(no subject)

[shadowkat]

It's funny how human beings generalize about things, neatly putting each other into categories - which no one quite fits inside of.

New gal at work the other day, Jess, was generalizing right and left as was I, now that I think about it.

Me: BYT is A type personality.
Jess: What's that mean?
Me (trying to figure out how to define it): Anal?
Jess: Anal?
Me: Detail oriented, needs to control everything, nit-picky, perfectionist.
Jess: What's her nationality? Is she Hispanic -
Me: No, Persian.
Jess: Because I've noticed that Hispanics are like that -
Me: Not in my experience, they aren't. Seem to run the gamut. But no, BYT is Persian.
Jess: Middle Eastern?
Me: No, more Iran, Iraq, further north, not Middle Eastern, Persia. Totally different.

Jess looks confused.

Jess: When was she born?
Me: She acts like a Leo, but she wasn't born in August. I think sometime in May or June. Kind of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde personality type.
Jess: Probably Gemini.
Me: Okay.

Sigh.

The educational system in this country is horrific. I want to go smack some teachers upside the head. But, we were both generalizing in our own way.
I think it's a flaw in human thinking personally. And a bad habit I can't seem to shake.

***

Finished The Crown S5 - and ....by the end of it, I felt sorry for Charles, and disliked Elizabeth, who is stuck in her ways. Her insistence that no one get divorced or marry a divorcee, and only marry who she chose for them - and power and control over that - ruined several lives. It was an abuse of power that made everyone including Elizabeth miserable. And it was dictated partly by religious edict and partly by ego.

She finally stopped pushing it - after Diana died. Megan was a divorcee, and she permitted Harry to marry Megan. She finally had learned from her mistakes. All her children were divorced. Both Ann and Charles finally remarried a person they loved.

Oh, The Crown clarifies the origin of Harry's use of Wales as a last name.
It's his father's designation and last name - Prince of Wales. So Charles is considered Wales, as was Diana, and their children. They were the Waleses. Now, I think Harry goes by a different last name.

But this final episode - Charles is so progressive. He wants to change the Royal Family, allow for divorce, allow people to choose who they marry, have them privately financed, don't have the royal family dependent on the government or funded by the public. Basically he wanted to break the toxic relationship between the public/government and the royals, and have the royals be self-sufficient and their own entity - doing charitable work and not just figureheads that Britain paraded out like trophies for events and charities. But able to actually make changes, and have some sense of freedom.

In the fifth season of the Crown, Charles is rather likable. Diana not so much, well unless you are into Bimbos - she came across like a bimbo, frivolous and kind of stupid. I find her unlikable. In Harry's book, she's far more likable (there's more focus on her charitable works and less on her affairs and moping), and Charles is also likable, but Harry does get across how he is bit full of himself and into image - which to be fair to Charles, was drilled into him at any early age.

The final episode ends on a somber note. And emphasizes the theme of the fifth season - which is that in putting the "Crown" above all else, Elizabeth somewhere along the line lost her family. They are estranged from each other. The love and familial connections rather forced. She's lonely at the top. Power, of which she has very little and quite by design, has only reinforced the bars of her gilded cage. And her devotion to a church few follow or care for, has done little to endear her to her family members or the public at large. Elizabeth's failures fill the final reel, silently moving past her, as she looks aghast out at sea striding across her favorite ship that is being decommissioned beneath her feet.

One can't help but wonder if Britain would have been better off, let alone the Royal Family, if Elizabeth had abdicated the throne at the age of 80 and allowed her son to become King? As opposed to waiting until her death to do so?

It's easy to judge the dead, or to judge someone from afar. Easier still through the haze of a fictionalized biopic on their life and family, with little input from either. I find myself wondering if it is fair to do so? Yet we all appear to. I don't really know what is going on behind those gates and walls, all I have are tell-all memoirs from various family members who...well, have their own agendas. Or books, movies, and television shows from others along the way. I can't help but wonder if this is how Shakespeare's histories of the Royals were viewed back in the day? Fictionalized accounts of actual people? Or what we moderns might call Real Person Fanfiction? For that's all this is - at the end of the day. Fanfic.
It's not real.

But, that said - it is worth viewing, because whether it's real or fantasy, it provides insight into the moral and ethical quandry of whether we should worship at the feet of anyone. Or continue the fairy tale fantasy of the prince, and princess and the monarchy? Is this not toxic in of itself?
And are similar types of worship toxic - say of the US Presidency, or the Celebrities? Whether they be sports figures or movie stars? As if we own them or deserve to know them, and be able to approach them at any time - at our own whim simply because they happen to have a career or role that requires them to become famous or be constantly in the public eye?

