"The First Lady" opens by asking us to consider the broader meaning of portraiture. I doubt the writers intended that in depicting Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson), Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Michelle Obama (Viola Davis) sitting for their official paintings, each in their era. Taken as they are, they're entryways into what should be revelatory examinations of their lives, told in a 10-episode pass.
Still, that short sequence invites us to consider what a sanctioned portrait, chosen and informed by the subject's wishes, tells us about the person sitting for it – which is, nothing that they don't want us to see. Regardless of what Michelle Obama's portraitist Amy Sherald (Tiffany Hobbs) intends when she states, "I am interested in the real," as she photographs her, it's impossible to fully render a genuine take on a person in two dimensions.
