Filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom likes the idea of becoming California's ‘first partner'

OAKLAND - When Jennifer Siebel Newsom was a young actress getting started in Hollywood, she found herself typecast in role after role as a trophy wife.

Now she's the real-life spouse of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic candidate for governor of California. But this independent filmmaker, who's dedicated her career to breaking down gender stereotypes, is hoping to play a very different role as California's first lady - and that could start with the title.

“What if I was called - if Gavin was fortunate to be elected governor - ‘first partner?'” Siebel Newsom said in an interview. That title would help “women to be seen as more than a stereotypical lady” and also work for spouses of future governors who aren't straight, she said.

Gender roles are “straitjackets,” she said. “You lose something in the process of performing masculinity, or performing femininity - which is being a ‘lady.'”

It's a theme the former actress has focused on in documentaries like “Miss Representation,” which weaves sexualized clips of women in popular culture and interviews with women and girls about how those depictions affect American society.

Now Siebel Newsom is turning her lens on Oakland, finishing a new documentary about economic and social inequality - “The Great American Lie” - that follows several local people as they struggle to make ends meet.

On the final day of shooting this month, Siebel Newsom and her four-person crew showed up at the landmark First Unitarian Church near downtown Oakland for interviews with activists like Tracey Bell-Borden, who was forced into debt to pay $100,000 in bail after her daughter was arrested for a low-level crime.

“You can always tell who's authentic - and she's very down-to-earth,” Bell-Borden said of Siebel Newsom. During their interviews over the last few months, “we were breaking down in tears together,” she said.

If Newsom wins in November, Siebel Newsom said she'd want to use her position as first partner to promote mental health issues, address sexual harassment in Sacramento, and organize summits bringing together young people from around California.

And she'd try to avoid cliched stereotypes of the role a first lady should perform.

“Who wants to be a trophy wife?” she asked. “I've already played that in Hollywood.”