqueline] “You knew about daddy but you wanted him anyway.”

[Jacqueline’s mother] “For a long time I did. And the time came when I didn’t. He revolted me. You don’t want to get to that point with your husband, Jacqueline.” [Jacqueline] “I won’t, mother, I learned from your mistakes.” [Jacqueline’s mother] “I see. If you think you can do so much better than me. This is no horseshow, we are not competing against each other.” [Jacqueline] “You always made it seem that way.” (A Woman Named Jackie, Part 1: The Bouvier Years)

In their discussion, their tense relationship is visible. Even though Jacqueline’s father was the one who had extramarital affairs and who was an alcoholic, Jacqueline idolized him why she did not like her mother much. Even after her father gets so drunk that he is not able to come to her wedding, she still writes a letter to him to let him know that she understands him and forgives him. After Jacqueline’s marriage, it is possible to see a gradual shift in her dependence from her father to her husband Jack Kennedy. While she loves her husband a lot, in the following parts, there can be seen that he uses her to advance his political career. In one of the scenes Jack is advised to use Jackie to win the

Liberals: “Don’t hide Jackie. Put her out there where everybody can see her” (A Woman

Named Jackie, Part 2: The Kennedy Years). Even later, Jack argues with Jackie over her not wanting to participate anymore in his campaign:

[Jacqueline] “I told you Wisconsin was the last stop.” [Jack] “You were great in Wisconsin. That’s why we need you in Los Angeles.” [Jacqueline] “I know I was great. I was so great in Chicago that I lost the baby.” [Jack] “Ah, come on. That convention had nothing to do with you losing that baby.” (A Woman Named Jackie, Part 2: The Kennedy Years) (see fig. 4)

In this dialogue, we can see how careless Jack was of Jacqueline’s feelings.

Even though Jacqueline lost a baby after one of the rallies, he did not seem to care much about that. His carelessness and her dependency on him are also visible in the rest of the series.

Fig. 4 – Jack trying to persuade Jacqueline to join them for another rally in Los Angeles in A Woman Named Jackie, Part 2: The Kennedy Years.

Also, Jack’s affair with Marilyn Monroe (Eve Gordon) is present in the miniseries and how he is asking his brother Bobby to end this affair for him

(A Woman Named Jackie, Part 2: The Kennedy Years). Marilyn is portrayed as completely heartbroken there. Only in the last part of the miniseries, Jacqueline is portrayed as a more equal partner with her last husband Aristotle Onassis. However, her sufferings and her weaknesses resulting from her dependency on two men of her life are the strong focus of the miniseries. Even though none of them treated her completely fair, she was still dependent on them and cared a lot about their opinions. 32

Love Field, which was released in 1992, can be seen as very different from other works produced during this phase. While Jacqueline Kennedy and J. F. Kennedy are both present in the movie, they serve more as a background of the story. The main character of the story Dallas housewife Lurene is obsessed with Jacqueline Kennedy because she “feels a special psychic bond with Jacqueline Kennedy” (Maslin) and wants to shake hands with her when she and J. F. Kennedy arrive in Dallas for a visit. After the assassination of the president, she is very shocked by that and decides to travel to Washington for his funeral, in spite of her husband’s disapproval. While the emotional problems are not portrayed here in the figure of the First Lady, they are here reflected in the character who wants to resemble First Lady: Lurene. What Lurene says to her husband is this: “What I want is to go to that rotunda and file past that caisson or cortege or whatever it is and pay my respects,” while “savoring the important- sounding words that make her think she has a mission” (Maslin). For her, “feeling closely involved in this national tragedy amounts to a kind of character trait. Defining herself visibly in terms of Mrs. Kennedy’s appeal, she boards the bus wearing a homemade lavender suit in the Kennedy style and sporting a bouffant hairdo that happens to be platinum blond” (Maslin). Lurene does not feel an attachment to

Jacqueline only on the emotional level but she also wants to resemble her by her appearance as much as possible.

Then on the bus she meets Paul and his daughter Jonell who are black. Because she gets suspicious that Paul kidnapped Jonell, she calls FBI and then, their escape together begins. Lurene finds out that Paul saved Jonell from foster home where she was abused after her mother died and realizes what mistake she made. Later, Paul and Lurene fall in love with each other but Paul is nevertheless caught and put into prison. When he is released, he goes to see his daughter again and meets Lurene there.

At the end, it becomes clear that Lurene’s and Paul’s relationship will continue. While

Jacqueline Kennedy is present only in a few scenes in the movie, she is present there as a symbol of admiration and perfection but at the same also as a symbol of weakness to which Lurene can relate. Lurene is obsessed with her and suffers even by thinking about how Jacqueline is feeling after the death of her husband. Many times in the movie, she mentions that it was Jacqueline who helped her to get over her personal troubles. Lurene can be seen here as a substitute for showing

Jacqueline’s weaknesses. Emotional problems and instability are present here in

Lurene’s character who wants to resemble Jacqueline as much as possible.

2.2 Other Issues

Even though many works made during this focused on love affairs, emotional and dependency issues, there were also some other weaknesses the creators focused on, such as money issues. As one of the examples can be mentioned a biography movie about Mary Todd Lincoln, The Last of Mrs. Lincoln from 1976 directed by George Schaefer. This movie was based on a 1972 Broadway play of the same name written by James Prideaux which was later remade into a movie (“The Last of Mrs. Lincoln”). Julie Harris “stars as Mary Todd Lincoln” in the film which talks about the story of “the twilight of the former First Lady’s life. After her husband’s assassination, she finds herself heavily in debt and denied a pension due to her Southern ancestry, and spends the remainder of her life deeply depressed, dying impoverished and insane” (“The Last of Mrs. Lincoln 1976”). The movie is quite faithful to many aspects of Mary Todd Lincoln’s life. Because of her shopaholic nature, she spent a lot on various things. After her husband was assassinated, “creditors began knocking on her door to collect debts incurred during her White House years” (Largent). Because

she did not have much money at that time, “to pay off some of the debts, she sold her gowns, and returned jewelry and other items to the place of purchase. She refinanced the remaining debt with a wealthy financier, at a very high-interest rate”

(Largent).

Because her son Robert “was becoming increasingly embarrassed by his mother’s actions” and he gradually started doubting his mother’s sanity, he officially accused her of lunacy (Largent). Because of that “Mary learned she was being charged with lunacy and was directed to attend a trial immediately where a jury would deliberate her sanity” (Largent). Based on the decision of the jury, Mary Todd Lincoln was declared insane and was sent to an asylum where she spent some time. Even though she was later released, she never forgave Robert for sending her there and she continued fighting with him over money until her death (Largent). All of these issues are portrayed in the movie and her weakness of overspending which led to many other issues is a key topic of this film.

Apart from money issues, the works produced during this phase also portrayed alcohol abuse. The alcohol abuse could be seen in a movie which was based on the life of the First Lady who inspired this phase: Betty Ford. The Betty Ford Story (1987) directed by David Greene is quite an honest overview of Betty Ford’s life. Even though

Betty (Gena Rowlands) seemed to handle well the role of the First Lady, she had many personal issues at that time. During her term as First Lady, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and also suffered from prescription medications and alcohol abuses.

The movie depicts her struggle with admitting herself that she had these problems and at the same time, it shows how at first, she was not even able to admit to herself that she had these issues. This fact is portrayed in the movie in a scene where she talks with a director of the treatment center where she was sent for treatments:

[Director] “Problem with overmedication. That’s nice indeed. You shouldn’t have said to anyone too much.” [Betty] “What should have I said?” [Director] “I don’t see any reference to alcohol.” [Betty] “I don’t have a drinking problem.” [Director] “That’s not what I have been hearing from your family.” [Betty] “Well, I don’t care what you have been hearing, I do not have a drinking problem. If I were an alcoholic, I’d know it. If I were an alcoholic, the whole world would know it.” (The Betty Ford Story)

After she had admitted that to herself and had recovered, she founded the Betty Ford

Center for the treatment of addiction to alcohol and other drugs. The same year the movie was released, she wrote about her struggles in her memoir Betty: A Glad

Awakening: “I liked alcohol, it made me feel warm. ( . . . ) And I loved pills, they took away my tension and my pain. So the thing I have to know is that I haven’t got this problem licked; to my dying day, I’ll be recovering” (Gibbs).

The movie portrays Betty Ford in different ways. While she seemed as a strong

First Lady, she suffered with her deep personal issues which she had many problems to handle. It also shows that she rejected to admit her alcohol problems even to herself and it makes her look even weaker.

While from the late 1970s until the beginning of the 1990s, we can see a pattern of focusing on the weaknesses of First Ladies, which was a trend set by Betty

Ford, at the turn of the decade, there was a gradual change of this pattern and there emerged two archetypes of First Ladies.

3 Second Phase: You Can’t Have It All

I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession. The work that I have done as a professional, a public advocate, has been aimed … to assure that women can make the choices … whether it’s full-time career, full-time motherhood or some combination.

Hillary Clinton defending her career during the 1992 presidential election. (Reilly)

In 2014, Peter Baker and Amy Chozick, editors for New York Times, mentioned before her expected presidential campaign that “no president ever had a partner quite like Hillary Rodham Clinton.” This statement was true in many aspects.

In 1993, one of the most independent and politically active female figures became First Lady: Hillary Clinton. Not only was she controversial for many reasons during her two terms as First Lady but she also had significant influence on the depiction of First Ladies in popular culture. From the beginning of the 1990s, a powerful, independent archetype of First Lady became visible in many works and

Hillary Clinton can be regarded as the main source of inspiration. Hillary was often criticized for being powerful and this criticism started being reflected in the works featuring First Ladies produced during her two terms and later.

To see the reasons for such controversy, it is important to mention more details about Hillary Clinton. Even before her husband Bill Clinton became president in 1993, it became obvious that Hillary Clinton was not going be satisfied with a traditional role of a stay-at-home mother but she wanted to be publicly active too. Since Bill Clinton served as Governor and at the same time, Hillary Clinton worked as an attorney, during the presidential campaign they were both often criticized for the fact that “she had

somehow profited from her husband’s position” (“First Lady Biography: Hillary

Clinton”). Because of the frequent criticism, she finally responded “to a journalist’s question at a public appearance that was being covered by broadcast media that the only way a working attorney who happened to also be the governor’s wife could have avoided any controversy would have been if she had ‘stayed home and baked cookies’”

(“First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton”). Hillary was often criticized for this statement, also partly due to the reason that this part of her statement was “frequently replayed on television as a single clip from her more explicit response.”

The statement led to many discussions whether “she was intending to demean the role of stay-at-home mother.” Also the controversy rose from the fact that Hillary Clinton could be “potentially the first First Lady who maintained a professional career while simultaneously working as a mother.” Nevertheless, even Bill Clinton himself mentioned during his presidential campaign that “his wife would be a full partner if he became President, terming it a ‘two for one’ deal” (“First Lady Biography: Hillary

Clinton”).

Even after Hillary Clinton had become First Lady, her desire to be publicly active did not disappear. The first decision which she made “as First Lady was to establish her own working office in the West Wing. She did this in order to be accessible to executive staff working on legislative and other substantive matters in which she would herself be directly involved” (“First Lady Biography: Hillary

Clinton”). By doing so, she “shattered historic precedent” since “all of her predecessors” had “worked from offices located in the second floor family quarters or, in the case of Rosalynn Carter, in the East Wing” (“First Lady Biography: Hillary

Clinton”). So far she was the only “first lady with an office in the West Wing” (Baker and Chozick). Hillary Clinton was often criticized for pushing her agenda too much and

for being even more powerful than her husband. Even many different caricatures came up mocking her allegedly hen-packed husband (see fig. 5).

Fig. 5 – “A cartoon drawing satirizing Hillary Clinton’s overt political role as First Lady, suggesting that the second Clinton term would have her serving as President.” (“First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton”)

Even though Hillary Clinton was often criticized for having too much power as the First Lady, nevertheless, her persona had a significant impact not only on the way

First Ladies were to be perceived in the future but also on American society and on popular culture. She can be regarded as inspiration for an archetype of a powerful, ambitious and independent First Lady. However, just like frequently

Hillary Clinton herself, this archetype was during this phase portrayed as something negative. In the works which were produced during this phase, the characters matching this archetype are often punished for their too powerful role, for example by death.

Also, this archetype was sometimes portrayed as more masculine than feminine, just like

Hillary Clinton herself (see fig. 6).

