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Diana's Revenge
While media devours other young women, she refuses to die.
People's Princess, mondo martyr.
- The Diana Chronicles
- Random House (2007)
With over 37 million copies sold, Candle In The Wind 1997 is, 10 years after it was recorded, still the best selling single of all time. Think about that for a minute. A recording of a pre-existing Elton John song retrofitted to eulogize a woman who was rich enough to buy all those singles herself. Though the proceeds went to charity, the mind still boggles.
August 31 will mark 10 years since the death of Diana Spencer, one-time Princess of Wales and enduring Queen of all tabloid covers. You likely recall exactly the hysteria that came in the wake of Diana's accidental end in a car in Paris -- a surge of unchecked grief that flooded into the streets of Britain and beyond. If you lived in London at the time, you probably gawked at the truly awesome thicket of bouquets outside Buckingham Palace, marveled at the open weeping on the streets during her funeral, and had your head done in by the sheer inescapability of fascination with the "People's Princess" as Tony Blair memorably dubbed her.
It was all anyone talked about for weeks, and the media went on as if the world might stop spinning without Diana's charitable endeavors and fashionable frocks.
It was madness.
A madness that appears to be resurging.
Tina's princess
Last year's movie The Queen got the ball rolling. Fifteen million people in 140 countries watched the "Concert for Diana" at Wembley Stadium this past July, a "celebration" of Diana's life featuring performers as disparate as P. Diddy, Kanye West, Tom Jones and Duran Duran. In the wake of that, there's been a revival of interest in Dianaphenelia -- Larry King Live spent 15 minutes interviewing the makers of her wedding dress just two weeks ago; a German paper called Bild recently commissioned a portraiture contest to coincide with her death, and Christie's auction house recently announced they would be auctioning off more of Diana's seemingly limitless supply of dresses this month.
Of course, People magazine still sees sales spike when they put the late princess on the cover, as do countless U.K. tabs and magazines. The sheer volume of books posthumously written about her is astounding. From lizard septuagenarian talk-show host Larry King, to Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, there are few who knew her who didn't make a profit off her after she slammed into a concrete wall going full speed in a BMW through the Paris night. The latest to get in on the act is Tina Brown -- media queen, former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair and (somewhat disastrously) the New Yorker.
The Diana Chronicles, Brown's first book, is of interest in as much for its pervasiveness as it is its content. The recipient of breathless reviews in respected publications such as the Times of both London and New York, and a particularly stunning two-page gush in the New Yorker, Brown's exceedingly positive reviews, combined with her media omnipotence (one shudders at the number of journalists who owe her favours), has made her debut book the number one beach read of 2007, topping bestseller lists around the world.
As Brown was a personal friend to Diana, this is as many have said the Diana book. But what's most shocking here is how much we already know. Though Brown is a gifted writer with unprecedented access, everything here is old news. Diana's lonely, motherless adolescence. Her early 20s as Sloane-dreamer, investing time in nothing put finding a male savior. Her transformation from shy girl to public princess. Her charity work. Her and her husband's infidelities. Her eating disorder. Her feud with the royal establishment. Her simultaneous loathing and courting of the paparazzi that would eventually kill her. It's all here in marvelous detail, but before cracking page one, there's little we didn't already know about this woman. Her premature death seems to have made her a figure of endless intrigue, yet there are few women more public.
Brown makes a game attempt at scoping the sociology of Britain and the royals, of privilege and class in England, and of the very nature of celebrity, and, to be fair, she does much, much better than such dreckologists as serial biographer Andrew Morton, and the aforementioned Burrell, who Brown rightly points out has spent the years since Diana's death painting himself as the man Diana called "my rock" ("What she actually said was "You're wearing my frock"" quips one of Brown's numerous insiders.)
