Essay: Princess Kate Isn’t Kim Kardashian

The public backlash against an altered photo of the royal family shows that, even in the age of social media, royalty is supposed to mean more than just celebrity.

The Wall Street Journal

March 15, 2024

There I was on CBS News at the beginning of March, as a commentator on the royals, pooh-poohing fears that the public was being deceived. The Princess of Wales’s three-month absence from public life following her surgery in January was generating far too much hysteria.

Yes, it was a little strange that Prince William had suddenly withdrawn from a scheduled public appearance citing a “personal matter.” And there was no denying that the two royal households were not in sync.

Buckingham Palace’s willingness to share photographs of the cancer-stricken King Charles III made the news blackout on Princess Catherine look suspicious. But Kensington Palace, the residence of the Waleses, had been quite clear from the outset that it wouldn’t be issuing any updates until her convalescence was over. Trust me, I had said, the real issue here is the fact we are paying too much attention to baseless rumors.

Two weeks later, where-is-Kate-gate had turned into photogate. The world had been clamoring for a picture to show that she wasn’t in a coma, on a beach filing for divorce or recovering from a Brazilian Butt Lift, as some speculated on social media. What it got on March 9, Mother’s Day in Britain, was an Adobe Photoshop special in the worst way.

The charming family portrait of Kate sitting on a bench, surrounded by her three children, was bound to be scrutinized pixel by pixel. At the very least, it needed to be devoid of any mystery. Instead, the image had been obviously but crudely digitally enhanced, giving credence to every crackpot theory out there. By being secretive and then looking manipulative, the Waleses had created a public relations catastrophe. And they had damaged their “brand,” which depends crucially on how their public role transcends that of mere celebrities.

For the record, I don’t have any inside information about Kate’s surgery. The Germans think it was diverticulitis, the British assume it was a hysterectomy. But leaving aside the knotty question of privacy, the royals’ junior varsity team needs a reset. Even if the fiasco was the result of a mislabeled file, or a key member of the comms office bunking off early on a Friday, William and Kate are playing like amateurs in a pro sport that kills its losers.

But the bigger issue exposed by photogate isn’t a “them” problem at all, it’s an “us” problem. Americans are behaving as though Kate cheated on them. The betrayal! She has done what no one else in this country has ever managed to do and unite the conservative and liberal media around a cause they are both passionate about: the evils of royal photoshopping. It’s a breach of trust, don’t you know, and Americans won’t stand for it.

Lest we forget, in 1953 the newly crowned Elizabeth II deep-faked her official coronation photograph, which remains one of the most famous images of the 20th century. It was taken after she had left Westminster Abbey and returned to Buckingham Palace. The photographer Cecil Beaton sat her in front of a painted backdrop of the Abbey’s interior so he could make it look all dreamy and romantic, gloomy gothic not being his style.

No one accused Queen Elizabeth of scamming the public. But for Kate there’s no mercy. She has been “outed” as a fake. If people discovered that Kim Kardashian, the “Queen of Reality TV,” was actually a composite character played by identical triplets, I doubt it would cause this much outrage.

A print of Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation photo, which was taken in front of a painted backdrop, not at Westminster Abbey. PHOTO: HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

In fact, it isn’t far-fetched to compare the Windsors and the Kardashians as living megabrands, family enterprises whose presence on social media and ability to sway public opinion are totally out of proportion to their actual physical footprint. But however much they may resemble each other in their reach, they are opposites in terms of what they represent, and that may be why the response to Kate’s doctored photo was so visceral.

Over the years, Kim Kardashian has tried not just to emulate Kate but to be the American equivalent. Whether it was delusional or simply delusions of grandeur, the reality TV star modeled her own 2011 wedding to the NBA player Kris Humphries after William and Kate’s, even going so far as to order a similar cake at the reception. There were only four months between the two weddings so comparisons between the two were unavoidable. The press played along, sort of, variously referring to the Kardashian-Humphries $10 million extravaganza as “America’s Royal Wedding” and the “royal-ish wedding.”