Fig. 6 – Cartoon “featuring the wives of the three general election presidential candidates” for the US presidential election of 1992 (Berge). A difference in depiction of Hillary Clinton and between two others can be seen clearly: Hillary is portrayed more masculine and not as a traditional First Lady.

But these same years saw the emergence of a second, sharply contrasting archetype: a gentle, family-oriented First Lady who is devoted to her husband and her family while having no serious ambition herself. Usually, this archetype was depicted as a woman dependent on her husband with strong family ties and a close relationship to her children. This archetype was often portrayed as the one which was desirable.

Even though in most of the fictional works, characters of First Ladies only represent one

of these archetypes, sometimes, it is possible to see a combination of these two, depending on the situation.

3.1 Give It Up Or Lose Completely: The First Archetype

The first archetype which is connected to a strong, independent First Lady resembling Hillary Clinton is present in several movies from the 1990s. However, just like Hillary Clinton during her two terms as First Lady, also the characters matching this archetype are criticized or punished for being too powerful. If they want to do better, they have to give up a part of their power or they lose completely.

Even though the influence of the real First Lady was often rejected or not directly confirmed, there are some movies when the source of inspiration can be strongly guessed because of the strong similarity between the character of First Lady in a movie and a real persona. The first example where the archetype of a strong, independent First Lady is present is in the film Dave directed by Ivan Reitman which came out on May 7, 1993 after Hillary Clinton became First Lady (“Dave”). Dave is a political comedy film about President Bill Mitchell and his look-alike Dave Kovic who is put in his place after the President goes into a coma.

Even though the screenwriter, Gary Ross, “made no secret of modeling the heartless president in ‘Dave’ (1993) after Ronald Reagan” (“Gary Ross”), the influence on the depiction of the First Lady in Dave, Ellen Mitchell, is unclear and can be only guessed. Nevertheless, there are a few links connecting the appearance and also partly the behavior of Ellen Mitchell to Hillary Clinton. Although the influence of Hillary

Clinton was never confirmed by the screenwriter of Dave and even rejected

by the costume designer Anne Roth (Pener), when watching the film closely, there can be seen many similarities.

At the beginning of the film First Lady Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver) poses with her husband Bill Mitchell (Kevin Kline) for the press but “after showing themselves ( . . . ) as an elegant but close couple, they separate without a word, once out of public view” (Malcolm). In the fact that Ellen leaves when she is no more visible, we can see that she is stubborn and independent from her husband. Even though they fake their happy marriage for the public, in the privacy, she does not care about her husband and does what she wants to. She is not a puppet of her husband but she is an independent strong woman. As Ellen Mitchell, also Hillary Clinton can be perceived as an independent and strong woman. As was mentioned in the previous passage, when

Bill Clinton ran for president, he often mentioned that “his wife would be a full partner if he became President, terming it a ‘two for one’ deal” (“First Lady Biography: Hillary

Clinton”). Hillary Clinton wanted to be politically active and vocal about her opinions herself, which was not completely common. The fact that Ellen Mitchell does not care about the rules and traditions expected of the First Lady can be seen in the scene where she leaves the White House without saying it to anybody. Even though Dave came out in 1993, which is the same year when Hillary Clinton became First Lady so the influence of Hillary Clinton during her term as First Lady is not possible, there still can be seen some similarity between Ellen Mitchell and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, even before she became First Lady, broke many precedents when she was politically and publically active and worked as an attorney while her husband served as Governor.

She was always independent and wanted to have her own career and did not want to serve only as a wife to her husband.

Another point where a correlation between Ellen Mitchell and Hillary Clinton is visible is their fashion style and their appearance. Even though Ellen Mitchell looks stylish a few times in the movie, for example right at the beginning when she arrives at the White House with her husband, there are many scenes where her fashion style could be considered vague and not very modern. In this aspect, Degen Pener compares Ellen

Mitchell with Hillary Clinton: “Ms. [Sigourney Weaver]’s character is apparently about as interested in fashion as Hillary Clinton, which means not very much.” As Anne Roth, the costume designer who created clothes for the character of Ellen Mitchell, pointed out, she “wanted it to look like fashion is not a huge priority with her” (Pener). She also added that “if you looked at these clothes you probably would just pass right by them, and that is basically what I wanted” (Pener). Just like the style of Ellen Mitchell, also

Hillary Clinton’s fashion style was often seen as out of fashion and completely tasteless.

Even though later during her term as First Lady, Hillary Clinton “experimented with fashion” and “she even seemed to have fun with it, ( . . . ) she got mocked for those choices, repeatedly” (Garber). She even “got called ‘frumpy’” (Garber). In these aspects, a strong resemblance between Ellen Mitchell and Hillary Clinton is visible.

Nevertheless, Anna Roth, the costume designer, claimed that “she didn’t consider that when designing her wardrobe” and she also added that she “did not base it on any real

First Ladies” (Pener). Nevertheless, the resemblance between the appearance Ellen

Mitchell and Hillary Clinton in Dave can often be very striking.

Although there are many similarities between Ellen Mitchell and Hillary

Clinton, the source of inspiration for the character of Ellen Mitchell was never made public. Nevertheless, even the actress Sigourney Weaver showed her support for Hillary

Clinton. As Cindy Pearlman points out, Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Mitchell is “tough, campaigns for kids’ issues and even sleeps in a separate bedroom from her husband,

the Prez, who is coincidentally named [Bill].” Also Sigourney Weaver herself, who is a “staunch Democrat,” stated that her “first lady is not conservative”, just like Hillary

Clinton, and that she was “delighted [Hillary] is in the White House. She’s smart, she had a real job and even uses her real name. It’s about time” (Pearlman).

Even though Ellen Mitchell is an independent First Lady who does what she wants to do, certain punishment for that is visible in the movie. Her husband is unfaithful to her and does not care about her and their marriage is staged only for the media and is not functional. Even though at the end, she gets together with Dave

Kovic (who is the president’s look-alike), it is only when her role as the First Lady finishes and she gives up a part of her power. Only when she becomes more human, she can have an equal happy relationship.

Even though the correlation between Ellen Mitchell and Hillary Clinton was never confirmed, the film was clearly inspired by the real political environment in the United States. The screenwriter of the movie Gary Ross wrote the script of Dave while he was working on the presidential campaign for Michael Dukakis who was nominated by the Democratic Party for president for the 1988 election but he lost to his Republican opponent, George H. W. Bush (“Gary Ross”).

While there are many similar features between Ellen Mitchell and Hillary

Clinton, Dave is only one of several other movies from the 1990s where the archetype of a strong independent First Lady is present. Guarding Tess (1994), directed by Hugh Wilson, depicts the fictional former First Lady Tess Carlisle (Shirley

MacLaine) and her relationship with her much younger Secret Service agent Doug

Chesnic (Nicolas Cage). Tess Carlisle is widowed and is being taken care of by agent

Chesnic who has to guard her. Their relationship is love-hate. While Tess does not want him to leave her because she enjoys his company, he cannot stand her because she is

stubborn and it is hard to get along with her. She is always the one who decides about everything and does not care about anybody else. When she wants to go playing golf in winter, he has to go with her, when she decides to go to the opera, he also has to go.

Even though she does not want him to leave her service, she is mean to him. One day, she even runs away from him when they stop at the gas station and she is left alone in a car with her driver. She tells her driver to drive away from him and Chesnic is guilty because he was supposed to take care of her. When she gets back home, Chesnic is very angry and wants to leave her service. Tess asks him not to leave her service and tries to change his mind:

[Tess] “You should try going crazy yourself. You should get a date... you should have a martini, you should drive with the top down. You should, better yet, give a tired old widow a break.”

Then the heated discussion follows:

[Chesnic] “I am very sorry, Mrs. Carlisle, but the regulations...” [Tess] “Oh, well, fine. Go. Whatever you wanna to do. Just leave. One less gunman lounging around my house. Take the whole bunch with you.” [Chesnic] “We are not gunmen, Mrs. Carlisle. Since I am leaving for sure this time, I’d like to take this opportunity... to remind you that you can refuse Secret Service protection... anytime you want. I believe you already know that.” [Tess] “Well, that’s brilliant, Doug. Do you think they’d really let me get away with that?” [Chesnic] “I don’t know why not. Other people have done it. But I think you like it. I think you like having seven men... and no women agents... I notice... at your back and call, day and night. [murmuring] ‘Get a date….’” [Tess] “How dare you?” [Chesnic] “Goodbye, Mrs. Carlisle.” [Tess] “Get out! Get out of my house this instant. And stay out!”

After that, Tess sends her bodyguards home and says she does not want them anymore.

Later, the current president, who is Tess’ close friend and who served as Vice President during the presidential term of Tess’ husband, calls angrily to Chesnic to ask him to reconcile with Tess because something could happen to her, which would be a disaster because the whole nation loves her. After that, Chesnic’s relationship with Tess gets better after they go together to a pub and talk about their private lives.

Later, when Chesnic saves Tess from her kidnappers, it becomes clear how much Tess values his services and how deeply she cares about him. This can be seen as a metaphor for Tess giving up a part of her power. She gives up her superior position to become closer with Chesnic.

Tess’ relationship with agent Chesnic which can be perceived as a mother-son relationship is quite interesting, especially when taking into account that Tess does not have such a good relationship even with her own son. When her son asks her for her support of his project focused on building of luxurious housings for elderly rich people, she refuses that. In Tess’ relationship with her son and in the fact that she refuses to support his project, her independence can be seen. She uses her power to decide about her own finances, which costs her losing her son. However, to get along with Chesnic, she has to give a part of her power to make herself more likable, otherwise she will be punished for that by everybody hating her.

What is also interesting about this movie is that Tess Carlisle is put into contrast with Nancy Reagan. The agents from the Secret Service discuss boxing and then they discuss if there were a match between Tess Carlisle and Nancy Reagan, who would win.

This places the whole movie in a historical context because it situates it in the period after Ronald Reagan’s presidency. At the same time, it suggests that Tess Carlisle was

probably a following First Lady after Nancy Reagan or in a very close time period after her.

In 1996, a sci-fi comedy Mars Attacks directed by Tim Burton came out.

The movie is a comic parody of science fiction films and tells a story of how Martians invaded the Earth while destroying almost the whole planet before being defeated.

The fact that this is a parody results in the way the First couple and First Lady Marsha

Dale are portrayed. While the president James Dale (Jack Nicholson) is portrayed as a man who is self-confident and who naively feels like he can save the planet from the aliens just by having a deep talk with them, First Lady Marsha Dale (Glenn Close) is very shallow and superficial but at the same time, she does not allow anybody to tell her what to do. Marsha is present in the movie for the first time when she is thinking about how she will re-decorate the Roosevelt room in the White House. Even though her daughter is also present in the same scene, we can see that they do not have a very deep relationship. Her daughter is more thoughtful and not as shallow and superficial as her mother. One of Marsha’s employees is helping her to choose what fabric to put on the walls and he mentions that one of the materials is on sale. As to that, Marsha replies: “I hardly think I need to worry about that. My husband is a leader of the free world.” Then she asks her daughter, Taffy (Natalie Portman), for her opinion and their discussion continues as following:

[Marsha] “What do you think, Taffy?” [Taffy] “Why don’t you just leave the Roosevelt room the way the Roosevelt’s wanted it?” [Marsha] “Because Eleanor Roosevelt was too fond of chins. That’s why.” [Taffy] “Mother, this isn’t your house.” [Marsha] “Taffy, if you are going to be a pest, I am just going to have to ignore you.”

After that, the photographer of the First Lady arrives and wants to take a picture of her.

She poses for the photographer and she pushes her employee who is helping her to choose the material for the walls a little bit further so that he cannot be visible in the photography. The same kind of superficiality and superiority is present again when the leader of the Martians appears on TV. The president and Marsha are having dinner while watching the TV and she comments on the appearance of the Martian and discusses it with her husband:

[Marsha] “I’m not allowing that thing in my house.” [James] “Sweetie, we may have to. The people expect me to meet with them.” [Marsha] “Well, they’re not going to eat off the Van Buren china.”

