A unique photo of the First Lady of the US draws attention.
“The First Lady” tells the story of three first ladies representing America in different eras. They rejected lies and secrets and were loved for being honest. The drama tries to tell the value of ‘truth’ through the lives of Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford, and Michelle Obama.
“Hello, this is Betty. I suffer from alcohol addiction.”
In “The First Lady” poster, Betty Ford, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, is described as “honest”. If Betty’s life could be described in one word, it would be ‘confession’.
In fact, she was a flawed person. She was not born into an influential family like Eleanor Roosevelt, nor was she a lawyer with a great career like Michelle Obama. When she was young, she worked as a dancer, a department store clerk, and a model to make a living? due to her poor family circumstances. She was even divorced. Gerald Ford, the 36th President of the United States, was her second husband.
However, she went head-on without hiding her flaws. She chose to reveal everything and be hated as who she was.
In 1974, Betty confessed to breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy. In 1978, she suffered from alcohol abuse. Breast cancer and alcohol dependence were secrets to women at the time. However, when the First Lady confessed her secret, many women gained courage and actively sought treatment.
This confession helped raise awareness of women’s mental health problems. Thanks to this, the Betty Ford Center was opened. When it opened in 1982, it was the only alcohol and drug addiction rehabilitation facility in the world with the same number of beds for women and men.
Betty’s candid personality was captured in the photo. On her final day at the White House, Betty climbed up to the round table in the Cabinet Room where a meeting was held and started posing in her pajamas. Taken by White House photographer David Hume Kenley, this photo became one of Betty Ford’s most famous photos.
She could not play a noble and elegant wise mother and wife. Instead, she knew what clothes would suit her. The smiling face in the photo looks natural and friendly.
Meanwhile, a recent photo of South Korea’s First Lady Kim Keon Hee holding a Cambodian child in her arms has been criticized as “imitating actress Audrey Hepburn.” Some argue that in order to restore the presidential approval rating, Kim should be faithful to her “wife’s role” as promised before the presidential election.
However, fulfilling her role as a wife does not solve the problem, if she was just acting. The more she tried to embellish a good-looking first lady image, the more she would alienate herself from the public, while covering up the suspicions surrounding herself.
Source: Daum.