Set 'em up, knock 'em down
For those interested in news cycles, keep track of the Diana coverage in the coming weeks: it will undoubtedly reach the saturation point at the end of the month, when anyone who ever shook hands with the Princess will wax poetic about how remarkable this woman was, failing to note that her remarkability was largely a product of circumstance rather than real character (what would have been truly remarkable is if Diana did no charity work at all -- lauding her for charity is like tipping the taxman)
What's amazing is that, whether it be the classy Brown or the vulgar Larry King, those who bemoan her death at the hands of media overexposure quite happily dig up the princess's bones for another look. While there is much hand-wringing about what could have been done to prevent the mother of two from perishing at the hands of overexposure, most books, including Brown's, seem reluctant to deconstruct tabloid culture, currently tar-and-feathering a new generation of clueless-yet-scheming young girls (always girls), these ones panty-less, shaven-headed and spontaneously combusting before out very eyes. While the tabs are mentioned, Brown avoids any real discussion of how the media works around women like this, and why pretty young girls are burned and the stake and subject to an excess of bile. Retrospective photo spreads of Diana are placed in magazines alongside speculations of 19-year-old starlets' weight, or their possible drug addictions, or their poor parenting, or their promiscuity.
We seem to understand that Diana created a press prison for herself, but we can't translate the lost girl model beyond her ghost.
Perhaps when the paparazzi have driven a young Spears or Lohan at full speed into a concrete wall, we'll recognize the parallels, but most likely not. We'll turn those modern-day witches into virtuous saints like Diana, and perhaps old Elton will re-write a song about them, turning "Crocodile Rock" into a tear-jerker about crack-cocaine addiction. We'll go on writing tributes and bios and poring over countless facts, but not learning a damn thing.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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45
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nightbloom
4 years ago
Yeah, there’s really no
Yeah, there’s really no escape from the Diana-psychosis, is there…?
Diana rode the crest of a mass-media phenomenon that has since nose-dived into the current cannibalistic fascination with vulgar self-destructing blondes like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Speers. The phenomenon has slightly more august antecedents rooted in the cult-like following of the likes of Eva Peron (and to a lesser “brunette” extent, Jackie O.). But it seems to have run its course. I doubt we’ll have another outbreak of this kind of fanaticism for at least another generation, hopefully longer.
Is it a media/marketing manufactured thing, or are the amplifiers of pop culture simply tapping into a deeper mass psychosis mixed in with perverse remnants of neo-pagan religiosity…Not unlike the collective hysteria which drove the epidemic of Virgin Mary sightings by adolescent girls across France in the immediate aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, prompting mass pilgrimages throughout the countryside and creating waves throughout the socio-political order. Sounds bizarre…but read the social history: this kind of collective weirdness happens periodically.
How morbid and paganesque the wedding footage now appears, as the Vestal Virgin is led to the sacrificial altar, the screeching masses calling for flesh. But she scripted her own exegesis, and poor Charles still takes the blame, no matter how great a dad he is to both his children (even though one of them quite possibly isn’t even his). Small wonder that those who really knew her seem so reticent and circumspect about the popular enthusiasm for Diana.
Regardless, mass psychology seems peculiarly receptive to certain archetypal symbols and - irrespective of who Diana really was - the public persona crafted around her visual image seemed to have hit one of those big red buttons in the collective unconsciousness. Most thinking people are immune (or at least resistant), but the evidence abounds. How else to explain the weird and spontaneous outpouring of Diana-mania, even a decade after the most photographed face went to dust?
G West
4 years ago
"Poor Charles"
You must be kidding nightbloom!
nightbloom
4 years ago
I think heaven reserves a
I think heaven reserves a special place for stoic fathers who love and nurture children they silently know are not their own - offspring that are the result (and constant reminder) of a hurtful deception enacted by two other people at his own (and the child's) expense. It happens a lot more frequently in families than polite society is willing to admit. These dads are the quiet Everyday Heroes of family life who choose the moral high road while society would mock them for suckers. I'm not saying that this is the case here, but the conjecture has always been there (the confirmed timeline of the infidelities, the confluence of physical resemblances, etc).
You do the math.
G West
4 years ago
I agree
I just wouldn't put Charles Windsor in that category...and, in the great accounting of everyday heroes...when it comes to family life at least...the 'Mom' collectively has one hell of a head start in my view.
Women, everywhere and always, hold up way more than half the world - a few juvenile holdovers and media whores notwithstanding.
Betty
4 years ago
Hardly being led to the altar
IT's a tragedy that Diana died as and when she did, rather than living a long, full life with her sons nearby. But let's not forget: she was no duped innocent, as people love to believe. If I recall correctly, Charles was her sister's boyfriend when Diana's schemes first hatched. Nice one there, Di. The girl wanted to be Queen and cast herself as the sweet princess. Poised to live in that world (no commoner she; daddy was an Earl, remember), she must have known it wouldn't be a fairytale. She wasn't a sheltered twelve-year-old.