Marsha’s superficiality and her very shallow relationship with her daughter is visible after the attack of the Martians on the White House. When the president, Marsha and their daughter Taffy are being escorted to a safe place, Taffy gets lost on the way. It is not Marsha but her husband who notices that they are missing their daughter when he screams in terror: “We lost Taffy”. Marsha’s death follows soon: she is standing under a chandelier and one of the Martians shots the rope on which the chandelier is hanging and it falls on her. She screams in terror: “The Nancy Reagan chandelier”. In this sentence, her superficiality can be clearly seen and that she does not care about anything else than about possession and power. She did not notice that her daughter got lost but just a few seconds later she focuses on the chandelier and how worthy it is. Basically the fact that she died after the Nancy Reagan chandelier fell down on her sums up her superficial existence and it can be also regarded as a punishment for her too powerful and superficial character. She was in power and she was punished for that by death.

Even though in many movies where the character of First Lady is present, the correlation between the fictional First Lady and any real First Lady can only be guessed, in Primary Colors (1998), directed by Mike Nichols, the link is obvious, since the film is based on the book about “Clinton’s 1992 campaign” (Lauter). The movie

Primary Colors “is adapted from the book by political columnist Joe Klein--a tell-all novel about Clinton’s 1992 campaign that won bestseller status with a clever gimmick of anonymous publication boosted by the author’s repeated lies about his involvement” (Lauter). Even though many people thought that Joe Klein was an author of the novel, he several times denied this claim. For example to New York

Times, he said “For God’s sake, definitely I didn’t write it” (Carjaval). At the end, the Washington Post conducted a handwriting analysis after which Klein admitted that he wrote the novel (Carjaval).

In Primary Colors, many links between the main characters Jack and Susan

Stanton and Bill and Hilary Clinton are present. The film talks about the presidential campaign of Jack Stanton (John Travolta) who is a Southern Governor trying to win the

Democratic Party nomination. Jack Stanton is very similar to Bill Clinton not only by serving as a Southern governor but also by his sexual affairs and scandals. Almost at the beginning of the movie Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), a young political idealist who wants to join Stanton’s campaign, meets Jack Stanton for the first time. Henry meets

Jack when Jack has his tie untied and when he is leaving a room with another woman with whom he obviously had slept. Also later, Stanton is accused of several sexual affairs.

The similarity which is visible in the depiction of Jack Stanton and Bill Clinton can also be seen in the depiction of Susan Stanton (Emma Thompson) and Hilary

Clinton. Susan Stanton is very active in the campaign of her husband and she is

a very strong and independent person. She tries to help her husband as much as she can.

Also, there is a strong similarity in her appearance. She is wearing a short-cut hair and also her clothes are not very fashionable. At the same time, Susan is partly cruel because she is not afraid to use the information which they gained again Jack Stanton’s opponent Fred Picker (Larry Hagman). Even though Susan Stanton is a very strong character in the movie, she is portrayed negatively. She does not care much about other people and her husband also cheats on her. Also at the end, she is one of the reasons why one of her close friends Libby (Kathy Bates), who is helping them with the campaign, commits suicide because she became disillusioned when she realizes that she has spent her life idealizing both Susan and her husband Jack. Even though at the end,

Jack wins the presidential election, Susan is portrayed as a negative powerful archetype of First Lady who is not afraid to do what it takes to get more power and who is completely reckless. She is also one of the reasons for the suicide of one of her close friends.

3.2 Good Girl: The Second Archetype

While the archetype of a powerful ambitious First Lady present during this phase was often portrayed in a negative light and also as something undesirable, an archetype of a family-oriented First Lady was a strong contrast to it. This archetype of First Lady usually matched a woman who could be either praised for her qualities or pitied for her too powerless role. It was also quite frequent that characters matching this archetype had no serious ambition themselves and were devoted to their husbands and children. Characters matching this archetype were quite often highlighted as the right ones and as a result, usually survived.

Nixon (1995), an American biographical political drama film which was directed by Oliver Stone, focuses on the events which took place preceding the Watergate break-in. While the movie focuses mainly on Richard Nixon (Anthony Hopkins), it also gives a significant role to his wife Pat (Joan Allen). She is portrayed as a character who was always devoted to her husband and her family. While after Richard Nixon’s losing the 1960 presidential election she comforts him, after his lost of the 1962 California gubernatorial election she has had enough. While Richard is drinking because of his disappointment, Pat tells him that “It’s over, Dick”. In the scene which is following, Pat expresses her wish to get divorced:

[Pat] “I have always stood by you. I campaigned for you when I was pregnant. ( . . . ) I told you to fight. This is different, Dick. You’ve changed. You’ve grown more bitter. ( . . . ) You were not that way before. I am fifty years old now, Dick. How many millions of miles have I travelled. ( . . . ) How many thank-you notes have I written. ( . . . ) I have had enough.” [Richard] “What are you talking about?”

[Pat] “I want a divorce.” [Richard] “( . . . ) What about the girls?” [Pat] “The girls will grow up. They only know you from the television anyway.” [Richard] “You are ruining us as a family.” [Pat] “You are ruining us. If we stay with you, you will take us down with you.”

In this scene, we can see that Pat does not care only about herself but also about her children and she feels that the divorce will be also for their own good. Even though Pat seems to be determined to get the divorce, her husband tries to make her change her mind by saying that they “belong together” and that she was “the most beautiful thing” he “had ever seen.” Then he also adds: “I don’t wanna lose you. Ever.” Then Pat explains that she cannot stand him running for a political office again. He replies: “If I stop, there will be no more talk of divorce?” Pat gives him a surprised look:

[Richard] “I will do it. No more.” [Pat] “Are you serious?” [Richard] “Yes, I am out! ( . . . ) I will never run again, I promise.”

Then Pat changes her mind and stays with him. A few years later when it becomes clear that Richard decided to run for president again, he comes home with his group of advisors and his wife is waiting there for him, very angry. Then she says, angrily:

“So you decided. Were you planning to tell me?” and then goes to her room. Richard is immediately following her. However he is stopped by one of his advisors who tells him:

[Advisor] “You can’t leave her, Dick. In 60, she was worth 5.6 million votes.” [Richard] “Don’t worry. I will use the old Nixon charm.”

The following scene seems a little bit superficial when taking into account the previous conversation which Richard had with his advisor. Pat is angry and she is packing

her suitcase while Richard is trying to make her change her mind while being very nice and charming. He also says “It’s ours, Patty,” suggesting that he has a high chance of winning this time. At the end, he manages to calm Pat down. Then the discussion follows:

[Pat] “Do you really want this, Dick?” [Richard] “Yes!” [Pat] “And then you will be happy?” [Richard] “Yeah, yeah, I will be.” [Pat] “Then I will be there for you... And we are gonna win this time. I can feel it.”

There we can see how Richard can easily manipulate his wife into what he wants. Later when they are in the White House, the plot is mostly focused on the political events surrounding the president. However, Pat is also present there. In the scene when she comes to his office to talk to him, it is visible how detached he is from her.

He seems to be very stressed out and Pat tries talking to him:

[Pat] “You have everything you ever wanted. ( . . . ) Why can’t you just enjoy it? ( . . . ) What are you scared of, honey?” [Richard] “I am not scared! You don’t understand. ( . . . ) This is about me. Why can’t you understand that! You of all the people! It’s not the war. It’s Nixon. How to destroy Nixon.”

Later he even starts yelling at Pat: “What the hell are you saying? Are you drunk?”

Another important scene when Pat and Richard are present together is when they are having dinner. Pat wants to discuss why Richard is so detached from everybody:

[Pat] “Why are you cutting yourself off from the rest of us? Can’t we discuss this?” [Richard] “What exactly do you wanna discuss, Pat?” [Pat] “You! What you are doing.” [Richard] “What am I doing?” [Pat] “I wish I knew. You keep hiding…” [Richard] “Hiding what?” [Pat] “Whatever it is you have always been hiding. You are letting it destroy you, Dick.”

Because Richard does not want to discuss it, he keeps avoiding answering Pat. Instead he calls the butler and says that “Missis Nixon is finished.” Even though it is a sign of disrespect towards Pat because she has not finished eating yet, she is still trying:

[Pat] “I am the only one left, Dick. If you don’t even talk to me…” [Richard] “Brezhnev is coming in three days. I don’t wanna deal with them and you. ( . . . ) I would like to finish my dinner if it’s not much to ask.” ( . . . ) [Pat] “I am finished trying.” [Richard] “Thank you.” [Pat] “Sometimes I understand why they hate you.”

Later when Richard signs the resignation because of the Watergate break-in, Pat is there again to support him and comfort him in spite of him having treating her badly.

Even when Richard is giving the last presidential press conference, she and their two daughters are standing next to him to support him.

Pat’s portrayal in Nixon is quite interesting. Even though she definitely had some influence over Richard Nixon in terms of supporting him, she is portrayed as a very weak character which even though having been treated badly by her husband was still devoted him and their children. She is a character who can be pitied for being treated

badly. However, her husband is portrayed there as being faithful to her and at the end, their family is still together. Based on these facts, even though Pat is matching a weak archetype of First Lady, she can be highlighted for her devotion to her husband and her family, which is portrayed in a positive light.

In Air Force One (1997), First Lady Grace Marshall is a great example of a family-oriented archetype of First Lady. The movie, directed by Andrew W.

Marlowe, is about a group of terrorists who hijack Air Force One which is carrying the President and his family. The President aims to free himself and his family in which he succeeds. Grace (Wendy Crewson) and her husband (Harrison Ford) are very fond of each other and they have a very close relationship. They kiss tenderly and they do not even care if anybody sees them. Even though the president is the dominant character in the film -- and when terrorists seize the plane in flight, he is the one who takes care of his family and saves them at the end -- his wife plays an important role as his supporter. When she is with her husband alone in her office on the plane, they talk about his speech. He feels that the people were not much impressed by it and Grace tries cheering him up. She reminds him of his first campaign and how there were only three people who believed in him. From this discussion, we may see that Grace was a strong driving force behind her husband’s success. She supported him a lot during his campaign and even after he became president, she was his strong supporter and an important advisor.

The president’s relationship with his wife is not the only family relationship which may be observed, it is also possible to see his strong relationship with his daughter. When they get on the plane, they are hugging on the couch and they kiss each other on their cheeks. Also when the president is being blackmailed by Korshunov, one of the terrorists who kidnapped the plane, we can see the president’s

strong relationship with his daughter again. Korshunov wants the president to arrange

Radek’s release, who was a dictator of Kazakhstan, and the president agrees to that only after Korshunov threatens to kill his daughter. The most emotional moment of the whole movie is probably at the end when the whole president’s family is saved and they all hug together. The strength of their family relationship is clear there. While Grace has some kind of influence on her husband, especially in terms of support, she does not have any serious ambition herself and she devotes most of her affection to her husband and family. She can be perceived as an archetype of family-oriented First Lady who is praised for her position. Her survival can be seen as a reward for the position she is having. During this phase, a family-oriented archetype of the First Lady was perceived as the one which was desirable and characters matching this archetype were usually the ones who survived or were rewarded for their position.

While the two previously mentioned First Ladies were archetypes of a family-oriented First Lady, the character of First Lady Marilyn Whitmore in Independence Day (1996) is different in many aspects. She is quite similar to Grace

Marshall in Air Force One in terms of her close and loving relationship with her husband and family. However, she is a great example of the two archetypes blending together.

Independence Day, directed by Roland Emmerich, is an adventure story about the invasion of Earth by aliens. Their mission is to invade and destroy Earth and then move to another planet. Even though it seems that they will succeed, at the end, one of the technological experts finds out a way how to destroy the aliens: by uploading a computer virus into the mother ship of the aliens. Thanks to that, Earth is saved.

In the movie, the relationship between President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) and First Lady Marilyn Whitmore (Mary McDonnell) is very idyllic and loving.

They call each other frequently when they are not together and they also express their love for each other.

When Marilyn is in Los Angeles, we can see how deeply she misses her husband and her daughter. Even though Marilyn Whitmore is very different from Ellen Mitchell in Dave and Tess Carlisle in Guarding Tess, there are some similar aspects in her character. Even though Marilyn Whitmore has a very loving relationship with her husband, she is still not dependent on him. At the beginning of the movie, Marilyn goes to Los Angeles without her husband. Later, when the danger of an alien attack becomes serious, the president is calling his wife to get her out of Los Angeles as soon as possible. He does not want to see her in any of the big American cities because they are under the threat of an attack. Even though Marilyn appreciates that her husband cares for her so deeply, she does not let her husband tell her what she should do:

[Thomas] “I really want you out of Los Angeles.” [Marilyn] “You’re staying there to keep people calm. I won’t let them criticize you for it.” [Thomas] “I appreciate your trying to help me.” [Marilyn] “Liar. Stick to the truth. You’re good at it.” [Thomas] “OK. I don’t want you in any one of those cities.” [Marilyn] “I’ll leave as soon as the interviews are done.” [Thomas] “All right. A helicopter will be taking you to Nullius.”

