Why I got a '60s vibe from Trumps' Inauguration ceremony
I know we’ve read that Melania Trump channelled Jackie Kennedy in her baby blue Ralph Lauren dress. And yes, we know Jackie is very much flavour of the season with the Oscar-bait movie starring Natalie Portman. But instead of the Kennedy clan, the family that I was most reminded of at last night’s inauguration was the Cullens. Yes, the ones from Twlight. Here’s Bella’s first description of them:
"And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town… They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. They also had dark shadows under those eyes - purplish, bruise-like shadows. As if they were all suffering from a sleepless night… Their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful."
It didn’t help that both his daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany (yes, she who has been named after the jewellery store) wore spotless white. The 60s vibe may have dominated the inauguration last night, down to Paul Anka’s “My Way” playing at the Inauguration Ball, but as I saw the snow white faces of Donald Trump’s five children, it’s the fictional Cullens I thought of, down to the strong bonds the 45th President of America has with his family, with the talk that the Office of the First Lady may be converted to Office of the First Family with Ivanka running the show.
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| Photo: Harper's Bazaar |
Her husband, Jared Kushner, is already a senior adviser to Trump, and we may soon have a situation comparable to Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi (more 60s vibe), where the First Daughter becomes the official hostess, especially with Melania Trump deciding to stay on in New York at least for another six months for son Barron’s school year.
Not to say that the reality TV perfect Trumps will turn out to be blood sucking vampires. Or that Trump will turn out to be like Bane from The Dark Knight who promises to return the power “back to you, the people” under the guise of appropriating it. But really perhaps Trump has been watching too much of fiction - especially as he painted a dystopian vision of America as one where the crime, the gangs, and the drugs have stolen too many lives and robbed the country of so much unrealised potential.
Perhaps Trump really does need to start reading and watching the media he abhors so much and living less in the virtual world of Twitter-ranters. Or maybe he has just become adept at living in two realities - the staged reality of reality TV, which is the fist-pumping face he shows the world, and the actual reality which is the convivial, deal-making, back-slapping self behind closed doors we all saw as he signed his first orders.
Whatever it is, it will be carefully choreographed, with everyone down to the boys dressed as mini-Donalds and the girls dressed as mini-Jackies.