“Mostly, I thought doing so would be funny,” said Jordan Perry, manager of Lake Theater & Care in Lake Oswego, Ore. He was talking about playing the documentary “Melania” about first Lady Melania Trump at the theater.
According to Oregon Live, the movie was promoted on the theater marquee with the message: “To defeat your enemy, you must know them. ‘Melania’ starts Friday.” It got the attention of the Brett Ratner-directed film’s production company, Amazon MGM Studios, and was soon pulled from the theater.
“Got a call that the higher ups (i.e., at Amazon) were upset with how our marquee marketed their movie (i.e., Melania), that, per them, Sunday would be its last day here,” said the theater in a Monday Instagram post.
Lake Theater & Cafe has been serving the Lake Oswego community for more than 85 years and it has had the same owner for the last 30. In the “about” section of its website, it says “we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and neither should you.”
Snarky marquee messages that poke fun at famous people are also a bit of a tradition at the theater. For example, a photo on its website shows another that reads: “Not getting the Taylor Swift movie, because her music’s not even good.”
In an online message, Perry explained that he decided to play “Melania” in the first place because he found it weird, but also interesting. However, he noted that he was also inundated with emails and reviews from people asking why he would want to run the film about current President Donald Trump’s wife. Oregon is a blue state, where former Vice President Kamala Harris handily beat Trump in the 2024 presidential election at 55.6% to Trump’s 43.1%.
“Their main gripe is that if it is a signpost of our times, it is an inescapably toxic one: that showing Melania is necessarily supporting her, this administration, and this administration’s policies,” Perry said. “I don’t think this way! I think a lot of people don’t think this way! For me there was no dividing line between wanting to see it and showing it here. Am I trying to get people to vote one way or another? Not really! Am I hoping everyone commits to being open-minded, compassionate, and well-informed?”
He also explained that it was an economic decision.
“The excellently reviewed, Ralph-Fiennes-starring ‘The Bone Temple’ made less opening weekend here than the horribly reviewed, just-canceled ‘Melania’ did,” Perry noted.
The Independent said this week that “Melania” has the highest gap between critics’ reviews and audience reviews on the website Rotten Tomatoes, with a 5% “rotten” score from critics and a 99% “fresh” audience score. A spokesperson for Verdant, the company behind Rotten Tomatoes told Newsweek that there has been “NO bot manipulation on the audience reviews,” per a piece published Thursday.
Perry also said he considered “The Testament of Ann Lee but he added that it isn’t “doing well anywhere either and I for one found it soo boring.” He didn’t find “Melania” boring, though, and he wanted to see it more than another recent release, the horror film “Send Help”.
“I watched the trailer for the film and was surprised by its tone, in disbelief that the film itself may accurately portray its subject,” Perry wrote. “Many now call it propaganda but the word did not cross my mind, and, having watched the film, yes, though it has intentional blind spots, this is ‘Melania’ as Melania herself wants to be known, and not everyone will find it flattering.”
He said that one theater-goer shouted “fascist b***h” when the film’s trailer played ahead of “Hamnet” and that another wore a shirt that said “freedom” at the first screening of “Melania”.
In its short fun at the Lake Theater & Café, “Melania” generated $196 to what Perry called the “Jeff Bezos Trust Fund” – a reference to Amazon’s majority shareholder and founder.
“Jeff Bezos won’t notice the $196,” Perry added. “He wouldn’t notice $1,960, though someone on his team noticed our marquee.”
While Perry admitted that “the marquee may seem mean,” he also said his hope was to “lower the temperature” on political discourse. In fact, he said he doesn’t see the theater’s programming as political but rather as offering the community what it wants to see. Still, he expects to be on Amazon’s “black list” for a while and said he hopes the company doesn’t cancel his Prime account.
“Amazon called. Our marquee made them mad. All ‘Melania” shows canceled. Show your support at Whole Foods instead,” read the marquee as pictured in the theater’s Monday Instagram post.
Whole Foods was purchased by Amazon in 2017. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the marquee issue, according to Oregon Live.