JANE BOWRON

Cast your mind a few years back when the world was concerned for the wellbeing of Mrs Tom Cruise, nee Katie Holmes. The young pretty brunette who television viewers took to their hearts when she played Joey Potter in Dawson’s Creek was considerably younger than her famous husband.

Married to Cruise, who is embedded in the top echelons of the Church of Scientology, Holmes quickly became a mere shadow of her former self. After five years of marriage to Cruise behind very closed doors, Holmes managed to cut loose from the clutches of the cult, and seems to have blossomed ever since.

Moments into their courtship they were referred to as ‘TomKat’, their names spliced together in power couple glamour glue. But the power implication was in Hollywood name only.

Now the world has started to express concern for First Lady Melania Trump, the better half of ‘MelDon’. The relationship between Potus and Flotus (First Lady of the United States) at her husband’s inauguration was in stark contrast to the palpable warmth of the Obama union. When the Trumps emerged from a car to do the ritual gift exchange with the Obamas at the White House, Donald Trump walked ahead leaving Melania in his wake.

For a media mogul well-versed in the perceptions of reality TV, Trump left his lack of chivalry exposed for all the world to see, and for body language experts to make mincemeat out of. Melania trailed behind looking lost, the epitome of the overlooked and abandoned wife while the alpha male captain of industry thoughtlessly strode ahead.

From her own lips, Melania has said she wants to be a traditional wife – like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy, the classy and respected help-mate hovering in the background.

Usurped by her beautiful stepdaughter Ivanka, who will be ensconced in the White House at her father’s right hand, Melania is the weakest Flotus in American history.

However she could turn her victim status around. One can’t help but think of that great victim Princess Diana who played the media at their own game and manipulated photograph opportunities to her own end.

She knew how powerful the defining image of spouse alone was when she sat on the bench in front of the Taj Mahal. That bench became known as ‘‘Lady Di’s Chair’’ after public sympathy turned against Jug Ears and his putative Bride of Chuckie and sided with the sad princess. (In reality the princess had long sought comfort elsewhere).

Melania shouldn’t waste another moment allowing herself to be painted as the lonely Queen in her tower in a walled-in marriage. She should take a leaf out of Princess Diana’s book and start weaving her own vibrant transformation story.

It began for the British royal long before Princess Di did her tell-all TV interview with Martin Bashir when she said, ‘‘there are three people in this marriage, so it’s a bit crowded’’. Melania take note. Your third party is already in the frame – Donald, Melania and … Vladimir.

But that interview should take place a little further down the track.

Pre-inauguration fashion designers had been too afraid of toxic Trump backlash to put designer threads on Melania’s back, and there were whispers of the new First Lady having to appear in something, shock/horror – off the rack! The message was out: associate your label with Melania and suffer the consequences.

And it won’t stop at the inauguration. Perhaps it’s timely for Melania to bypass the labels and start developing her own clothing range. Body language experts should be hired too to immediately help Melania with her wooden facial expressions.

With her blank gaze that looks like she has a dead fireplace for a soul, you get the impression that one could look into Melania’s orbs and never register being seen. It’s the opposite of the Bill Clinton effect. Her face is as lively as the animated puppet Marina from the 1960s TV show Stingray. (Marina was mute, could swim and breathe underwater, had a pet seal pup named Oink, and was the love interest of Captain Troy Tempest).

Underneath Melania’s vacant expression bubbles a subterranean terror that has called out to pussy power marchers keen to hand her a pink hat and a placard – any one of many left over from the march would do. Perhaps not the more obvious ‘Trumpelstiltskin’, ‘We shall comb over’, ‘I’m only here for the cake’ or the hilariously coy ‘Even introverts are here’, but the more strident, ‘Girls just want to have fun … damental human rights’.

Melania might look like a trophy wife but she could be a sleeper who could appear on Piers Morgan’s breakfast TV show and show her hand by putting the mouthy misogynist in his place. Morgan’s comments in a column piece that the women’s march represented, ‘‘the more repellent side of feminism: the vile, crude, man-hating violent nasty side’’ is a call to hairy underarms and furry godmothers everywhere.

With Melania decamping the tower and leading the charge at the head of the women’s movement, a post modern Boudica could lead her tribe into battle against an evil empire and a mad emperor in the greatest showdown on earth. It’s not North Korea, China or Russia Trump has to fear. The world has woman-ed up and in Trump’s own words – torture absolutely works.