I lived in London for two years during her media reign and it was quite something to witness. Every time Charles was about to make a public appearance on behalf of one of his many charities, Diana would do something on that very day or the night before to ensure she would bump him off the front page of the newspapers. She mocked him mercilessly in public, smirked behind his back at formal events, etc. Diana and the masses had it wrong when they cast Camilla as the other woman. Camilla was there first. Diana was the other woman. As she was with her sister. As she was during her numerous affairs with married men. It's too bad she didn't marry happily and live to her nineties. God knows I didn't wish her ill. But I sincerely doubt she is the woman Tina Brown and so many others portray.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Quote:...when it comes to
...because 'Dad' is working late, and will probably be at the office again on the weekend, working towards that premature heart attack at 42, mortgaging his health so he can pay off the mortgage before then. But it's an equal opportunity screw-over: increasingly, 'Mom' is in the same fix, and there is no family life for anyone. Playstation is a lousy parent. Everyone loses...but hey, productivity is up, and doesn't 'Mom' look fabulous in her new power-suit.
I think Charles has been vindicated, whether it's with his relationship with his kids, with his pioneering efforts in eco-farming, or his Zen meditation, or his cultivation of artistic talents. He was mocked for all those eccentricities, but he was actually ahead of his time on every count. This charisma-deprived guy has always been a little more clued-in than people wanted to see. We want him to be the dullard, but evidence points to the contrary. His introspection and reticence has been misinterpreted and exploited by the media in their effort to create a caricature that functioned as a useful foil to sell Diana-headlines and Diana-photospreads and Diana-magazines. I'm not saying he's all that, just saying that he never deserved the way he was portrayed throughout that whole ridiculous drama.
Booker
4 years ago
Snuff out that candle
Here's a suggestion: all Tyee readers should vow never to mention her name, read a book or article about her, or watch a TV show that mentions her, ever again. We could be a-Dianists. Starting now...
G West
4 years ago
Don't disagree 'violently' with your first comment, but
As long as there are more single moms out there than dads... my sympathy rests mainly with the ladies who have the babies.
As to Chas, we'll have to disagree on that one - centuries of blue-blood interbreeding culminating in someone who makes a love-poem out of a tampon pretty much speaks for itself.
Give 50 blokes from down the pub the Royals' advantages of birth and I'd wager 45 of 'em would contribute more than chuck has done.
It's time the whole bunch were put out to pasture permanently.
Betty
4 years ago
Blokes down the pub
The blokes from down the pub would probably squander their advantages on more lager. Charles has done a lot, you know. He just doesn't trumpet it from the headlines as Diana did. Regarding his relationship with his children, I have heard that he was always affectionate towards them. Unlike Diana, however, he didn't always make sure the cameras were around to catch him being the adoring papa.
HawkEyes
4 years ago
Princess Diana
Yeah, yeah, Keith said it best about Elton and his songs for dead blondes...
This article boggles the mind. What's with the hate?
To my knowledge, Princess Diana was not Diana Spencer when she died and she was in a Mercedes...what is with the gross ignorance? She was the People's Princess, as she wished to be. Blair nothing.
That the media could do little more than gawk then, was sad. Ten years later to still be at a loss for words about her worth is ridiculous and frightening. This inability is creating a void.
She was to meet with a squirming President Clinton and he gratefully abandonned her land mine concerns pdq after her death. The world would have been better off if some of her cares would have been honoured.
Royal history is nasty. I don't think even the Queen's own charade of a marriage was acceptable for Diana. Who cares if Charles has the money and time to champion a few thoughts. He's old enough. His priorities when his own sons were babies were wrong and that is his legacy to them.
So she then beat the royals at their own game? One woman against that pr force and they cry foul? She was their future, the mother of their future King. Her death is still not fully explained.
Princess Diana give her heart to so many people...
To compare her to Spears or Lohan here is the final insult and ignorance. At least find a kindred spirit, like Angelina Jolie.
Failing article.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Betty - We're on the same
Betty - We're on the same wavelenth on this one!