Her decision to stay in Los Angeles and leave it later costs her her life when her helicopter falls down and she is seriously hurt. When she is in the hospital and finally meets her husband and her daughter and when her husband finds out that she is going to die, we can see how strong their relationship is. He is completely devastated and Marilyn regrets not doing what her husband wanted her to do and not leaving

Los Angeles earlier. Her independence costs her her life at the end. In this movie, it is

possible to see a mixture of the two archetypes. While Marilyn Whitmore can be perceived as an archetype of the First Lady who is family-oriented and devoted to her husband and family, her behavior before her death suggests some degree of her independence. Her death can be regarded as its criticism: she did not listen to her husband and did not leave the city as soon as he told her to and because of that, she died. This can be perceived as a criticism of a powerful archetype of strong First

Lady who is punished for her power. While Marilyn is devoted to her family, when she takes more power, she is punished for that by death.

4 Third Phase: Can I Have It All?

Oh.. in America The land of the free, they said And of opportunity In a just and a truthful way But where the president Is never black, female or gay And until that day You’ve got nothing to say to me To help me believe

Lyrics to “America Is Not The World” by Morrissey.

When Morrissey released his song America Is Not The World in 2004 where he was singing that “the president is never black, female or gay,” few would have imagined at that time that a few years later an African-American and a woman would be competing against each other in the presidential election. The beginning of the 21st century can be regarded as a period when unexpected became reality and when significant changes in society took place.

This change was also reflected in works where First Ladies were featured.

While in the previous phase there were two archetypes, one of a powerful independent

First Lady and the second archetype to contrast her which was family-oriented and fond of her husband without having any serious ambition herself, the depiction of the first archetype started changing significantly during this period. While in the previous phase, the archetype of a strong independent First Lady was often criticized or punished for being too powerful in the works where she was featured, this significantly changed.

While in this phase, both of these archetypes are present (even though the family- oriented archetype became less frequent), it is the powerful archetype which is now depicted as the desirable one. First Ladies who were powerful started being portrayed in popular works as something all First Ladies should aim for. Also, in many works, these

two archetypes started blending together. Becoming powerful started being perceived as an advantage and something desirable. During this period, empowerment of women is gaining more prominence and it is reflected in the works featuring First Ladies.

While there may be a question about what caused this change, we can see some hints answering this question. Even though Hillary Clinton was often criticized during her two terms as First Lady as being too powerful and for pushing her agenda too much, when she left her position, she set up a precedent that it is acceptable for the First Lady to have her own career. Even though there had been some other former First Ladies who held the public position thanks to being appointed by presidents, this “was the first time in the nation’s history that a first lady was elected to public office” as a Senator from

New York (Nagourney) and later, she even served as the Secretary of State during

President Obama’s term. This significantly increased the importance of First Ladies and it also showed that not only presidents had the possibility to advance significantly in their careers but also their wives.

The beginning of the 21st century was full of changes. After a former First Lady being elected a Senator, then the first African-American became the President of the United States. When Barack Obama was inaugurated the president in 2008, with him, Michelle Obama became First Lady. This First couple was unique in many ways.

Not only was Barack Obama the first African-American president (and Michelle Obama the first African-American First Lady) but this couple also brought many hopes for change. In his campaign, Barack Obama depicted himself to be different from other previous presidents. If at the end he was actually a transformation leader or not can be discussed but here, it is important to focus on Barack Obama’s wife and First Lady

Michelle Obama.

As was mentioned before, Michelle Obama was unique in one important aspect: she was the first African-American First Lady in the American history. Also, during her two terms as First Lady, she did not only focus on her Let’s Move campaign against childhood obesity but also on spreading women empowerment. Even though “she is surely most known for her role and work as the former First Lady and wife of the 44th President Barack Obama, Michelle will most certainly have her own legacy, separate from her husband’s” (Bimba). And as Anna Beck Bimba points out, “it will be that she was the first First Lady to show women that it is ok to be everything and that all women deserve equal opportunity and choice, every and any choice.” Michelle

Obama’s:

support for women empowerment took its greatest leap in 2015 when she and President Obama launched the Let Girls Learn program as a way to help give young women across the globe greater access to education. As a woman lucky enough to receive an Ivy League education, Michelle knows the power of a quality education and her awareness of the many millions of young girls around the world who are unable to obtain such, and the ripple effect that has on society, led her to champion this program. (Bimba) (see fig. 7)

Fig. 7 – Michelle Obama promoting her “Let Girls Learn program as a way to help give young women across the globe greater access to education.” (Bimba)

Even after:

leaving her role as First Lady, Michelle has continued on her plight for women empowerment with actions such as The United State of Women Summit held in Washington, DC on June 14th, 2017. In collaboration with celebrities and bosses like Laverne Cox, Cecile Richards, Oprah, Indra Nooyi and Kerry Washington, the summit was aimed at helping women celebrate their achievements and empowering them to push for more. (Bimba)

Michelle Obama did not end up only with being a fashionable First Lady but she also became a voice for women empowerment and for equal treatment of women and girls

(see fig. 8).

Fig. 8 – Michelle Obama is a source of many inspiring quotes concerning promoting education of girls and women. (Bimba)

While Hillary Clinton showed that even First Ladies can have their own political career, Michelle Obama later showed that it is possible to have it all: a successful career, being powerful and having a happy family. This became reflected in the works featuring First Ladies which were produced during this phase. Even though the two archetypes from the previous phase are still present here, the powerful archetype became perceived as something desirable and also, both of these archetypes started blending more together. It became much more common to portray a First Lady who

while being powerful and independent was also devoted to her family and her husband and who actually had it all.

While during this period, both of the archetypes are present, however, the archetype of a strong ambitious First Lady is gaining more dominance here. Also, this archetype is no longer criticized for its too powerful role but is depicted in a positive light. Also, this archetype is now portrayed in different ways. While in some works, First Ladies matching this archetype are equal to their husbands and serve as driving forces behind their success, in some other works they are more powerful than their husbands or they are described in a way which shows that they can even survive without their husbands.

4.1 I Can Be Without You

At the turn of the century, a transition between the second and the third phase is most clear in the change of the archetype of a strong independent First Lady. While previously this archetype was criticized for being too powerful, now, this archetype is portrayed in a positive light. Also, this archetype was portrayed in different ways during this phase. One of them is a depiction of how First Ladies matching this archetype can survive even without their husbands while still holding their power.

The film Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000), directed by David Burton

Morris, can be mentioned as one of the first examples. It portrays the life of Jacqueline

Kennedy (Joanne Whalley) before the assassination of her husband (Tom Skerritt) and after it. Jacqueline is portrayed as somebody who even when losing her husband does not break down and manages to go on. The similar portrayal of Jacqueline is present in several other works produced during this phase.

Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis aims to be faithful to the historical line and to the description of Jacqueline Kennedy. Jacqueline is portrayed as fashionable and strong and she also serves here as an important supporter to her husband.

Their relationship here is portrayed as very deep and Jack discusses different issues with Jacqueline. While being a powerful character, Jacqueline has a good relationship with her husband. Even after her husband’s death, it is showed that she did not break down but she was strong enough to manage her life without him. We can see a certain change in the archetype of a powerful First Lady. While previously, this archetype was quite often punished for its strong power, here, Jacqueline is portrayed as somebody who still can manage it all even when suffering. She is portrayed as somebody so strong that she can manage her life even after the death of her husband.

Grey Gardens (2009), directed by Michael Sucsy, is an adaptation of 1973 documentary film of the same name. This movie is interesting for its main focus. While most of the movies featuring Jacqueline Kennedy focus on her as the main character, in the movie, she serves more as a background. “In 1973, documentary filmmaking brothers Albert Maysles and David Maysles decide to change the focus of their latest project from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to her aunt and older cousin, mother and daughter Edith Bouvier Beale - called Big Edie - and Edith ‘Little Edie’ Bouvier Beale, who were found living in squalor and isolation in the longtime family mansion, Grey

Gardens, in East Hampton, New York” (“Grey Gardens”). The movie flashes back and forth between several different events from their lives. Even though Big Edie (Jessica

Lange) and Little Edie (Drew Barrymore) used to be members of the upper classes, they ended up living in seclusion in a dilapidated mansion called Grey Gardens after various different events. After the house has even been inspected by the health officials and the newspapers who took on the story blamed Jacqueline Kennedy for not taking

care of them, she arrives in a black limousine driven by a chauffeur. This is taking place already after John F. Kennedy’s death. Jacqueline does not seem to be very comfortable there. She is obviously horrified when she sees the conditions in which her aunt and cousin live. While Jacqueline’s aunt talks with her nicely, her cousin is being crazy and seems that she cannot stand Jacqueline. After Jacqueline’s aunt expressing her condoles to Jacqueline, she says: “You two have always been so warm to me.” After that, Little

Edie and Big Edie exchange rather annoyed looks. Then, Little Edie starts being rude to Jacqueline by asking: “Is it true that Jack Kennedy gave you gonorrhea?” After that, she starts musing about John’s older brother:

[Little Edie] “Do you remember Jack’s brother Joe Kennedy Jr.?” [Jacqueline] “No, he died in the war years before I even met Jack.” [Little Edie] “When he died I cried. I really did. Joe’s an extraordinary beautiful young man. I was really taken by him.” [Big Edie] “Too bad he was not taken by you.” [Little Edie] “He certainly was. It is not secret they were grooming him to be president before they started looking to Jack.”

Then it becomes evident how jealous Little Edie is of Jacqueline:

[Little Edie] “I was the golden girl.” [Jacqueline] “You certainly were. [Little Edie] You know if Joe hadn’t gone down in the war, then I certainly would have married him... ( . . . ) I would become the First Lady and not you.”

After that, Jacqueline asks her aunt why she did not sell Grey Gardens to get some money. When Big Edie says that this is all she has, Jacqueline promises her to help her get the house in order. Following that, she says goodbyes to her aunt and her cousin and leaves again in her limousine. Even though the scene may seem humiliating,

Jacqueline is actually composed here and does not take it personally. She is the one in power there and she uses this power to help her relatives increase their living conditions.

While in Grey Gardens, Jacqueline Kennedy serves more as a background to the story, 2016 film Jackie, directed by Pablo Larraín, features her as the main character. The plot of the movie is based as an interview taking place after J. F.

Kennedy’s death (Caspar Phillipson) where Jacqueline (Natalie Portman) is asked several questions about the assassination of her husband and its aftermath on her and her children. The movie is based on flashbacks from Jacqueline’s life. The movie also shows “the different personas Kennedy had in front of different people - a debutante in public but feisty and no-nonsense behind closed doors,” which is something Natalie Portman who was starring as Jacqueline Kennedy “picked up on

( . . . ) in her research, which included listening to recorded interviews Kennedy did with biographer Arthur Schlesinger” (Guerrasio). As Portman said, when Jacqueline:

was doing interviews, [her voice] was a lot more girly and soft, and then when you hear her talking to Schlesinger at home, you hear the ice in the glass clinking and the voice is a little deeper and her wit comes out more. ( . . . ) So you get this real sense of the two sides.” (Guerrasio)

This becomes obvious many times in the movie. While in some scenes, Jacqueline seems to be only a fashionable icon which is always perfect, the movie also depicts the emotional but strong side of her character. Jacqueline is portrayed as a strong, maybe even a little bit cocky person. This can be seen for example in the fact that she is the one who decides about what will be included in the interview and what will not. After Jacqueline finishes telling one of her stories, there follows this conversation between her and the journalist (Billy Crudup) who is interviewing her:

[Journalist] “I am guessing you won’t allow me to write any of that.” [Jacqueline] “No... because I never said that.”

Even though in the movie, we can see that the journalist highly appreciates Jackie, she does not treat him very well and is sometimes even arrogant towards him.