Both weddings catapulted the brides into even greater stardom. But let us not forget the very different ways they have acquired and used their fame. In the age of social media and AI, the key differences between the two family brands hinge on what we now mean by “real” and “authentic” and “genuine.”

Kim Kardashian owns a global business empire, has 364.4 million followers on Instagram and still has her own reality TV show, renamed “The Kardashians.” She makes money playing a fake version of herself that people are willing to accept as “real” without caring which bits might be true and which are faked.

By contrast, Kate works for a nonprofit that pays the Waleses comparatively little and prohibits conspicuous displays of luxury. Her shared Instagram account with William has a mere 15.2 million followers. Although they, too, have a long-running TV show about their family, with their early romance concluding the most recent season, “The Crown” is too unflattering to be a vehicle for self-promotion.

Kate has no say or ownership in her show and has to watch an actor play a fake version of herself that people know isn’t real but nevertheless believe to be true on some level. She is a permanent resident inside a hall of mirrors that reflects two things: ratings and popularity.

But her job is of an older sort: Kings and queens have no career path or rank to attain. They exist in a different category from the rich, the famous and the beneficiaries of nepotism. The monarch can only be sui generis.

Over the years, the British monarchy has learned how to present itself as the embodiment of duty and public service. The royals are buoyed by the timeless values that define them. Queen Elizabeth II was authentic to a fault. The public’s grief at her passing reflects how deeply that quality still resonates.

Social media has trapped us all in a very different world, especially in the U.S., where public opinion has always been the ultimate power. It’s what caused Alexis de Tocqueville the most disquiet when he visited America in 1831. “It acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of men,” he wrote in “Democracy in America.” But when public opinion is the final arbiter of everything, where does that leave authenticity and the values it safeguards?

Fear that the royals are squandering the values and credibility of the monarchy is what provoked the internet-wide howl of rage over Kate’s photograph. I now realize why people rushed to fill the silence surrounding the Waleses with outrageous speculation. Scandal is somehow preferable to seeing Princess Catherine reduced to Kim Kardashian.

Harper’s Bazaar: Behind her eyes: celebrating the Queen as a cultural icon

Our steadfast hope

Harper’s Bazaar

June 2022

If you’ve ever had a dream involving the Queen, you are not alone. After her Silver Jubilee in 1977, it was estimated that more than a third of Britons had dreamt about her at least once, with even ardent republicans confessing to receiving royal visits in their slumbers. For the past 70 years, the Queen has been more than just a presence in our lives, subconscious or otherwise; she has been a source of fascination, inspiration and national pride.

Queen Elizabeth II in 2002

When Princess Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, the country was still struggling to emerge from the shadow of World War II. Her youth offered a break with the past. Time magazine in the United States named her its ‘Woman of the Year’, not because of anything she had achieved but because of the hope she represented for Britain’s future. A barrister and political hopeful named Margaret Thatcher wrote in the Sunday Graphic that having a queen ought to remove “the last shreds of prejudice against women aspiring to the highest places”. After all, Elizabeth II was a wife and mother of two small children, and yet no one was suggesting that family life made her unfit to rule.

Thatcher’s optimism belied the Queen’s dilemma over how to craft her identity as a modern monarch in a traditional role. At the beginning, tradition seemed to have the upper hand: a bagpiper played beneath her window every morning (a holdover from Queen Victoria). The Queen knew she didn’t want to be defined by the past. “Some people have expressed the hope that my reign may mark a new Elizabethan age,” she stated in 1953. “Frankly, I do not myself feel at all like my great Tudor forbear.”

Nevertheless, the historical parallels between the two queens are instructive. Elizabeth I created a public persona, yet made it authentic. Fakery was impossible, since “we princes,” she observed, “are set on stages in the sight and view of all the world.” Although Elizabeth I was a consummate performer, her actions were grounded in sincere belief. She began her reign by turning her coronation into a great public event. Observers were shocked by her willingness to interact with the crowds, but the celebrations laid the foundation for a new relationship between the queen and her subjects.

