We’re at the point of the Princess of Wales-video newscycle where royalists are doing analysis of what the new video means and what’s really going on. On Monday, Kensington Palace released the statement and video from Kate and William, and it seemed like an uncomfortable new era for them, where they feel the need to provide proof of life for their marriage, only they can’t really pull it off. It also seemed like the imagery of their performatively “happy marriage” stepped on the “message,” which is that Kate is (by her own description) “cancer free” and that she completed her chemotherapy treatment. Well, anyway, this analysis in the Evening Standard is making the rounds this week. The headline: “I’m delighted the Princess of Wales is getting better, but that dreadful video was like a shampoo advert.” Sub-head: “It’s very good news that Kate is recovering but did we really need this emotional exhibitionism?”
Of course, it’s marvellous news that the Princess of Wales has come to an end of chemotherapy treatment and is well on the way to recovery. Which of us did not feel for her in her last, sombre announcement that she had cancer? It is also the best of news that she will be returning to public duties; she was missed. The prayers of the nation have been answered.
But forgive me…was it necessary to share this news with the nation in an utterly grisly video? If she were advertising Herbal Essences (Tropical Showers) shampoo, it would have been just the thing. The shots of her walking in slow motion through a sunlit meadow, her long hair moving in the breeze, her slender figure shown to advantage in her simple cotton frock, why, it made one feel emotionally manipulated, squeezed like a lemon for the last drop of sympathy. So, she’s feeling well? One is glad; one doesn’t need the point rubbed home with a gruesome image of her releasing a little yellow butterfly from her hand.
As for the shots of her and William lying on the grass, shoulder to shoulder, or her head lying his shoulder, it was in the first place a ghastly piece of emotional exhibitionism and in the second, a hostage to fortune. The time may come when their marriage may come under strain — these things happen to the happiest couples — and they won’t wish to have these images reproduced.
All one can say, really, is that the late queen would have died early rather than subject herself to this extraordinary display of trite sentiment (“Out of darkness, can come light, so let that light shine bright”). Or at any rate, she would have expressed her feelings of gratitude soberly in the light of her Christian faith. Kate’s is the stuff of every contemporary self-help book to do with living in the moment and being grateful for the small stuff.
Is emotional reticence now over in the Royal family? One fears so, though it still, thank God, has a place with the redoubtable Princess Anne. But it comes at a cost. By turning the Royals into exhibits of emotional wellness, it diminishes their value as parts of a national institution in which dignity is the main thing. Kate has lost that.
This is an important point: “she would have expressed her feelings of gratitude soberly in the light of her Christian faith.” QEII had significant health issues in her final years, and she found solace in her faith and she carried herself with dignity. Of course QEII would never subject herself to a glossy, try-hard commercial to prove the state of her marriage. The larger point is that the video felt ill-conceived and tonally wrong for the message. While it always amuses me to watch British people’s consistent revulsion towards any emotion expressed publicly, I think people have been turned off by this video more because it seems so trite and almost cynically conceived.
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace/Will Warr.