First Lady Melania Trump's new official White House portrait has been unveiled, and to many people online the vibes are very off—specifically in a House of Cards kind of way.
The wildly popular, award-winning Netflix series about Washington machinations took a fairly dim and sinister view of our nation's capital, so it only makes sense that a dim and sinister administration would want to emulate it.
Perhaps it was just an accident, but that certainly seems to be what was on Melania Trump's mind, as for many, her portrait called to mind Claire Underwood, the female lead of House of Cards played by Robin Wright.
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Underwood was the cunningly icy wife of the diabolical and power-hungry Frank Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey, whose ice-cold, calculating stare became part of the iconic look of the show.
But the portrait also comes with an overwrought flair that is vintage Trump—though the photo was reportedly shot in the Yellow Oval Room in the White House, the First Lady is depicted leaning over a conference table in a power suit like a corporate raider. Subtlety has never been this family's forte.
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As many have noted, the portrait is a stark break from the usual First Lady portrait, including Melania Trump's own in 2017, which typically aims to project warmth and approachability (though the 2017 version certainly dispensed with this far more than her predecessors).
There's not an iota of warmth to be found in this one—it lands somewhere between corporate headshot and fashion mag camp. It's basically oligarchy chic.
But the parallels between it and Claire Underwood aren't just theoretical—there are even images of Wright as Claire Underwood that seem like outright templates for the First Lady's photo.
And on social media, the parallel was practically all anyone could see—especially given the way House of Cards ended.
Anyway, we hope the Trump-voting public were wishing for a full-scale corporate-style raiding of the country, because it seems pretty clear that's what we're getting.
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