The introduction of television cameras for Elizabeth II’s coronation performed a similar function. In the 1860s, the journalist Walter Bagehot observed that society itself is a kind of “theatrical show” where “the climax of the play is the Queen”. The 1953 broadcast enabled 27 million Britons and 55 million Americans to participate in the ‘show’ from the comfort of their homes. It was a new kind of intimacy that demanded more from Elizabeth II than any previous monarch.

Images and quotes from the Queen’s coronavirus address in April 2022 displayed across London

The Queen had resisted being filmed, but having been convinced by Prince Philip of its necessity, she worked to master the medium. She practised reading off a teleprompter so that her 1957 Christmas speech, the first to be telecast, would appear warm and natural. Harking back to Elizabeth I, she admitted: “I cannot lead you into battle, I do not give you laws or administer justice, but I can do some­thing else, I can give you my heart and my devotion.” She vowed to fight for “fundamental principles” while not being “afraid of the future”.

In practice, embracing the future could be as groundbreaking as instituting the royal “walkabout”, or as subtle as adjusting her hemline to rest at the knee. Indeed, establishing her own sense of fashion was one of the first successes of Elizabeth II’s reign. Its essence was pure glamour, but the designs were performing a double duty: nothing could be too patterned, too hot, too shiny or too sheer, or else it wouldn’t photograph well. Her wardrobe carried the subversive message that dresses should be made to work for the wearer, not the other way round. In an era when female celebrity was becoming increasingly tied to “sexiness”, the Queen offered a different kind of confident femininity. Never afraid to wear bright blocks of colour, she has encouraged generations of women to think beyond merely blending in.

The opportunity to demonstrate her “fund­amental principles” on the international stage came in 1961, during a Cold War crisis involving Ghana. The Queen was due to go on a state visit, until growing violence there led to calls for it to be cancelled. She not only insisted on keeping the engage­ment, but during the wildly popular trip, she also made a point of dancing with President Kwame Nkrumah at a state ball. Her adept handling of the situation helped to prevent Ghana from switching allegiance to the Soviet Union. Just as important, though, was the coverage given to her rejection of contemporary racism. As Harold Macmillan noted: “She loves her duty and means to be Queen and not a puppet.” This determination has seen her through 14 prime ministers, 14 US presidents, seven popes and 265 official overseas visits.

At the beginning of the Covid epidemic in 2020, with the nation in shock at the sudden cessation of ordinary life, Elizabeth II spoke directly to the country, sharing a wartime memory to remind people of what can be endured. “We will succeed,” she promised, and in that desperate moment, she united us all in hope. The uniqueness of the Queen lies in her ability to weather change with grace and equanimity – as the poet Philip Larkin once wrote: “In times when nothing stood/but worsened, or grew strange/there was one constant good:/she did not change.” That steadfast continuity, so rare in a world of permanent flux, is an endless source of inspiration for artists and writers, designers and composers, all of us.

The Mail on Sunday: No miniskirts. No railing about being a working mother.

Leading historian AMANDA FOREMAN explains why the Queen was a true feminist icon who changed the world for millions of women – in very surprising ways.

The Mail on Sunday

September 17, 2022

Ask someone for the name of a famous feminist and no doubt you’ll get one of a few prominent women batted back to you. Germaine Greer. Gloria Steinem. Hillary Clinton. But Elizabeth Windsor? That would be a no. She looked the opposite of today’s powerful women with her knee-length tweeds and distinctly unfashionable court shoes.

I, though, argue differently. As a historian with a particular interest in female power, I believe one thing above all puts the Queen in a special category of achievement. Not the length of her reign. Not even her link to the courageous wartime generation. No, it is her global impact on the cause of gender equality that should be remembered, all without donning a miniskirt or wailing MeToo. All without spilling emotions, making herself a victim or hiding the effects of age and motherhood.

I believe the Queen is the ultimate feminist icon of the 20th Century, more a symbol of women’s progress in this century than other icons like Madonna or Beyoncé could dream of. Females everywhere, particularly those past menopause, have much to thank her for.

But when it has been previously suggested the Queen was a feminist, or that women should celebrate her life, critics have bitten back sharply.