Gwest:
My sympathies are there too, just not exclusively. The relative prevalence of single motherhood is not going to change, due to the realities of mammalian biology and female reproductive choice. One could just as easily retort: "As long as there are more males in the prison system..." or "As long as there are more dads who can't see their children at Xmas..." See how self-defeating that false dichotomy is? In reality, any earnest hard-working parent of either gender deserves sympathy & moral support. Yes, even the Big Bad Dad, the modern bogeyman himself.
So it's not a manichean, oppositional thing. Third Wave Feminism was wrong to perpetuate those binary animosities, and most younger feminists today will have none of it. It's had its day, and is no longer constructive. Acknowledging men's issues takes nothing away from women. For example, funding programs to teach young fathers 'anger management' and basic parenting doesn't cheat young mothers of anything...no matter what some grant-hungry women's groups (like N.O.W.) say in the media. Promoting well-adjusted, participatory fatherhood does a lot of good for young mothers, their children & society in the long run. That's actually what feminism started out saying in the first place, but they lost the message. The younger feminists understand that. It's the old frustrated battle-axes still stuck in the 1970s, acting out their personal drama, who still don't get it. Well, dinosaurs don't evolve, they just die out.
So good on Charles - I totally agree with you Betty!
BC Mary
4 years ago
Thumbs down on this book review.
Feeling ready for a holiday in late spring, I decided to buy what I thought would be a "junk book" with no uplifting or redeeming benefits. So I bought Tina Brown's book.
I really, really liked it. The book is as much about British life and the changing British traditions as it is about Diana. That's gotta be interesting. It's sad that Ms Corden couldn't see that in the book.
Disclosure: I liked Diana, in inverse ratio to the disdain I feel for the Monarch and Royal Family. It's abysmally bad for people in my opinion, to declare that certain ones (the Queen, various dukes and princes) are more valuable than other people.
Diana saw very clearly that the royals sure as hell aren't better or more valuable than others. She faced the fact that she'd landed up in a disastrous marriage. Then she set out to demonstrate that a woman alone can pick herself up and get to work on making a better world. Not just cutting ribbons but on things like banning land-mines. Imagine doing that, while part of a powerful, ultra-militaristic family.
For that very reason, I admired Diana. If ever a woman found herself in the midst of lemons -- then taught herself how to make lemonade -- this was the gal. And yes, she learned how to get the media working for her, too, when she could. She didn't play the Helpless Victim card.
Diana succeeded in changing that rigid, proud-to-be-brainless Windsor monarchy for the better.
Rather sad that Ms Corden couldn't see all that in Diana's life or in Tina Brown's book and calls the world-wide mourning "hysterical". Tina Brown is another smart, strong lady and she didn't think that grief = hysteria. And yes, I like Tina Brown a lot, too.
Thumbs down on this book review.
dorothy
4 years ago
If only...
"It's the old frustrated battle-axes still stuck in the 1970s, acting out their personal drama, who still don't get it. Well, dinosaurs don't evolve, they just die out."
Oh, if only we could be sure that time would take care of it all, but no such luck. Battle-axes come in all sizes, forms, and shapes, and, alas, ages. What we need are mothers - yes, only mothers can look after this one - to teach daughters, that the lantern is a better tool than the knife, referring to the legend of Psyche and the oh, so crucial choice every woman is faced with, whether she is/was stuck in the 70'es or not. Fascinating thought, though. If there are people in such a situation, they ought to be able to help us cast light on the deeper properties of the time-space continuum.
G West
4 years ago
Can't you read nightbloom?
I wrote:
No false dichotomy there my friend - we don't even have anything to argue about. Remember, this is what you wrote:
Go off on all your favourite tangents as far and as thoroughly as you wish. However, remember you're creating a disagreement where none exists for, I suspect, entirely personal and self-aggrandizing and possibly misogynistic reasons.
nightbloom
4 years ago
OMG - then we're in
OMG - then we're in agreement - alert the editors.
Yes, BCMary, notwithstanding my criticism, I actually liked Diana a lot too (i saw her in person several times when I was part of the guard of honour during one of her visits to Canada in the early nineties).
