Originally created to introduce screenings of Jackie at the Rotterdam film festival, the latest from video essayist Kevin B. Lee attempts to answer the question “How did we get from Jackie Kennedy to Melania Trump?” Like Pablo Larraín’s Oscar-nominated feature, “Not Another Camelot” uses Kennedy’s role as the first TV-savvy first lady as the springboard to an exploration of power, media, and celebrity, but it expands its focus to the 10 women who have followed her since.
Using deft editing, sometimes joining interviews with consecutive first ladies by the same TV journalist, Lee tracks the swings between women who have embraced the power and profile of the office and those who shied away from the spotlight. (When Morley Safer asks Rosalynn Carter if she ever regrets becoming first lady, she confesses she’d rather be taking a nice nap.) It also serves as a reminder of how decisively the political winds can shift: It’s impossible to imagine a Republican first lady saying, as Betty Ford did, that the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was “the best thing in the world.”
The shadow of the 2016 election looms large over “Not Another Camelot.” Lee follows Barbara Bush’s suggestion that she was immensely popular “because I’m fat and old and nobody feels threatened by me” with Hillary Clinton’s infamous statement about pursuing her career instead of staying home and baking cookies, and while candidate Clinton doesn’t make an appearance, the juxtaposition of Michelle Obama’s forthright advocacy with Melania Trump’s blandly plagiarized nostrums speaks volumes about where the office is headed in the next four years. Jackie Kennedy redecorated the White House; Melania Trump won’t even live there.