Another strong scene is when before the funeral of her husband, Jacqueline visits

Jack Valenti (Max Casella) who became the assistant to Lyndon Johnson (John Carroll

Lynch). After having asked him to have more modest ceremony, in this scene, she tells him that she changed her mind and that she will walk with the casket: “I have changed my mind. ( . . . ) We will have the procession and I will walk to the cathedral with the casket.” When he tries to discourage her from that, she adds: “Inform them

[the funeral guests] that I will walk with Jack tomorrow. Alone, if necessary.” There we can see her powerful character and the fact that she is not afraid to do what she wants in spite of other people’s discouragement. However, when she talks about her husband, it shows her emotional side. There is a scene where she talks with the priest and she confesses to him that she was hoping somebody would shoot her during the procession to the cathedral so that she could be with her husband in heaven. The movie shows many times that Jackie and her husband were very close to each other.

There is also no mention of any of his affairs, which is completely different from the works where Jacqueline was featured in previous periods.

4.2 Let’s Be Equal

Apart from managing her life without her husband, another variation of the archetype of a strong First Lady is a variation when First Lady and her husband are equal while First Lady being the driving force behind his success or serving as a grey eminence in his life.

An American serial political drama The West Wing by NBC can be considered as one of the transition works between the second and third phase, especially because of the scope of period it was on air. The first episode first aired on September

22, 1999 and ended on May 14, 2006 and it focuses on the administration of Josiah

“Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen).

Based on the long period of time it covers, it is possible to see a gradual development of First Lady Abigail “Abbey” Anne Bartlet (Stockard Channing). While she is quite a powerful character, in comparison with other powerful characters of First

Ladies from the previous phase, she is almost never criticized for that and she is portrayed as being equal to her husband Jed. Also, she has a certain level of power over him: Jed suffers from multiple sclerosis which nobody knows about and because of

Abbey’s medical background, she gives him doses of betaseron which keep him in check (“He Shall, From Time to Time”). However, when Leo McGarry, who works as Jed’s Chief of Staff, finds it out, she decides to give up her medical license because she was violating several American Medical Association rules. In spite of that, she later still does some medical work which does not require the license and she does not care about Leo’s opinion and whether it will cause any political drama.

Even though Abbey and Jed are equal, Jed does not always respect Abbey’s wishes. Even though he promised to her that he run only for one term because of his illness, he announces his candidacy for the second term anyway.

[Abbey] “We had a deal” [Jed] “Right now…” [Abbey] “We made a promise! You made a deal.” [Jed] “Abbey…” [Abbey] “When did you decide you were gonna run for the second term? ( . . . ) You kicked your re-election campaign and I am sitting here eating a sandwich ‘cause we had a deal!” [Jed] “That was three years ago.” (“Bartlet’s Third State of the Union”)

However, when it later becomes clear that Jed is serious about running again, she is even angrier:

[Abbey] “You can’t think this is funny.” [Jed] “I don’t.” [Abbey] “You can’t think this is a joke.” [Jed] “I don’t. I swear.” [Abbey] “There are ways getting out of this.” [Jed] “Yeah?” [Abbey] “( . . . ) You couldn’t possibly be expected to make-“ [Jed] “You are gonna-“ [Abbey] “You let some time go by. A few weeks. You’ll say you have consulted with your doctors. You consulted with your family-“ [Jed] “Abbey…” [Abbey] “Which amazingly people would believe and then you say you’ve decided-“ [Jed] “Running again, Abbey.” (“Manchester (Part I)”

Later in the series, even though they have some fights, they still support each other.

When Jed is upset, Abbey is the one who calms him down, for example during a government shutdown (“Shutdown”). Even when Jed collapses because of his illness during a trip to China, she is there to support him (“Impact Winter”). However, she still expresses her opinions and argues with him about him not getting enough sleep, which

can have even worse impact on his health. There can be seen the transition in depiction of First Ladies from the previous phase. While previously, powerful First Ladies were usually criticized for that, here, she is most of the time portrayed in a positive light and also, she has a good relationship with her husband and family (see figs. 9 and 10). There it is possible to see a gradual change between the second and third phase. While being powerful, Abbey is here praised for her qualities when taking care of her husband and her family.

Fig. 9 – Abbey is fondly taking care of her husband when he is not feeling well. (“He Shall, From Time to Time”)

Fig. 10 – Family time. After Abbey’s and Jed’s daughter Ellie has told them that she is pregnant, Jed needs to leave and Abbey takes a glass of wine from Ellie to prevent her from drinking alcohol. Even though both Abbey and Jed are surprised, they support their daughter. (“Here Today”)

In 2002, a biographical film Path to War was made (directed by John

Frankenheimer) and it deals with Vietnam War from Lyndon Johnson’s point of view.

While the movie primarily focuses on the political discussions and negotiations concerning the Vietnam War, also personal and family relations play important role there. Even though at the beginning of the movie it seems that Lady Bird Johnson’s role in the movie will only serve as a background, her role there gradually increases. Later in the film, Lady Bird is reading a “letter from a friend complaining about junkyards

( . . . ) right along to road, defiling the countryside.” When she tells her husband about that, he immediately calls his assistants to do something about that, even though it is late at night.

Also, Lady Bird is the one who takes care of her husband’s health. She watches what he eats and warns him to stick to his diet so that he does not suffer from another stroke. Lyndon also discusses state affairs with his wife and she gives him some

suggestions on that, for example when he discusses with her his speech where he wants to talk about peace in Vietnam. Lyndon is portrayed as a very emotional person who suffers a lot from the consequences of the Vietnam War. Lady Bird is always the one who cheers him up and supports him while having close relationship with her two daughters. We can see this for example in a scene where one of her daughters is discussing her boyfriend with Lady Bird, which is something children usually do only when they are very close with their parents. When at the end of the movie, Lyndon gives his speech about peace in Vietnam and about not seeking a nomination from his party, Lady Bird and their daughters are present there and it is possible to see Lady Bird’s approving look with Lyndon’s decision. Lady Bird presents here a mixture of the two archetypes. While she is a powerful First Lady who has a strong influence on her husband, she is also very close to him and to her family. We can see a gradual change from the previous phase where these two archetypes were most of the type separated. During this phase, these two archetypes are blending more and more together and a powerful First Lady is starting to be portrayed in a positive light.

When Warms Springs, directed by Joseph Sargent, came out in 2005, it was quite interesting to see the contrast between this movie and the previous series focusing on the same couple. While in Eleanor and Franklin and Eleanor and Franklin:

The White House Years, which went on air during the first phase, the main focus was on

Eleanor’s and Franklin’s complicated relationship and Franklin’s affair, here their relationship is depicted completely differently. Here, Eleanor (Cynthia Nixon) is presented as somebody who always stood behind her husband and supported him.

The film focuses on the period after Franklin D. Roosevelt (Kenneth Branagh) was diagnosed with polio. The major focus of the movie is on the period following his being

invited to Warm Springs resort for treatments and on his regained focus on his political career. Eleanor’s strong support for her husband is visible in the movie. She even dares to disagree with Franklin’s mother Sara about him when they discuss Franklin’s future.

[Sara] “Now that politics is out of the question.” [Eleanor] “This doesn’t change anything.” [Sara] “It changes everything, Eleanor.”

Franklin’s strong dependence on Eleanor is visible in many scenes in the movie, especially when he expresses his feelings:

[Franklin] “I feel useless, Eleanor. I feel so useless.” [Eleanor] “No one can make you inferior without your consent.”

When Franklin wants to leave Warms Springs resort because he does not feel comfortable there, he is accused of being afraid of disabled people by his friend George

Foster Peabody who owned the resort at that time: “You are afraid of these people. You don’t want to be around them because then, that would make you one of them.” Eleanor supports Franklin to stay there and the movie depicts the story of Franklin’s getting better. One of the strongest scenes is when Franklin is leaving Warm Springs resort with his wife. He gives a speech to the other patients where he mentions that he is proud to be a part of the community which is based on “compassion and courage.” While giving this speech, we can see Eleanor’s approving look (see fig. 11). In this film, we can see a significant shift in the focus. While in Eleanor and Franklin and Eleanor and

Franklin: The White House Years, the focus was on their complicated relationship, in

Warm Springs, their relationship is portrayed as very supportive and strong one. Eleanor and Franklin also treat each other equally.

Fig. 11 – Eleanor watching her husband fondly why he is giving a speech to other patients of the Warm Springs resort. (Warms Springs)

Just like in Warms Springs from 2005, also HBO miniseries John Adams from

2008 depicts one of the former First Ladies in a similar way. Just like Eleanor Roosevelt supported her husband during his fight with polio and with his political career in Warm

Springs, Abigail Adams (Laura Linney) is depicted in a similar way. While the miniseries focuses mainly on John Adams (Paul Giamatti) and his political career,

Abigail is depicted here as his important supporter and advisor. He even discusses with her the trial where he defends his clients and he discusses with her the summation and takes her advice on that (“Part I: Join or Die (1770-1774)”). However, another focus of the miniseries is also their relationship which in some periods was not so intense.

John Adams is quite often away from his home and Abigail’s difficulties with managing her household are depicted here. However, she is portrayed as a very strong character that had significant influence on her husband. In this way, she matches the description of a strong archetype. However, we can see some blending with the family-oriented archetype.

In 2010, a British-American political film The Special Relationship came out.

The film, directed by Richard Loncraine, “explores the relationship through the intensely political bond of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. The film’s time frame goes from 1994, when New Labour was taking lessons from Clinton’s people, to 1998 and the end of Kosovo” (Iannucci). It mostly “focuses on the international activities of Blair as prime minister and what he learns from his American ally” (Iannucci). Even though

“they’re brothers in arms, ( . . . ) Clinton is weakened by the Lewinsky scandal in the middle of it all, while Blair strengthens his position, moving from being something of an acolyte to equal to moral superior, post-Kosovo” (Iannucci).

While the movie tries to capture the dynamic of the political relationship between Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid) and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), the plot also includes their wives. Hope Davis, who starred as Hillary Clinton in the movie, aimed to be similar to her not only in her behavior but also by her appearance. Hope Davis explained how much she prepared for her role: “We did, of course, want to get as close visually as we could. I’m wearing some wigs and some teeth. The pantsuits have been made exactly to spec. There are some bright pantsuits” (Itzkoff).

In The Special Relationship, Hillary Clinton is portrayed as a strong, independent woman who supports her husband in spite of his love affairs. What is quite interesting is that while in the previous phases, sexual affairs of the presidents were quite often carefully exploited, here it serves more as a mean to show that it does not diminish Hillary’s importance to her husband. Even after Hillary having found out about Bill’s affair with Monika, they still have a close relationship and Bill even discusses the state affairs with her. We can see this in a scene where Bill Clinton even calls her by the phone to ask her about her opinion about the conflict in Kosovo. This is taking place after Hillary having found out that her husband had an affair with Monika

Lewinski and in spite of that, this movie still shows what a strong relationship they had and how much Bill Clinton was dependent on Hillary’s opinions and views. Even though at the beginning, Hillary Clinton seems to believe that her husband is innocent, when he admits that he had an affair with Lewinsky, she does not seem to be shocked that much and supports him anyway. The Special Relationship can be seen as quite a nice depiction of how their relationship was perceived by many: as an equal partnership where Hillary held a strong position.

Lincoln (2012), directed by Steven Spielberg, is a historical drama film which depicts Abraham Lincoln’s struggles during the Civil War and his goal to emancipate the slaves and pass the 13th amendment. Even though Lincoln mainly focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s thoughts (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his aim to fulfill his mission, to end the civil war and to make sure that the freed slaves will not be re-enslaved again, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) also plays an important role in the movie and it depicts how interesting she was. It also shows their complicated relationship. When

Abraham tells Mary about his dreams, she complains to him: “You tell me dreams, that’s all. ( . . . ) I am not to be trusted.” At the same time, Mary is also portrayed as a person with her own mind who does what she wants to and does not care about social conventions. When she is called “Missis Lincoln” by one of the characters, she corrects him: “Madame President, if you please.”

Mary Todd Lincoln is also portrayed as a very influential character. Even though she and Abraham have rather a cold relationship, she is the one who decides about family matters. It becomes obvious when their son Robert wants to join the army and

Abraham tries to discourage him from that. To that, Robert replies: “It’s mum you are scared of, it is not me getting killed” and Abraham slaps Robert’s face. When Abraham tells about it to Mary, she is very angry and she says she does not want to lose another

son. Even though Abraham tries to calm her down, it does not help and she forbids that.

She also says that Abraham has always blamed Robert for entrapping him into the marriage because she is upset.