Notwithstanding her flaws and personal difficulties, what a truly beautiful, beautiful, beautiful woman.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Dorothy – sounds like you
Dorothy – sounds like you need no pointers from me in reading the signposts of the times. But just a word of caution about interpreting the mythopoetic signposts and their Jungian archetypes too literally:
Just as the meekest girlie-girl may find herself incarnating the Emperor's animus, so the gruffest lager-lout can become swollen with Gaia's nurturing anima. The archetypal roles have always been fungible, but are especially so now given the diversities of families today, when moms must be fathers and dads must be mothers, often switching several times a day, or obliged to fill both roles full-time in the absence of the other parent. Spare a thought for them.
Just be open to the possibility that poor, tired, maligned, brow-beaten Dad may have been holding the lantern up for his daughters all along.
mopled
4 years ago
I couldn't help compare
Diana to Margret Trudeau.I think both were women who were chosen to be lofty brood mares and were truly puzzled when their older, more sophisticated husbands cast them aside.
I understood that Diana's rivalry with Charles started in reaction to finding out the truth about Charles' relationship to Camilla. It was reaction to the rejection neither she nor most of the world could understand. How could he prefer Camilla?
Diana had become a great embarrasment and since Britain's production and sale of landmines is quite sizable, both the government and the Royals had reason to wish she would disappear.
The outcome of that convergence of interests will continue to be debated for years to come.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Not that again. And why
Not that again. And why landmines? Isn't the prospect of the Mother of the future King (and Defender of the Faith) getting knocked up with the illegitimate child of a brown(ish), Muslim, playboy-druggie enough? Some things are beyond the pale. They could play along with the first half-brother with nary a red face, but she really stuck it to them the second time around.
But no, I don't think there was a conspiracy, just a lot of people (not the family) who viewed the accident as a serendipitous coincidence.
G West
4 years ago
solutions are readily available
It's time the whole bunch were put out to pasture permanently.
We could start by saying 'no thanks' to a 'queen' of Canada - I'm sure Australia and New Zealand would follow up in short order.
Give mom a job behind the scarf counter at Harrod's - and let Chas become the honourary editor of Country Life - do 'em all a world of good.
nightbloom
4 years ago
...but that would still
...but that would still leave us with Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britany Speers, Anna Nicole Smith (R.I.P.)...indeed, the whole pantheon of trashy blondes and their show-stopping victim-chic. As I said at the top of this thread: is their no end to this bizarre media-induced psychosis?
G West
4 years ago
But nightbloom
Those 'ladies' and an equally-large coterie of male airheads will manage, willy nilly, to destroy themselves with little or no cost to anyone but their 'fan' clubs and the general level of public discourse. Have you not seen the latest incarnation of the odd couple called "The Two Cories"?
The royals have a 'god-given' right to keep screwing it up generation after generation and that is costly.
I blame the 'education' system as much as the media.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Quote:...and an
Male airheads there are a'plenty...but they're not fueling a frenzied global following and generating hundreds of millions of $$ in magazine/trash-rag sales and gazillions of web-hits, or impacting pop culture and a generation of young people in quite the same way. You gotta admit: the level of obsession is really quite a phenomenon.
G West
4 years ago
Don't agree - did you forget?
The males are just as big idiots - ref David Beckham if you've forgotten - that avatar of the metrosexual non-specific gender man-buy (the 'buy' is on purpose) is every bit as much of a pop-culture icon as anything on the distaff side.
Even Brad Pitt seems to have some brains in his little noggin but Beckham? Sigh - one thing for sure, he and Posh Spice do 'deserve' each other, don't you think?
nightbloom
4 years ago
I knew you were going to say
I knew you were going to say something like that. Sure, there's a celebrity marketing machine driving publicity for Beckham and Pitt and a host of other celebrities (male and female) with varying levels of professional achievement. But Beckham is an impressive world-class athlete, and Pitt is an A-list actor with a substantial body of work under his belt. Whatever their merit, they didn't forge their celebrity by flashing their pudenda to the paparazzi, deliberately leaking staged sex-tapes of themselves, showing up to present at the MTV awards totally out of their mind on prescription meds & alcohol, or getting busted for DUI then deliberately turning their incarceration and parole into a media circus.
There are gradients of banality in these instances, which I am sure you can appreciate. I think the cruel and cannibalistic fascination with blonde self-destructing sex-pots (and their own self-prostituting cultivation of this fascination) says something about mass media & pop culture which the isolated examples of Beckham and Pitt simply do not illustrate.
