I enjoy watching royalty sometimes, the way so many do. Well, why not? I don't spend a lot of time at it but when a royal wedding is coming up I have to admit I'm interested. I guess we could analyze this interest but I doubt there's much more to it than a little indulgence in daydreams about wealth and perfection and beauty and a life denied most of us. It's also why I enjoy movies about royalty. And I do think that's what we want from the real life stories of royalty, at least it's what I want. A little taste of heaven perhaps.
I DON'T want to see them fail, I DON'T want to see them turn out to be just ordinary people -- of course I know they are but I want them to consistently rise above it and behave like royals. I DON'T want to see them have a lavish wedding and then end up getting divorced. I want the wedding to be perfect and their lives to be perfect and their happiness to be forever. I want them to have many perfect children, and I want them to always look perfect, always be dressed beautifully, always say the right thing and so on.
Will William and Kate make it? So far so good I think. Better than Charles and Diana. Diana was way too young, too pretty, too innocent for Charles. Then she ruined even her own pretty image in my opinion by rebelling against royal protocols, permitting herself to look contemptuous and unhappy in public, basically a spoiled brat. Of course Charles was cheating on her and made no effort as far as anyone could see to be what Diana needed, but he will be judged for that, and still, royals have to be royals and Diana didn't play the role beyond the bare minimum. Given a lemon, make lemonade. Although the public mostly seem to have applauded her for her rebelliousness and just about deified her on her death, I couldn't. I stopped liking her with her first public sneer.
So William and Kate are the same age, they're good looking, they look good together, they say little but it has the right tone. Kate seems to have more appreciation of the role required of her than Diana ever did and no objection to any of it. I suspect she'll play it well and not alienate any of William's family in the process. Me, I could do without the pictures of them in swimsuits and I wish long hanging hair weren't the fashion, it just doesn't have dignity. Where did that start anyway? I would guess it might have started back with Joan Baez, when she first walked out on stage barefoot with her long straight black hair, and it's been a fashion ever since. I wish it would go out of fashion. At the very least it's not royal. Of course I've often also wished the Queen didn't look so dowdy when she's not in her royal regalia. But anyway.
I enjoy watching movies about royalty. I recently saw Young Victoria, and The Duchess. Beautiful costumes, public dignity even if privately things are falling apart, all that. So this upcoming wedding, the plans for it and the marriage after, will be like a period piece movie to watch.
I wish them the best.
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But of course the daydream is the public's, while their reality may perhaps be more drudgery and duty -- so many obligations and appointments, something every day. And of course exactly what I want them to convey, that public dignity as I describe it above, could be oppressive. So they say anyway. Perhaps I picture more complete privacy, and freedom in that privacy, than will actually be the case. Maybe. A few hours a day of obligations and then lots of privacy? Something like going to a job, then home for a comfortable long evening? Oh well, what do I know about the life of royalty anyway?
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