Sally Field who starred as Mary Todd Lincoln even commented on the character she played: “She is such a fascinating complicated American woman. ( . . . )

So misunderstood, always, and maligned, always. If there had not been Mary Todd, they would not have been Abraham Lincoln” (“Sally Field Embodies Mary Todd

Lincoln”). Then she adds: “Everyone hated her so ... because she refused to go upstairs and be invisible” (“Sally Field Embodies Mary Todd Lincoln”). Field’s comment on

Mary Todd Lincoln quite nicely summarizes what influence Mary had over her husband, which is portrayed also in the movie. Mary served as a grey eminence in Abraham Lincoln’s life and career and the film nicely depicts that.

The Butler (2013), directed by Lee Daniels, is an American historical drama film which is quite different from the other previously mentioned works. The main character of the movie is not any President or First Lady but an African-American man Cecil

Gaines (Forest Whitaker) who has been serving as a White House butler for 34 years.

While the movie focuses on his story starting from his rough childhood thorough his older age, it uses real events taking place in the USA as a background. The story is narrated from Cecil’s perspective while he is waiting to meet the newly inaugurated president Barack Obama. In the movie, several historical figures are present. During

Einsehower’s administration, Cecil is hired to work in the White House where he works for 34 years until Reagan’s administration during which he resigns.

Two former First Ladies, Jacqueline Kennedy (Minka Kelly) and Nancy Reagan

(Jane Fonda), are present in the movie. While Jacqueline is present there only briefly,

Nancy Reagan’s role is visible more clearly. She is portrayed as an independent woman

who can influence her husband quite easily to do something good. A scene where she invites Cecil to the state dinner proves that:

[Nancy Reagan] “I would like to invite you to the state dinner next week.” [Cecil] “I’m gonna be there Mrs. Reagan.” [Nancy Reagan] “No, not as a butler, Cecil. I’m inviting you as a guest.” [Cecil] “But the president prefers for me to serve him personally.” [Nancy Reagan] “Don’t you worry about Ronnie, I’ll take care of that.”

In this scene, it is possible to see that Nancy is equal to her husband, maybe she is even the one with more power. However, she uses this power to do something good and she is portrayed in a very positive light.

When All the Way, directed by Jay Roach, came out in 2016, it depicted another powerful First Lady. While the film focuses on the events following J. F. Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency, human rights movement and his ambition to pass the Civil Rights Act, Lady Bird plays an important role there. She is a grey eminence behind the scenes who crucially influences her husband. She supports him a lot, which can be seen in a scene where he doubts about what he is doing. She tells him: “What are you fighting for, darling? Listen to your heart. That’s why the people need you here” and later during another emotional scenes, she says to him:

“To step down now would be wrong for your country.” In the film, their close relationship is portrayed where Lady Bird supports her husband every time he needs that. Melissa Leo, an actress who starred as Lady Bird Johnson, talked about the character she played:

Boy, was she a smart lady. And I don’t know that Lyndon could have done what he did in his life without her. It moves me a lot because they think she is a very unsung hero.

She’s got backbone enough to take his great strength and that’s what makes them a great couple. I suspect every first lady has played that role in her husband’s life. There have always been women like Lady Bird Johnson. Somebody who knows the difference between right and wrong. ( . . . ) Their partnership is very clearly a huge part of the presidency. (“All The Way: Mellisa Leo as Lady Bird Johnson”)

Even though in All the Way, a strong focus is put on political events taking place during

Johnson’s presidency, it also stresses the importance and influence of Lady Bird on her husband’s life and political career. It shows how powerful and strong she was while still having a close relationship with her husband. Lady Bird in All The Way is a great example of the two archetypes blending together.

4.3 More Powerful

While during this phase, there are many works where First Ladies are portrayed as equal to their husbands, there are several works where First Ladies are actually more powerful than them. One of the examples is a novel First Lady by Susan Elizabeth

Phillips which was published in 2000. The plot of the story starts with the president’s funeral (who has been assassinated) where his wife former First Lady Cornelia Case is present. There she realized that “she was no longer the First Lady of the United States of America” (Phillips 1). The new president was a “sixty-four-year-old widower” and “for the first time since the death of Edith Wilson eighteen months after Woodrow

Wilson’s inauguration, the United States had no First Lady” (Phillips 1). Even though

Cornelia feels relieved that she no longer has to serve as First Lady, both the new president and her father want her to assume this role again. Lester Vandervort, the new president, tells her that he “won’t be remarrying, and none of” his “female relatives is

remotely capable of handling the job of First Lady” (Phillips 1). Then he adds he wants

Cornelia “to continue in that role” (Phillips 1). Even though Cornelia rejects, both the president and her father try to make her change her mind. Because Cornelia is fed up with her life of First Lady, she escapes the Secret Service in order to live like an average American for some time. However, her escape is not easy. Because she is a well-known persona who left without saying anything to anybody, she is looked for everywhere. Then her adventure on road begins, which leads to her meeting Mat

Jorik who is taking care of the children of his ex-wife who appointed him their guardian without him wanting that. By accident, both Cornelia and Mat end up driving together through States where Cornelia enjoys ordinary things such as camping or having a barbecue. Also, Mat has no idea about Cornelia’s real identity. She pretends to be pregnant and she also uses a fake name. However, Mat gradually learns more and more about Cornelia while they start being attracted to each other. At the same time, Secret

Service searches for her everywhere. Meanwhile, Cornelia’s relationship with Mat gets even more serious and as a result, he finds out her real identity and she also admits to him that she is thinking about running for an office (Phillips 272). Later, Cornelia even realizes that “she had fallen in love with Mat” (Phillips 281). She also expresses her doubts about that saying that “in less than a week, she had unwittingly given him her heart. A heart he hadn’t asked for” (Phillips 281). The breaking point comes up after

Mat admitting to Cornelia that he works as a journalist. Cornelia realizes that he will write about her and decides to leave. At the same time, she talks to the children and says that she wants to adopt them, which they accept. When Cornelia starts packing her suitcase, Mat confronts her and tries to explain to her that he needs to write about her because “somebody’s going to have to set the record straight” about where she has been

(Phillips 315). However, Cornelia does not listen to him and leaves with the girls.

Later, the story continues with Cornelia’s decision to run for an office. She discusses it with her father who has a strong influence over her and who tries discouraging her from that: “Hollings has been in the Senate for twelve years, Cornelia!

I forbid you to go any farther with this nonsense” (Phillips 320). Even though previously, he was always the one who influenced her in many things she did, now she is the one in power and is not afraid to argue with him: “Hollings is an idiot, and the people of Virginia deserve better (Phillips 320). Then a heated discussion follows:

“Hollings may not be the best senator we have, but he’s always been loyal to the party, and he’s extremely upset.” She and her father had been arguing over her decision to run for the Senate ever since she’d made up her mind last month. ( . . . ) “Then find some other way to reward him because I’m going after his seat in the primary.” “Not without my support, you won’t!” “Dad,” she said, as gently as she could, “I don’t need your support.” (Phillips 321)

Later, Mat realizes that he is in love with Cornelia and wants to express his feelings to her. Even though first Cornelia thinks that he expresses his love for her only because he wants the children back, she later realizes that he is honest. Later, they get married. The end of the novel takes place much later and it becomes clear how

Cornelia’s political ambitions ended up, with her becoming the President of the United

States: “Nealy [Cornelia’s nickname] had never looked more beautiful to Mat than she did that January day as she stood in front of the United States Capitol with the sun glinting in her hair” (Phillips 371). Then it continues:

The country was lucky to have her. In addition to intelligence, she possessed vision, experience, integrity, and a stunning lack of personal ago. Just as important, her time in Congress had demonstrated her rare ability to bring people together, even longtime political enemies. Somehow she manages to get the most out of everyone, maybe because no one had the courage to disappoint her. (Phillips 372-73)

There is also a part where Mat ponders about his new role: “He’d given a lot of thought to his new position as the republic’s first First Husband, and he intended to do a kick- ass job. He was the man who’d set the precedent for all the others who followed, and he understood his priorities” (Phillips 373). The final line of the novel is very strong:

“And then, right in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, with the whole world looking on, he planted a long, lingering kiss on the lips of the President of the United States”

(Phillips 375). The novel is very interesting for its focus. While Cornelia escapes from the White House because she is not satisfied with her role of First Lady, at the end, she ends up in the same building but with much more power. She has everything she can have: a happy family, a devoted husband and the most powerful role in the country.

At the same time, she is portrayed as a heroine who will save everybody.

A serial drama 24 produced for the Fox network which went on air for the first time in 2001 is quite interesting for its depiction of First Lady. Each season covers 24 hours of the main hero of the series: counter-terrorist Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland).

Even though there were several seasons of this drama, First Lady Martha Logan (Jean

Smart) was present only in the 5th and 6th seasons during 2005-2006. However, she still has a huge impact on the plot of the story. Her relationship with her husband President

Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin) is not very deep and it can be perceived more as both of them attempting to destroy each other. Before Charles Logan becoming president, in the 5th season, Martha Logan suspects that he is involved in the murder of President

David Palmer. After Charles admits that to Martha, later during the funeral, Martha screams to him that he is “a murderer” and that “he is not fit to be president” (“Day 5:

6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m.”). Later Charles hits her and at the same time, confesses to everything he has done without being aware of the fact that he has a small listening device on his pen (see fig. 12). At the same time, he is threatening that he will send her

“to an asylum” where she can stay “for the rest” of her “life” (“Day 5: 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m.”). When he is arrested for his confession, he turns to see Martha who smiles at him winningly because she obviously knew about the listening device (see fig. 13).

Martha is also emotionally unstable. In the 6th season after Martha had been admitted to a mental health facility, Charles comes to visit her. She gets so angry with him that she stabs him in the shoulder (see fig. 14). Apart from that, she also does things which are not appropriate for a First Lady. For example when her stylist is doing her hair and make-up for the funeral of David Palmer, Martha looks at herself in the mirror, says that she looks “like a wedding cake” and then puts her face in the basin full of water and asks her stylish to “start over” (“Day 5: 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.”).

Fig. 12 – Charles threatens his wife Martha. (“Day 5: 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m.”)

Fig. 13 – After Charles being arrested, Martha looks at him with a satisfied look on her face. (“Day 5: 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m.”)

Fig. 14 –Martha attacks Charles with a knife. (“Day 6: 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.”)

Martha Logan has quite often “been compared to Martha Mitchell, the outspoken wife of Nixon-era attorney general John Mitchell, who was trashed as delusional for not keeping her mouth shut during the Watergate scandal” (Byrne).

Even though “the producers acknowledge that influence, [Jean] Smart [an actress who plays Martha] says it didn’t really figure into her interpretation” (Byrne). However, just

“like that Martha, who died in 1976, this one always needs to speak her own mind, even if she’s labeled crazy for doing so” (Byrne). As Jean Smart Martha is “obviously sort of volatile ... big ups and downs are not completely foreign to her and obviously, too, she’s on medication and once she took that medication, that affected her greatly” (Byrne).

However, this series is very interesting for its depiction of First Lady. While

Martha seems to be a psychopath, she is actually more powerful than her husband.

She is the one who can influence whether he will be successful or not and she is quite often the one who causes his fall.

While in 24, First Lady Martha Logan is responsible for failure of her husband, in a novel The Ninth Daughter by Barbara Hamilton, which was released in 2011,

First Lady Abigail Adams is the one who is behind her husband’s success. When

Abigail Adams visits her close friend Rebecca Malvern, she stumbles on a dead woman’s body while finding out that her friend Rebecca is missing. Later, when her husband John is accused of the murder, she is the one who works to clear his name.

The novel is focused not only on her quest to find a murderer of the woman but also on her relationship with her husband. Their close relationship can be seen in many scenes, for example when John is mentioned as “her beloved, self-important, irascible John, the hero of her heart, husband of her bosom, and occasional bane of her existence”

(Hamilton 3). Abigail’s power is visible there. She is powerful enough to negotiate and talk with many different people with different missions while she maintains a strong

relationship with her husband whose name she wants to clear. She is depicted as a strong character whose power is used for positive things and at the same time, she is more powerful than him because she is the one who can clear his name.

Southside With You (2016), directed by Richard Tanne, is quite different in its genre from other works. It is a biographical romantic drama and its plot is based on the first date of the former American President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. Even though it does not focus on the period where Barack Obama served as president, it is interesting for its story. It “covers the eventful evening in 1989 when a young associate named Barack Obama tried to woo lawyer Michelle Robinson on a date that took them from the Art Institute of Chicago to a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing”

(Viessing). While in the movie, Michelle (Tika Sumpter) refuses to admit that she is on a date with Barack (Parker Sawyers), whose boss she is, he tries to do everything he can to make her change her mind:

[Michelle] “Shouldn’t we be getting to the meeting [community event where he invited her]?” [Barack] “We’ve some time. I thought we would stop by the arts center. See some paintings. Maybe grab some tea.” [Michelle] “This is not a date. How is it gonna look if I start dating the first cute black guy who walks through the firm’s doors. It would be tacky.” [Barack] “You think I’m cute?” [Michelle] “I didn’t say that!”

