All summer long, I had Aug. 31 marked on my calendar. I’d intended to write something to mark the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. After all, I have a...
| |  | | | | Alyssa Rosenberg on culture and politics | | | | | | Princess Diana in 1997. (Jamal A. Wilson/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) | All summer long, I had Aug. 31 marked on my calendar. I’d intended to write something to mark the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. After all, I have a sharply defined memory of hearing the news emerge from my parents’ car radio as we drove toward the L.L. Bean outlet in Freeport, Maine, and my mother’s disbelieving reaction. It’s an event I recall as clearly as the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial. I devoured Tina Brown’s dishy biography, “The Diana Chronicles,” when it was released 10 years ago, and more recently tore through Sally Bedell Smith’s “Prince Charles.” And for years I’ve followed the adventures of Princes William and Harry, and Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, as chronicled on one of my favorite fashion blogs. But as the anniversary approached, I realized a hint of unease that popped up every time I tried to figure out what I wanted to say. The conclusion I ultimately reached is that I didn’t have much to add on the subject of Diana’s appeal, how the royal family has evolved since her death or how a new generation is incorporating the lessons of her experience in their performance of their duties. Instead, what interested me most as this anniversary approached was my own ambivalence. I’m an American, for goodness’ sake. One of my ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War so that I wouldn’t have to answer to the British monarch. So why do I care about this family so much? Of course, my very American-ness means that I’m free to enjoy the soap opera and great clothes of the royal family without feeling guilty about it. My tax dollars don’t fund this spectacle, and my elected officials don’t have to ask the Queen for permission to form a government in her name. An affinity for the British royals doesn’t require me to be complicit in anything. At the same time, any American fascination with the British royals, specifically with queens, princesses and duchesses, interacts uncomfortably with the fact that we remain hesitant about women who work for and demand power, rather than being born to it or marrying it. The women of the British monarchy are some of the most confined people on the planet, wearing conservative clothes, making small talk and having babies for a living. Maybe that anachronism is part of the fascination; maybe it suggests that we remain fascinated by this kind of life even as most of us live very differently, both by necessity and by choice. All of which is a long way of saying that this anniversary seems less like an opportunity to obsess over Diana yet again, and more like a chance to think more carefully about our own fraught fascinations with her. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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