You would never get a "male Diana" phenomenon. Or at least it's hard to imagine...I can't think of anything that comes close.
nightbloom
4 years ago
I knew you were going to say
I knew you were going to say something like that. Sure, there's a celebrity marketing machine driving publicity for Beckham and Pitt and a host of other celebrities (male and female) with varying levels of professional achievement. But Beckham is an impressive world-class athlete, and Pitt is an A-list actor with a substantial body of work under his belt. Whatever their merit, they didn't forge their celebrity by flashing their pudenda to the paparazzi, deliberately leaking staged sex-tapes of themselves, showing up to present at the MTV awards totally out of their mind on prescription meds & alcohol, or getting busted for DUI then deliberately turning their incarceration and parole into a media circus.
There are gradients of banality in these instances, which I am sure you can appreciate. I think the cruel and cannibalistic fascination with blonde self-destructing sex-pots (and their own self-prostituting cultivation of this fascination) says something about mass media & pop culture which the isolated examples of Beckham and Pitt simply do not illustrate.
You would never get a "male Diana" phenomenon. Or at least it's hard to imagine...I can't think of anything that comes close.
nightbloom
4 years ago
I knew you were going to say
I knew you were going to say something like that. Sure, there's a celebrity marketing machine driving publicity for Beckham and Pitt and a host of other celebrities (male and female) with varying levels of professional achievement. But Beckham is an impressive world-class athlete, and Pitt is an A-list actor with a substantial body of work under his belt. Whatever their merit, they didn't forge their celebrity by flashing their pudenda to the paparazzi, deliberately leaking staged sex-tapes of themselves, showing up to present at the MTV awards totally out of their mind on prescription meds & alcohol, or getting busted for DUI then deliberately turning their incarceration and parole into a media circus.
There are gradients of banality in these instances, which I am sure you can appreciate. I think the cruel and cannibalistic fascination with blonde self-destructing sex-pots (and their own self-prostituting cultivation of this fascination) says something about mass media & pop culture which the isolated examples of Beckham and Pitt simply do not illustrate.
You would never get a "male Diana" phenomenon. Or at least it's hard to imagine...I can't think of anything that comes close.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Not sure what happend there
Not sure what happend there - I only posted once, and got a 'page unavailable' notice.
Yammer
4 years ago
What was the last thing in Diana's mind?
The radiator!
G West
4 years ago
Beckham
World Class athlete?
George Best pretty much had him pegged and there was an excellent deconstruction of him as a football player in The New Republic a few weeks ago.
In other words, I don't think I agree with you and England's results in the last two World Cups and the European Championship pretty much prove it as well.
I think Beckham is a male Diana in spades and I could produce several more notable male examples from both the entertainment industry and the sports world. God, just look at TV if you want a few examples of mordant emptiness - Dr Phil, Maury Povich, Larry King, any TV contest show host, Ben Mulroney for God's sake. Finding examples of pop culture emptiness and idle glitz is so easy it's painful.
G West
4 years ago
Fact is nighbloom
You just don't like women.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Nice try. What an
Nice try. What an irrational accusation.
That is the most common means of 'policing' any debate today involving gender. It's a cop-out. Anyone who puts forward an alternate viewpoint that doesn't conform to the marxist-feminist Women's Studies syllabus is a misogynist. Nice.
Look at the MSM and pop entertainment media yourself. The trends I speak of are there to be seen, and have been around for a long time. The Diana/Eva Peron/Jackie O. phenomenon has many antecedents....as does the Hilton/Lohan/Speers fad. I'll spare you the long cultural history of the neurotic "Virgin/Whore" dichotomy in the West, but if there's misogyny here, its in the norms being perpetuated and amplified in today's media-obsessions, not in my innocuous observations on the subject.
Surely you can find a more effective way of spicing up the debate here at The Tyee than such a sophomoric accusation?
G West
4 years ago
Not true nightbloom
Just look back over your posts on this subject - not to mention all the other ones I've observed over the past year and a half. You condemn Diana and praise Charles; you defend Beckham and excoriate Lindsay Lohan. You promote dutiful dads and jump all over latch-key mothers. Even your penchant for categorizing women in sexualized terms of derision is a clue to what's going on behind the scenes. Would you care to have me reiterate your latest use of that particular little trick...it's just up the thread here?