The Crown asks a lot of these questions. Whether it makes sense to continue with a Monarchy? What is the human price of doing so? And what is the toll?
And those questions, are I think, worth posing. It doesn't necessarily provide answers - leaving that for its audience to ponder.

Comments

[wendelah1]

The Crown asks a lot of these questions. Whether it makes sense to continue with a Monarchy? What is the human price of doing so? And what is the toll?
And those questions, are I think, worth posing. It doesn't necessarily provide answers - leaving that for its audience to ponder.

Great review. I'm behind a season but looking forward to seeing five next year.

[shadowkat]

Thanks. It's well done. Although the casting is a bit jarring after seeing S4.

Regarding the British Monarchy

[cjlasky7]

I always thought the British regard the monarchy as BOTH the relic of an antiquated and unjust system AND the ongoing symbol of English tradition, culture and power. That's why the Brits constantly grumble about it but can never quite bring themselves to get rid of it.

Re: Regarding the British Monarchy

[shadowkat]

Some of them probably do, a lot of them though love it - or we wouldn't be having millions pouring out to see the changing of the guard, the Royal Weddings, the Coronation, or any sighting of them. Also the publications wouldn't make tons of money publishing photos etc.

This book by Harry is really a denouncement of the whole institution, and exposes how toxic it is to everyone within it. And the Crown kind of supports his views on it or rather reinforces them. I mean, the Crown shows how toxic that need to support some sort of nationalistic pride truly is to literally everyone involved. It's also a money/power game for those who are working within the institution and using it to further their own ends, people like Rupert Murdoch, and heads of the BBC, and the Daily Mail, and the handlers of the Queen, and various royals.

[yourlibrarian]

The way that Charles was portrayed fairly favorably (in everything besides his family life) makes me suspicious about the influence on the makers, particularly when in the episode about the Prince's Trust there's that afterword about all the good it's done.

I mean, I don't question both his desire to help and the fact that it has had a positive effect. But I suspect in this final season the creators were keenly aware of how close they were to having a King Charles by the time the final season was released. I mean, even the fact that they are ending the story here, when it was still in the 90s seems to me to be guided by the fact that they're going to be tackling people and topics that are very "present day."

What I found the most interesting was to hear that he wanted to divorce the Crown from being head of the Church of England. There are probably a lot of motivations aside from the one he gave, which is how can he expect his subjects to relate to him when they follow different religions (or, unsaid, none at all). I mean, I think that's a very good point to bring up but it's also a very self-serving opinion, given that at the time the divorce was hanging in the balance and that connection had a lot to do with his being unable to marry Camilla from the get-go.

But it's also a very modern opinion of both Crown and Church. I gather very few people in the UK are particularly religious at this point anyway -- these are both institutions that continue more for cultural than everyday reasons. And of course the Crown has been head given that they invented the religion. Whereas I gather he mostly wants to use the office to improve the nation and the conditions of his subjects, and no doubt would want more political influence.

I agree that this final season is hardest on Elizabeth. She does come off as particularly isolated and lacking political savvy or much awareness of the world outside. But yes, the family is not a family but more a collection of individuals connected by their positions. We don't see Edward or his family in this season at all. He's irrelevant and clearly not close to anyone else.

I saw the ending as trying to dismantle the idea that either Diana or Elizabeth was the future of the institution. I think at the time of her death there was a lot of popular sentiment that Diana was trying to modernize and humanize the royal family, and that she wanted her sons to be connected to ordinary people. Unsaid because we never got there, is the fact that she succeeded in that. Their gilded cage aside, Harry has broken away and William married a middle class girl, in large part because he felt very close to her family and their way of life.

However the series clearly thinks Diana herself was not a future Queen anyone should want. And at the same time suggests, via the ship decommissioning, that Elizabeth has failed to leave any personal stamp on the institution, and that perhaps it should be dismantled piece by piece.

[shadowkat]

Watching this through the haze of reading Harry's Spare - I've a slightly different take on it. Mainly because weirdly enough, Harry kind of reinforces some of the views set up in the series.

I mean, I think that's a very good point to bring up but it's also a very self-serving opinion, given that at the time the divorce was hanging in the balance and that connection had a lot to do with his being unable to marry Camilla from the get-go.

