Twenty years ago today, the world watched and said goodbye to a high profile woman -- Diana, Princess of Wales. She had been a style icon and brought some modernity to the royal family. The person created by the mass media began as an innocent girl who became a princess and was then demoted after her husband had an affair. This was the mediated woman, who held the support of the people. The relationship between the media and Diana, Princess of Wales was one of both positive and negative encounters. She became adept at managing the media for her purposes as time progressed. During her life in the spotlight, media photographers and news gatherers grew in numbers and competitiveness. Several publications made enormous sums of money from single photos of the woman. Those providing the photos could make extraordinary sums of money from taking that one photograph.
During the past few weeks, a proliferation of documentaries of the seven days between her death and burial attempted to reflect on the occurrences of those days. What led to her death? Were the mass media culpable? Could they deflect the cause of the accident in a different direction? While watching these documentaries, it became clear to me that the mass media accepted part of the responsibility for the accident. They noted how much money was in play. Segments from 1997 showed people in the crowds around the palaces in London shouting at the media filming them and accusing the media people of murder. Interestingly, none of those interviewed noted that if the public had not been so obsessed with daily photos, the paparazzi would not have been hounding the woman as they did. In short, everyone who purchased the publications exploiting her image played a role in her death. That is an uncomfortable thought for most people, so deflecting to the photogs, chauffeur or anyone else took that discomfort and forced it elsewhere.
The other interesting aspect of that week in history, was the vitriol spewed towards the family working to protect her children after her death. I never really understood this part and am still working through it. I've found it difficult not to make comparisons with the evil queen and Snow White, though.<sigh> Things are not as simple as we want them to be. We don't know what is going on in someone else's mind, so assuming we do know can backfire -- as it did for the naysayers who turned on a dime when the family expressed their thanks to the public in a very personal way by visiting the tonnes and tonnes of floral tributes left in honour of the Princess. Grief can bring out anger, which may be what the world saw and heard from people worried that the family had not appeared in public. Most families would have been hunkered down in their own homes had this occurred in their own family. For that, the royal family seems to have done what every family would do. However, they are not a private family, but a public one, so their appearance was needed for those feeling the loss and anger and fear of what this death could mean more broadly than her boys.
In the end, I fear that the memorial documentaries, even with the bit of media introspection, merely continued the media fascination and played into the continued public interest with Diana. That said, I do recall vividly the first televised breaking news of her death. I watched the funeral (overnight due to the time zones) and went to a friend's restaurant for breakfast the following morning. The place generally buzzed with positive conversations and laughter. That day, it was very quiet -- even the children at other tables seemed subdued. It was difficult seeing someone gone -- someone who had been part of our daily media diet for years. The world may not have known her, but it was decidedly familiar with the legend the media perpetuated. Knowing that was gone caused some major emotions. Reflecting back on this, I can say I'm glad social media was not around at that point in time. Now we have billions of paparazzi with cameras at the ready -- I can't imagine what that would have been like. It would have been nice to see how her humanity would have affected the world. She seemed poised to take on some amazing work.
There was only one song that I could think of for today. It may be a bit maudlin, but is sung by someone she did call friend. Enjoy!
Candle in the Wind (altered lyrics) -- Elton John
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