Your search for and almost constant return to the 'sacred feminine' also provides an interesting psychological insight into your fascinations and assumptions about 'ordinary' women. You compliment your Dad - and never mention your Mom...the evidence is all there for anyone who has read you critically.
There is no other logical conclusion: Furthermore, couching your ideas in jargon just serves to accentuate them, my friend.
You shouldn't let it upset you...take a moment some time and read back over your offerings - when you're not attacking the scarecrow of the doctrinaire PoMo left you're excoriating women and feminism.
Interesting stuff though!
nightbloom
4 years ago
Here we go...The Tyee's
Here we go...The Tyee's self-annointed Censor and Gatekeeper of the threads. You're not able to back up your opinion at all, are you, so why even play that silly "you just don't like girls" card?
My opinion stands at face value, on its own merits - take it or leave it. We're observing trends in mass perceptions of iconic upper class women which pre-date Marie Antoinette, Godiva, Lucrezia Borgia, et al.; trends which go straight back to the likes of Queen Jezebel (Israel), Agrippina Minor (Rome) and all the original "bad girls" and antiquity. The pattern is just another form of bread-&-circuses for the masses.
That's my opinion. So c'mon - get off it, stop your psycho-babble, and put forward an original idea of your own, Gwest.
G West
4 years ago
Me?
Psycho-babble?
You must be joking nightbloom - that's your department.
I actually think it's amusing. I try to be polite and point out the obvious examples of your differential treatment of men v. women and you accuse me of being a gate-keeper?
I fail to see the connection. And you certainly can't deny your comments have an aversion to any feminine other than the 'sacred' one.
Now that may not qualify as full-blown misogyny, but it sure smacks of the sacral confusion at the bottom of the 'philosophy' of one of the major Christian religions: Exactly the same religion that seems to have a substantial problem with facing up to its history and accepting responsibility for its behavior.
Let me post a link here for you to consider on that very topic:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-lostfaith21jul21,1,3699127.story?ctrack=4&cset=true
Enjoy.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Gwest, stop trying to push
Gwest, stop trying to push my buttons - It's so transparent. And stop talking balderdash. I never actually mentioned my mom or my dad personally, or bashed latch-key moms - so why do you get such a rise out of twisting my words so blatantly?
Anyway, I think I've made all the points I wanted to make about the subject matter of the article so in the absence of pertinent, relevant feedback on the topic at hand, I'll sign off now and leave you to it. Knock yourself out.
G West
4 years ago
Oh yes you did
You didn't mention your Mom - that's exactly the point - but you have very often made long personal remarks about your dad and your relations with him.
I'm not in the slightest interested in arguing with you. I simply made the point that ignorance and stupidity are not in any sense qualities that aren't shared more or less equally between the sexes.
You're the one who couldn't accept that construction and kept making a special case that 'women' of a certain kind are nominally worse than men at that sort of thing. I think it's exactly representative of your general tenor of discourse and had the temerity to point it out.
That's what discussion is all about - You wrote this:
And I disagreed - with examples. The degradation of morals and culture is not just an indictment that can be laid at the feet of women. Period.
As for points, you actually only have one and you tried to make it. No disagreement there.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Another good demonstration
Another good demonstration of how you twist things around.
I never mentioned "ignorance" & "stupidity" in reference to any of these women - you introduced that, and tried to insert the words into my mouth ex post facto. Stop projecting - I've never thought Paris is stupid in the slightest. Talentless and perverse, but not stupid. She knows her game. In fact, I never compared male tom-foolery and female shennanigans in the way you suggest...I only pointed out the mass preoccupation with the female variety. Men get up to all sorts of nonsense every day, and are quietly held accountable in all the usual mundate ways....they don't get turned into a mass media commodity as a result. To spell it out: this isn't about the women themselves at all - it's about the mass responsiveness to these personas, the public appetite for them, and the highly gendered nature of it all.
Oh - And I never mentioned my dad either - not ever, you silly man. I spoke of fatherhood generally. So stop speaking falsehoods, stick to the subject matter and stop indulging your own obsession with deconstructing 'nightbloom'. You don't know me.
That's my last word - Cheers.