No, in the tenth episode - Charles directly states to the Prime Minister and to his Mother that he wants to break from the Church of England because he'd like to be able to marry the woman he loves, and not continue to kow-tow to this antiquated view. Self-serving or not? He's absolutely right in that view. Nothing was gained by continuing with it. I had issues with Elizabeth in prior seasons regarding it.

Harry gets across that Charles is very progressive. Charles loved Megan, and is a huge proponent of Climate change. He also was an ass when it came to the press and political roles. Charles did not want anyone taking the limelight away from him or Camilla. He resented Diana for it, really got upset with Kate and William. (Kate Middleton was hardly Middle Class - she's just not from "old wealth" or the aristocracy (which for most part tends to be broke anyhow and almost non-existent now as a result), but her parents are worth over $30 Million. Kate went to posh schools. She's wealthy. We're middle class, Kate is from a very rich merchant class family who made their money on party planning and were social climbers. She was more than considered suitable by the Brits. Plus they dated for three-four years before getting married. Megan's family is middle class, Megan is American, and a divorcee - Harry was being discouraged because they thought Elizabeth would say no. Elizabeth had finally learned her lesson and said yes.)

Kate had to change the spelling of her first name from Catherine to Katherine to not be confused with Camilla. Charles insisted on it. William and Charles were often at logger heads, because Elizabeth was indicating that she might leave the Crown to William. Talk about causing toxicity in your own family over fear of change. Why was Elizabeth not wanting to give it to Charles? Because Charles wanted to do away with the "institution" that she believed in protecting at all costs. Harry gets that across in his memoir. Charles wants the Royal Family to become self-sufficient and not dependent on the public, this would grant it greater autonomy and permission to marry whomever they chose. And he needed to become King to do that - also to push on Climate Change. Elizabeth didn't want him to do anything, she wanted to maintain the status quo at all costs.

Charles gets a bad rap because the media worshipped Diana and sanitized her. And because Charles wanted to part with the status quo and is very liberal, and the aristocracy is conservative. But Harry, who adored Diana, doesn't really do that. Harry is more liberal and in support of his father's overall agenda. Oh he blasts Charles - for his obsession with image, but he gets across that its mainly due to the handlers. It's hard to know though how much of all of it is true?

I mean can you really believe the negative press on Charles? The agenda there was Diana's followers.
And the Queen who did not want Charles to take over - because he wanted to change the whole status quo. It's hard to know. Charles, of the Royal Family, is the most progressive politically. As is Harry. William is more conservative.

Harry's book paints William in a very negative light - more so even than his father, who he seems to be more forgiving of and supportive. Possibly because his father currently has more power over him?

I will state that Harry's book supports the Crown's take more than I thought it would. He didn't think much of his Grandmother. And felt that part of his problem with his father was due to how his grandmother allowed her handlers to control everything. According to Harry - the handlers or staff have all the power.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh interesting about Kate (the name thing, too). Yeah, that's wealthy territory. I had assumed given the nickname she got, Kate MiddleClass.

I have issues with the whole "handlers" business. If your handlers aren't doing what you want and are creating issues with your family, you fire them. Unless, of course, your public image is your biggest concern.

[shadowkat]

I think part of it is well, the idiotic and antiquated British Class (Caste) System? Merchant Class (basically new money self-made/earned, not inherited) is considered by some Brits to be Middle Class. And there's resentment from the broke aristocrats living off the public's whim, of the rick non-aristocrats. "Middle Class" is considered an insult. But by American standards or any standard really? Kate is not Middle Class. She comes across as a bit of a bimbo in this book (a frivolous woman only concerned with image, frocks, and antiquated protocols).

If your handlers aren't doing what you want and are creating issues with your family, you fire them. Unless, of course, your public image is your biggest concern.

I think - from what I read, their main concern was their public image. Harry makes a point, repeatedly, that his father, Camilla, William and Kate cared mainly about how they were viewed by the public and the press. And were constantly vying for the front page. And incensed if Megan or Harry pushed them off of it. And went out of their way to make themselves look good.

And Kate and William are portrayed as entitled and that they only care about their image. Charles, also is shown to care - although partly because he's going to become King - and Elizabeth kept threatening to skip over him and give it to William. I think part of the problem was Elizabeth playing footsie with the Crown. It should never have been in doubt that it went directly to Charles. She created a lot of this friction with her distrust of her son and the conservative Brits difficulties with Charles' progressive views. It's all an echo of the fights Charles and Diana had in the press, and Margaret had with her family via the press.

[yourlibrarian]

Hmm, interesting.