Kate Middleton’s announcement that she had finally completed her chemotherapy treatment has been greeted with relief and joy by all those who see her as the greatest asset in securing the future of the monarchy in the United Kingdom. The way in which she made the announcement, however, has sparked controversy. The video by the director Will Warr, who specialises in weddings, has led many to wonder whether the Prince and Princess of Wales are thus inaugurating a new and disturbing method of communicating with citizens and the press.
“I can’t imagine the king doing such a thing. It was slightly incongruous, and I wasn’t entirely convinced by some parts of the text, but overall I think it was a good thing,” summed up this week, with a certain benevolence, the senior royal journalist Robert Jobson, author of the recent biography of Middleton ―Catherine. The Princess of Wales―, in front of a group of correspondents from the Foreign Press Association. “The video moved many who saw it, it is true, but is this the way the monarchy should do things?” Jobson asked.
When the British royal family experiments with the idea of opening up to the public and exposing its private life, there are two reactions. Some are uncomfortable with a monarchy that is too earthly – a queen like Elizabeth II buying ice cream for her son Edward; the Prince and Princess of Wales cuddling on a blanket on the grass – and others see the gesture as justification for later demanding free entry into the bedroom.
“Modern citizens are so accustomed to feasting on the intimate details of the lives of celebrities that any demand for privacy seems an affront to them,” wrote James Marriott, one of the most astute columnists when it comes to interpreting British reality, in The Times.He is among those who believe that Middleton has fallen into the trap of making a “sad concession” to an audience with an insatiable hunger.
Although it was she who decided when and how she revealed the end of her treatment, the video is a way of admitting that her private life is now the property of everyone. If there was a time when Prince William would furiously attack any photographer who tried to steal a snapshot of his children, the three-minute film that Kensington Palace posted on social media exposes an intimacy that is controlled, yes, but inconceivable until very recently.
William and Catherine meet, hold hands, kiss, laugh. They play with their children and appear as an idyllic family that faces misfortune and recovery together.
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In 1969, Queen Elizabeth II allowed BBC cameras into her family’s life to film a documentary that was simply titled Royal Family. It was an idea of the then press secretary of Buckingham Palace, William Heseltine, with which he intended to humanize the Windsors before citizens who considered them haughty and distant. A total of 37 million people saw the film. Legend has it – as the series was keen to reaffirm The Crown, from Netflix – that Elizabeth II immediately regretted the attempt and ordered the public channel to put the tapes in a drawer, never to broadcast them again.
Others, such as the late queen’s biographer Robert Hardman, disagree with this version. He says that the palace was delighted with the effect achieved, but wanted to retain control of a product that was more of a family album than informational material.
In the age of social media, it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle once it’s out.
“The Princess of Wales’ video seems like an attempt to challenge social media on her own terms. But social media is the space where the ‘Kate hunt’ became a fun and bloody global sport earlier this year, despite the fact that it was expressly warned that the princess would not reappear in public until Easter due to her delicate state of health,” recalled columnist Marina Hyde in the newspaper. The Guardian.
A princess with her feet on the ground
Despite being raised in a wealthy, upper-middle-class family, Kate Middleton comes from a more prosaic reality than that experienced from the cradle by her husband, Prince William.
“She went to private schools, and her parents always gave her the best, but she understands what an ordinary life is like. And I think that’s important when we enter a world where younger generations are questioning the idea of a hereditary monarchy,” Jobson said. “In 20 years’ time it will be challenged in places like Australia, Canada or New Zealand.” [donde el monarca británico sigue ocupando simbólicamente la jefatura del Estado]and Kate’s contribution will be very important in advising William,” he says.
The Princess of Wales is the most popular member of the royal family among Britons. According to a regularly updated YouGov survey, her popularity is 71%. Her husband, William, is 69%. King Charles III is 56%.
Middleton’s illness came at the sweetest moment, when the future queen’s popularity was stratospheric. She was on every front page and receiving all the praise from a devoted British and international press. The barely two months she was absent from public life, to recover from an abdominal operation about which no further details were given, unleashed a pandemonium of rumours and conspiracy theories about her whereabouts or her health.
The sobriety with which she reappeared on March 22 in the video where she revealed her cancer contrasts with the artificial production – with slow motion, filters, music and rehearsed scenes – of this week’s video.
And some monarchists, who were not convinced by this sentimental short film, regret that the Princess of Wales has given in to the voracity of a certain public and has interpreted – wrongly, according to them – that the only way to satisfy it is with a sweetened, open and shared version of an intimate, personal and painful reality such as the fight against cancer.