G West
4 years ago
yes you did nightbloom
It was a long and quite moving disqusition on coming out to him and explaining your sexuality in a way that provided him with a measure of comfort he hadn't had before. I'm surprised you don't remember.
I never speak falsehoods. And I don't call people names - something you might want to learn yourself.
nightbloom
4 years ago
More gross
More gross mischaracterization, this time of a brief exchange on the subject of "coming out" which occurred...when...two, three years ago? That's your argument?? Is that really necessary? Would you care to comment on the topic of the article rather than policing my opinions, leveling spurious charges of misogyny, or diverting the thread with purile attempts at psychoanalysis, Gwest? You know this never ends well.
Incidentally, I also never framed this as a morality issue (re. your "degradation of morals" straw man). More twisting on you part. Get a grip.
G West
4 years ago
kindly keep to what I actually wrote
Now that may not qualify as full-blown misogyny, but it sure smacks of the sacral confusion at the bottom of the 'philosophy' of one of the major Christian religions
I haven't been posting here for three years and I surely haven't read your stuff any farther back than early 2006 and, obviously, I may read more into your writing than you intend to put there. I do know I never call people names and that's about all you do anymore. I already commented on the topic. I think Diana is no worse and no better than her former husband and I don't think women are any worse, mutatis mutandis, than men are. In fact, given the biological imperative, they are probably a little more caring and nurturing and a little less likely to kill their fellow human beings for sport or economics than men are. If you actually read what I've written I think you'll find that about sums it up.
You're the one who seemed to me to be determined to hang a bigger albatross around the collective female neck and - given my close attention to your 'writing' here for other reasons, I think it fits a certain pattern and I said so. That's what civil discussion and debate is all about.
As to your ability to have a discussion about anything without resorting to personal remarks such as the above...well, less said the better.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Yeah, whatever. Just stick
Yeah, whatever. Just stick to the subject matter and leave my mom, my dad, and my sexuality out of it. They have nothing to do with the topic at hand. We're not talking about PFLAG and parental reactions to kids "coming out", or any other topic that would put such references in context. You're baiting me in a manner that is unconstructive to advancing the topic of the threads. If our positions were reversed, I would have been censored by now. "Fact is, nightbloom, you just don't like women." That's the sum total of your counter-argument. It is a commonplace slur used to pathologize and invalidate men (and women) whose opinions diverge from liberal-left p.c. doctrine on gender. Just stop it.
And what's all this stuff about "sacral confusion" and "sacred feminine"...is that from last year's thread about The Da Vinci Code?? I've only mentioned "sacred feminine" once, in that context, because it figured prominently in the novel and film under discussion. Context, context, context. Why keep bringing that up in your responses over & over again, thread after thread? You seem to be pulling things out of the air willy-nilly, and presenting it as a reasoned counter-argument. It's tedious. You were much more engaging in your "Alcibiades" persona...won't you please switch back for us?
G West
4 years ago
It's the total picture that counts in a personality profile
Moreover, that was what I was developing - a collection of indices which, taken together, suggest a possible conclusion. About which, my opinion stands.
I'll take no directions from you nightbloom, and I am more than prepared to stand on my record for the content, the style and the fairness of my writing.
Cheers.
nightbloom
4 years ago
Get a life.
Get a life.
HawkEyes
4 years ago
Nightbloom
Sorry, didn't read all the arguments.
You accept the claim that Harry is not Charles' son and you accept that Princess Diana was possibly with a brownish (funny) child but you do not entertain the possibility of a conspiracy.
If the first two claims were true, the third claim is highly probable, in my mind.
nightbloom
4 years ago
It's just hard to imagine
It's just hard to imagine why "they" (presumably MI6) would even bother. And even if they did, why do it in such a visible manner, and why use a scheme that had such a high probability of failure? So much depended on chance. And they had no way of accurately predicting what kind of fallout would occur after taking out such a high profile target. The public blowback against the Family was pretty bitter for a long while. Conspiracy theories were inevitable.
Besides, I don't think the British establishment thinks that way about the Royal Family anymore, or about British women. The hypothetical scenario we're talking about is basically an elaborate "honour killing" of a "tarnished" upper class woman of symbolic significance to the nation. I just don't think British society thinks that way anymore about either the Royal Family or about British women generally.