The film is a romantic love story which portrays Michelle as a witty and intelligent woman who is not easy to get. It also shows her future ambitions in a scene where she questions Barack about his reasons for being in Chicago:

[Michelle] “So why did you come to Chicago?” [Barack] “To try to make a difference.” [Michelle] “I wanted that too. Maybe I’d help women. Empower them.”

Even though the story does not talk about Michelle Obama in her role of First

Lady, it shows a connection between what she was like when she was younger and what she was like as First Lady. It nicely portrays Michelle Obama in a way she is quite often perceived today: as an ambitious, witty, strong character who wants to empower other women. Since in the movie, she is also Barack’s boss, she is much more powerful than him not only at work but also because she is the one who is being courted.

In 2013, an American political thriller series House of Cards went on air on

Netflix. The plot of House of Cards was inspired by British miniseries of the same name from 1990 which was “based on the novel by Michael Dobbs” (Lacob). However, it was remade into an American context and adapted to the American political environment. The story is set in Washington, D.C and covers the story of Congressman

Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and his rise to power.

What is actually interesting about this series is that there is not present only one fictional First Lady but two of them thorough the series. The first First Lady present in the series is Patricia Walker who is not portrayed as a very strong character.

She appears only in a few episodes where her weak character is visible. Before she became First Lady of the United States, she “was First Lady of Colorado when her husband, Garrett served as the state’s 41st Governor from 2007 until his resignation in 2012 following his election to the presidency” (“Patricia Walker”). In the series, she is quite a weak character and she is easily manipulated by Claire Underwood (Robin

Wright). In season 2, Patricia suspects that “her husband is having an affair with

Christina Gallagher [an assistant] after Claire tells Patricia she does not like Christina”

(“Patricia Walker”). As a reason, Claire adds that “I just have a thing about people who sleep with their bosses” (“Chapter 19”). Even though Patricia’s husband does not have an affair with Christina, Claire tries to make Patricia believe that to distract president’s attention from her and her husband’s machinations. Later when her husband Garrett resigns, Vice President Frank Underwood becomes the President of the United States and his wife, Claire Underwood, becomes the second First Lady in the series (“Chapter

26”).

The story of the second fictional First Lady in House of Cards, Claire

Underwood, is quite interesting and Claire also matches an archetype of a strong First

Lady. At the beginning, she is a wife of Congressman Frank Underwood, “a Democratic chief whip from South Carolina whose shark-like intelligence—and ruthless amorality—is depicted as a natural side effect of the American Dream” (Lacob).

Thorough the story, Frank Underwood gets from the position of Congressman thorough the position of Vice President of the United States to becoming President of the United States. With him, his wife Claire Underwood undergoes the same change of positions. From the wife of the Congressman, she becomes Second Lady of the United States and then First Lady of the United States. However, her career does not end there. Later in the season 5, Claire becomes the 47th president of the United

States (“Chapter 65”), which is quite interesting since at the time this episode was shot,

Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States. When taking into account that two other presidents of the United States appear in the series before Claire becoming the president (first Garrett Walker and then Claire’s husband Frank

Underwood), it seems like the plot of the story is trying to continue the real history of the United States. What is also interesting is that at the end of the season 5 when

Claire becomes the president of the United States, she is supposed to pardon Frank,

her husband, for some of his crimes. However, she does not do that and at that moment, she is much more powerful than her husband. At the end of the season, Claire notices that her husband has burned a hole into the American flag in the Oval Office

(“Chapter 65”). After that she sees that Frank is calling her and she rejects his call.

Then she states clearly: “My turn” (“Chapter 65”). It shows how powerful Claire is at that moment and she matches the archetype of a strong, powerful and independent First

Lady.

In the series, we can see some correlation between the plot and the reality and also between some fictional and real characters. Even though Robin Wright who portrays First Lady Claire Underwood in the show said that “her character is not based on another well-known political wife” (McCalmont), the similarity between the character and some other political figures can be spotted. As Wrights mentions,

“people were suggesting to base the character on Hillary Clinton or other strong women personas, and I didn’t want to do that” (McCalmont). In spite of this denial, we can see a certain similarity between Claire Underwood and Hillary Clinton, not only in their ambition but also in their attempts to become the presidents of the United States.

Apart from Hillary Clinton, there is another link between Claire Underwood and another female politician. During the season 2, Claire strongly advocates for passing of a sexual assault prevention bill. Based on her attempts, the similarity between the real and fictional characters was noticed by Drew Grant of The New York Observer where he mentions the similarity between the fictional character of Claire Underwood and

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who has been the United States Senator from New York since 2009. In 2014, “the Senate defeated legislation Thursday that would have taken military sexual-assault cases outside the chain of command” (Rogers). This bill was sponsored by New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who was fighting for

the bill for several months (Rogers). Nevertheless, there was a strong opposition against the bill. However, just like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wanted to pass this bill, Claire

Underground was fighting for a similar mission.

In 2016, Alpha Prez and the First Lady’s Secret Weapon by Kendall Grey was released. The novel is a story about the presidential couple where the First couple is far from the traditional one. They have an arranged marriage without love where each of them was assigned to the other one for specific purposes. First Lady Setta is a secret agent who was sent to protect her husband Jake, the President, meanwhile Jake is on his own secret mission where he tries to revenge the death of his sister who was killed by terrorists. Jake suspects Congressman Jonas Jenkins that he trades weapons with terrorists and because of that, he goes to Dubai where he tries to find the terrorists to not only revenge his sister but also to stop them from harming even more people.

Setta goes there with him and fulfils her mission of taking care of the president.

While a First Lady could usually be perceived as somebody who needs to be taken care of, here, it is the opposite. Setta is the one who takes care of her husband and she is powerful enough to save him from killing. At the same time, even though Jake gradually falls in love with her, she is the one in power. Even though she sleeps with

Jake, Setta keeps herself emotionally distant from Jake because she also likes his best friend who works for him. At the end, Jake expresses his hopes that he would convince her to admit her feelings for him: “She might be using him for sex, but he didn’t mind.

He knew down inside, she did love Alpha Prez [his nickname]. It was gonna be a hell of a lot of fun convincing her” (Grey 223). Setta is the one in power here. While she is capable of taking care of not only herself but also her husband physically, she is also the one who decides about what their relationship will be like.

There are also some interesting aspects about this book. In the introduction, the author mentions that “this book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental”

(Grey). However, there is some kind of correlation between the story and the reality.

Later in the introduction, the author mentions that she “invented some of the place names and people in this story” such as “Iraj/Irajians, Arkhanistan, Rassia” and “Saria.”

Even though the names of the places where the presidential couple travel are changed, it is quite clear from the context and from the similarity between the real countries and the names of these made-up countries from what countries these fictional names originated. Among them there are for example Iran, Afghanistan, Russia and Syria.

Also, not all of the places which are mentioned there are changed, for example Dubai.

Not only well-known places are used but also some other familiar historical details are used here. When the presidential couple is in the Oval Office, there is a description of the place and a mention of its history:

Jake settled into the seat behind his desk in the Oval Office. The ornately carved designs on the wood were a study in beauty and history. A gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes, the “Resolute Desk” was crafted from the HMS Resolute, a ship found by American sailors and returned to the queen. (Grey 220)

This description is actually correct and this table is situated in the Oval Office. These well-known places and historical facts are quite often used in fictional stories to place them in a certain context.

4.4 I Am Here For You

In spite of the archetype of a strong First Lady becoming much more frequent during the third phase, the family-oriented archetype is also still. In W. (2008), directed by Oliver Stone, both of the archetypes are present. Even though W. is mostly focused on George H. Bush and his journey to the presidency, both Laura Bush and Barbara

Bush are present here. George H. Bush is portrayed as a trouble-maker who is quite often saved by his powerful father. Laura Bush is depicted as a woman who is devoted to her husband while not having any serious ambition herself. Elizabeth Banks who starred as Laura Bush said: “I don’t want to do an impression. ( . . . ) I just want to honor her voice, her stillness, and her hairstyle” (Delahaye). Her quote pretty well matches the character she portrayed in the movie. She matches the archetype of a family-oriented First Lady who is devoted to her family and does not have any serious ambition herself. She also does not have any serious influence over her husband. When she asks him not to drink anymore, he does not listen to her and does not care about what she says. However, when George needs support, she provides him with that. Laura is a flat character who provides comfort for her husband when needed and otherwise does not express her opinions much. Also, when George is asked by his father to help him with his campaign and to move to Washington D.C., George announces it publicly without even having discussed that with Laura first.

Barbara Bush can be seen here as a strong contrast to Laura. She is much more passionate and powerful than Laura. When George H. W. Bush loses presidential election to Bill Clinton, she is the main power in the house who tries comforting her husband, saying that Bill Clinton did not deserve that. She is more composed than her husband who is completely lost. The difference between Laura and Barbara can be seen best in a scene where George W. Bush tells his father about his intention to run

for Governor of Texas. Both his father and his mother try discouraging him from that because his brother Jeb is already running for Governor of Florida and they also do not think George could win that:

[Barbara Bush] “How to do expect us to go back and forth campaigning for both of you?” [George W. Bush] “I am not asking you to.” [Barbara Bush] “Laura, how do you fell about all of this? Truthfully!” [Laura Bush] “W. knows how I feel.”

While George’s mother Barbara wants to discourage him by saying that he cannot win that, his wife Laura does not even support him by saying something more to his advantage (see fig. 15). The difference between two archetypes is clear here. While

Barbara reflects an archetype of a powerful strong First Lady, Laura is a great example of a family-oriented archetype who supports her husband but does not initiates her own ambitions and does not even have any serious influence on her husband.

Fig. 15 – Laura saying that her husband George knows how she feels about him running for Governor (W.)

Not only in movies, but also in books these two archetypes are present.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld can be mentioned as one of the examples when an archetype of a family-oriented First Lady is present in literature. This novel is also a clear example of a fictional novel based on the real First couple. Even though the president and the First Lady who serve as Sittenfeld’s models are mentioned only at the end of the novel where the authors admits that “this novel is inspired by Laura

Bush” (Sittenfeld 555-56), in the book there are some clear hints suggesting whom the characters were inspired by.

The novel starts with the story of Alice Blackwell in her younger years. The first hint of any connection between Alice and Laura Bush is a scene with a car accident.

It is one the most important events in the novel where Alice runs a stop sign and hits a car of Andrew Imhof who dies during the accident while Alice leaves only with minor injuries. Before the accident, Alice had a crush on Andrew and she was hoping they would start dating. The car accident can be seen as a link to the car accident in which

Laura Bush was involved in the same age, 17. Bush “drove her parents’ car through a stop sign and collided with another car. The boy in that other car, who was killed in the accident, was a good friend and a popular high school athlete” (Toner).

According to some sources, the boy who was killed, Michael Douglas, in the accident was even considered to be her “best friend” (Davis).

The car accident is not the only correlation between Alice and Laura Bush.

In American Wife, Alice completed her bachelor’s degree in education and then she attained her master’s degree in library science. Before gaining her master’s degree, she worked for some time as a teacher but after completing her master’s degree, she started working as a librarian. Laura Bush’s university education can be seen as clear model for Alice’s background. After Laura Bush graduated from college,

she “taught second grade at Kennedy Elementary School in Houston, Texas for two years” (“First Lady Biography: Laura Bush”). After she earned “her master’s degree in 1972, she returned to Houston to work for two years as a school librarian. In 1974, she returned to Austin and worked as a school librarian at Dawson Elementary School, a job she held until her marriage in 1977” (“First Lady Biography: Laura Bush”).

After Bush got married, she started helping her husband, George W. Bush with his campaign for a U.S. Congressional seat. Even though he lost in 1978, in 1994, he run for Texas Governor and was elected. When George W. Bush ran for president, she was actively helping him and she “avoided any controversy with remarks that were inconsistent with those of her husband” (“First Lady Biography: Laura Bush”). In Laura

Bush’s life during which she helped her husband to get elected, there is another similarity between her and Alice in American Wife. Charlie also loses in his campaign for the U.S. Congress, nevertheless, later in the novel, Charlie successfully runs for

Governor of Wisconsin and he wins the election. When he runs for the presidential seat, even after the election, it is not clear whether he lost or not. Everything depended on the result in Florida. First, it was claimed on the news that all the electoral votes from

Florida went to Charlie’s opponent (Sittenfeld 441). After that, it had to be recounted because the result was not very clear. Later, it became evident that Charlie won by a narrow margin thanks to the electoral votes he got from Florida but by a popular vote, the election was won by Charlie’s opponent (Sittenfeld 441). The same event happened in 2000 when George W. Bush competed against Al Gore who won by popular votes but lost by electoral votes due to the loss in Florida.

Apart from clear similarities between Alice Blackwell and Laura Bush, there is another important aspect to be mentioned: Alice is based on Laura Bush in a way that it makes her a weak archetype of First Lady. Just like Laura Bush, also Alice Blackwell

does not express her opinions much. This becomes clear in the events taking place after

Charlie becoming the President of the United States and Alice becoming the First Lady.

In American Wife, Charlie nominees Ingrid Sanchez as a judge at the Supreme Court who, even though “has made no official statement on the subject is widely assumed to be pro-life” (Sittenfeld 437). As Alice mentions in the novel, “if Ingrid Sanchez is confirmed, it is possible that the Court will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade” (Sittenfeld

437). Even though Alice usually does not express her views about the politics publicly, she states two times in interviews that she is pro-choice, however, she never elaborates her view (Sittenfeld 437). The same view was held by Laura Bush who stated that

“abortion should remain legal because” she thinks “it’s important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons” (Goldman). Both Alice Blackwell and Laura

Bush had different opinions on this issue in comparison with their husbands. The same difference goes with gay marriages. Even though in American Wife, Alice does not clearly express that she supports gay marriages when there is mentioned that “Charlie supported the amendment to ban gay marriage,” from the paragraph where this issue is mentioned, it seems that she is more inclined to support gay marriages (Sittenfeld 485).

Just like Alice Blackwell, also Laura Bush differed in her opinions on gay marriage from her husband. In 2004, “weeks after a Massachusetts court ruled same-sex couples could marry in that state,” George W. Bush “endorsed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage” by which he showed his clear disapproval of gay marriages

(Goldman). Nevertheless, Laura Bush later admitted that she agrees with the legalization of gay marriages:

There are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have, I think, the same sort of rights that everyone has. (Goldman)

The archetype of a family-oriented First Lady who has no serious ambition of her own can be seen clearly in the novel. Just like Laura Bush, Alice Blackwell refrains from imposing her own opinions on her husband even when they differ from his. Alice

Blackwell here matches an archetype of a family-oriented First Lady who while supporting her husband does not have any serious influence on him and is not very ambitious.

4.5 We Almost Had the First First Gentleman

The last presidential election was unique in many aspects. Not only was it for the first time that a former First Lady was running for president but also, if Hillary

Clinton had became the president, there could have been for the first time a position of First Gentleman. Before the presidential election, there were many discussions concerning whether Bill Clinton was suitable for this role. As Gerald Weaver writes:

the traditional and unofficial roles of the presidential spouse may be boiled down to advocating some safe cause, meeting the spouses of other visiting heads of state, looking after the social and decorative aspects of the White House, and being something of a national fashion plate. The newly slender and handsomely white-haired former president may find himself in this fourth role, quite unintended. The others seem to pose problems particular to him.

Additionally, Weaver also makes fun of Bill Clinton when he compares the activities of previous First Ladies and tries to imagine whether Bill Clinton would do something similar, such as redecorating the White House or ordering new set of china plates.

However, the worries whether Bill Clinton would be a suitable First Gentleman were pointless at the end since Hillary Clinton lost the presidential race to Donald Trump.

As a result, in 2017, Donald Trump was sworn the president and based on that, Melania

Trump became First Lady.

In spite of Melania Trump becoming First Lady, she is often accused of not being the real one. Since Donald Trump became president, “talk of the female influence in his life and his career has largely been focused on his daughter, not his wife”

(O’Malley). Even though “Melania took the title of First Lady, a role involving public and ceremonial duties, and work on education, women’s equality and family issues,” it was Ivanka who often accompanied her father during official events while her step-mother was in New York with Barron during the first five months (O’Malley).

Even now when Melania spends her time with Donald in Washington D.C., Ivanka is quite often present during important and official events.

Because Melania has not been First Lady for a very long time, there have not been many works featuring First Ladies produced during her term yet. However, it may be interesting to mention a novel which came out earlier this year in April 2018.

The President’s Wife by Pamila Daniel tells a story of the First couple who stay together only for the sake of presidency. Jennifer Trueword, the First Lady, goes to the

Cayman Islands with her sister. Even though her husband Alexander Trueword told the press that it would be “a much needed vacation”, in reality, it is “a chance for Jennifer to get away from Alexander Trueword, the President of the United States of America – her husband of fifteen years, who had become a stranger in the two years

after his election” (Daniels 35). It is also mentioned that “he suggested she disappear for awhile, to let their tempers – and the rumors – settle down” (Daniels 35). Jennifer feels hopeless. She does not love her husband anymore and she feels lonely. She also complains to her sister: “He [her husband] didn’t even kiss me when I left. I didn’t rate that, I suppose, because I don’t live up to what he expects of me. I’m no Stepford wife; he knew that from day one. That house [the White House] has become a prison for me”

(Daniels 95). Later when Alexander calls her, he orders her to come back immediately.

She does not want to and asks him:

[Jennifer] “Why? What harm could it do?” [Alexander] “You will ruin my legacy. I’ll be remembered as the president who couldn’t tame his wife.” [Jennifer] “This isn’t 1880. I have a right to my own life.” (Daniels 111)

Later, she even indirectly hints to him that she is thinking about divorce (Daniels

111). Alexander replies to her that she is “just tired” and tells her to stay there (Daniels

111). Later, it also becomes clear that Alexander cheats on her wife with one of his assistants Eliza Barry. When he starts kissing her and she asks him “What would your wife say?” he replies without any worries: “What do I care? She’s never kissed me like you do” (Daniels 133). However, the story becomes much complicated later.

Jennifer falls in love with a man called Angel whom she meets on her vacation and whose identity she does not know. Later, she finds out he is a journalist who is investigating the disappearance of the previous assistant of her husband. Even though

Jennifer has been a puppet of her husband who married her only for her money, at the end, she shows her power. She admits to him that he is in love with Angel (Daniels

1304) and the end of the story implies that she will get divorced from Alexander and be with Angel. Even though Jennifer did not have much power at the beginning,

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she became more powerful gradually and she became the powerful archetype of First

Lady who decided to leave her abusive, unfaithful husband.

Since Melania Trump has not been First Lady for a very long time, it is now hard to judge whether with Melania Trump, another phase of depiction of First Ladies will start. It will be only possible to see after a few years of her term when there are more works featuring First Ladies. However, the previously mentioned novel The

President’s Wife by Pamila Daniel is quite an interesting piece of work when taking account it was released during the term of Donald Trump who has been accused of adultery multiple times and who is often criticized for his treatment of women (Barrett).

The term of Donald and Melania Trump may set new topics or start a new phase of depiction of First Ladies in popular culture.

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Conclusion

While before the late 1970s, it was hard to see any clear patterns in depiction of First Ladies in films, TV series and literature, starting from the late 1970s it is possible to see three major phases. These phases apply to both fictional and nonfictional or biographical works and they were mostly influenced by women who held the title

First Lady in real life. They reflected topics that were of significant cultural importance.

During the first phase, Betty Ford helped to establish the trend that it was acceptable for First Ladies to admit their weaknesses and thanks to her, this trend became reflected in popular culture. During the second phase, Hillary Clinton became as controversial as a powerful First Lady that this criticism was even reflected in works made during that period and as a response, two strongly contrasting archetypes of First

Ladies were created. While an archetype of a strong independent First Lady was criticized at that time, the second archetype a family-oriented, weak First Lady was portrayed in a positive light. Even though Hillary Clinton was frequently depicted negatively during her two terms, she helped to establish another trend that it was acceptable to have a career while having a family.

At the turn of the century, the third phase started and it was significantly influenced by the empowerment of women. While a family-oriented archetype of First

Lady was still present, an archetype of a powerful independent First Lady gained dominance and started being depicted in a positive light as something desired. Also, both of the archetypes started blending together, which was meant as a way to show that it is possible to have it all: a happy family and a career. Both Hillary Clinton and

Michelle Obama can be seen among the sources of inspiration for this phase. Also,

Hillary Clinton’s running for president can be regarded as one of the precedents for future First Ladies and even other women for running for public offices. Even though

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Hillary Clinton lost her presidential race, with the empowerment of women, there is quite a high chance that another woman will run for president again soon and maybe, this time she will succeed. This will not only change American society and the perception of women in the politics but it will also have a major influence on the depiction of First Ladies in films and literature.

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English Summary

The main aim of this thesis is to show trends in depiction of First Ladies of the United States in different periods. The work first discusses the role of First Ladies in history and how their role has gradually developed. The main focus is on films,

TV series and literature where First Ladies, both fictional and real, are featured.

The work focuses on the development from the late 1970s and later because until that period it is hard to find any larger amount of works where First Ladies are featured. There it is possible to see three major phases in the depictions of First

Ladies. The first phase starts from the late 1970s until the beginning of the 1990s and it is a phase where the creators of works focused mainly on showing weaknesses of

First Ladies.

During the second phase during the 1990s, it is possible to see two archetypes of

First Ladies: a powerful, independent and ambitious First Lady who is quite often punished for her too powerful role and a family-oriented First Lady who is devoted to her husband and family while having no serious ambition herself. However the second archetype is portrayed as the desirable one.

With the beginning of the 21st century, there is possible to see the third phase which is still continuing up to the present. This is a phase where significant changes are happening even though both of the previously mentioned archetypes are still present. The archetype of a powerful independent strong First Lady is portrayed in a positive light during this phase and it became a character to be followed. Also, both of the archetypes started blending here together, which can be perceived as a demonstration of the fact that it is possible to have it all: a successful career and a happy family.

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These phases of depiction of First Ladies in films, TV series and literature are possible to be perceived as a result of the behavior of real First Ladies. All of the three phases were influenced by some of them who set up the trend for the upcoming phase.

The depiction of First Ladies reflected the real events concerning First Ladies.

Resumé

Hlavním cílem této práce je ukázat vývojové trendy zobrazování prvních dam

Spojených států amerických v různých obdobích. Práce se nejdříve zabývá vývojem role prvních dam v historii a postupnou změnou jejich pozice. Hlavní zaměření je zde dále na filmy, seriály a knihy, v nichž první dámy, jak reálné, tak fiktivní, hrají roli.

Práce se zaměřuje na vývoj až od konce 70. let a dále, protože do 70. let 20. století je obtížné najít větší množství děl, v nichž by první dámy hrály roli. Zde je možné vidět tři hlavní fáze zobrazování prvních dam. První fáze je brána od konce 70. let do začátku

90. a je to fáze, kde se tvůrci ve svých dílech zaměřili převážně na ukazování slabostí prvních dam. Během druhé fáze během 90. let je možné v dílech spatřovat dva archetypy prvních dam: silnou, nezávislou a ambiciózní první dámu, která za svou přespříliš silnou roli byla často potrestána, a rodinně založenou první dámu, která je odevzdaná svému manželovi a rodině, zatímco nemá žádné své vlastní ambice.

Nicméně druhý archetyp byl v této době považován za ten pozitivní. Se začátkem nového tisíciletí je možné vidět třetí období probíhající do současnosti a to je období, v rámci kterého dochází k zásadním změnám, ačkoliv jsou přítomné oba archetypy.

Silná a nezávislá první dáma je v tomto období pozitivně zobrazována a stala se postavou, kterou je hodno následovat. Zároveň také mnohem více začaly splývat oba dva archetypy, což může být viděno jako demonstrace toho, že je možné mít oboje:

úspěšnou kariéru i spokojenou rodinu.

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Tři fáze zobrazování prvních dam ve filmech, seriálech a literatuře je možné vidět jako následek chování skutečných prvních dam. Všechny tři fáze byly ovlivněny některou z nich, které pak nastavily trendy pro další období. Fáze zobrazování dam reflektovaly skutečné dění týkající se prvních dam.

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