In 2019 Olivia Colman, who portrayed the Queen in the Netflix drama The Crown, provoked equal cheers and jeers for describing her as ‘the ultimate feminist’. A few years before, Woman’s Hour chief presenter Emma Barnett had her intellectual credentials questioned for calling the Queen a ‘feminist icon’.

They justified the view for different reasons. For Colman, it was because the Queen had shown a wife could assume a man’s role while retaining her femininity. The argument went in reverse for Barnett: the Queen had shown her gender was ‘irrelevant to her capacity to do her job’.

Yet no King would ever have his masculinity and the definition of manhood so conflated in the same way. It’s doubtful anyone will question whether King Charles defines the essence of what it is to be a man.

In the midst of all the grief for the Queen, we should remember at the beginning of her reign Elizabeth’s potential power to effect change provoked as much unease as it did anticipation. In a patriarchal world, female empowerment is a force to fear. After all, we never talk about ‘male empowerment’, do we?

Our two other long-lived queens, Elizabeth I and Victoria, had the same scrutiny. Foreign affairs, great questions of state, probity in government, what did that matter compared to the burning issue of what it meant to have a woman placed above the heads of men?

It was not easy for Elizabeth II to escape from under the shadow of Queen Victoria, the figurative mother of the nation.

Initially, it wasn’t even clear she wanted to. Though the command for brides to obey their husbands had not been part of the Book of Common Prayer since 1928, Elizabeth included it in her wedding vows.

Aged 25, she was a mother-of-two when she made her accession speech before the Privy Council. Accompanied by her husband, Elizabeth looked even younger than her years, surrounded by a roomful of mostly old men. But after the Privy Council meeting, the comparisons with Victoria stopped. And you can begin to see her innate feminism come to the fore. Elizabeth did not lose her self-confidence in between pregnancies and pass over the red boxes or deputise Philip to meet her Ministers. Far from it. She took on the role of sovereign and Philip accepted his as the world’s most famous house-husband.

In reality, there were few actions or speeches of the Queen’s that could be classed as declaratively feminist – such as the time she drove Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around Balmoral in her Land Rover when Saudi women were forbidden to drive, going at such breakneck speed while chatting that the Prince begged her to slow down.

Or her few comments about the work of the WI, or the potential to be tapped if only society can ‘find ways to allow girls and women to play their full part’.

No, instead of examples like these, the Queen was a feminist for reasons most women can instantly relate to: first, she established clear boundaries between the demands of her job and those of her family.

Society still expects wives will drop everything for the family, no matter how consuming their careers, so husbands can go to work. Not once did the Queen say or imply she ought to shift her weekly audience with the Prime Minister, or cancel the ribbon-cutting of a hospital because of some domestic concern.

Second, society judges working mothers much more harshly than working fathers, giving the latter a free pass if their job is important enough but condemning the former as a terrible person if her children don’t turn out to be outstanding successes. The Queen’s fitness as sovereign has never been tied to her fitness as a mother. Although she always made her family a part of her life, Elizabeth did not allow it to define her as Victoria did.

Third, society makes middle- aged women feel that they are invisible. Their opinions stop mattering, contributions don’t count and their bodies, according to fashion designers, don’t exist. Whispers that the Queen ought to abdicate began in her 50s. By 1977, her Silver Jubilee, critics wondered what she was good for now her youth and figure were in the rear-view mirror.

In answer, she embodied the reverse of Invisible Woman Syndrome. By refusing to countenance abdication, she showed what a working woman looks like past menopause. Rather than shrinking, she revved up a gear and demonstrated a woman’s age has no bearing on her agency and authority.

Her fabulous colour sense and ability to match dresses to the mood excited intense interest – but this didn’t make her a feminist icon. In an age when a woman’s sexiness is her currency, and empowerment judged by how much of her body she exposes, she refused to make any concessions to fashion.

This was a confident femininity, an inner feminism based on absolute assuredness of who she was and why she mattered. For over five decades, the Queen showed what strength and purpose look like on the body of an older woman.

The next three generations of monarchs are due to be Kings. To some extent, the old way of doing things will return. So, it is up to us to honour Queen Elizabeth’s memory by following her example.

She tore up the rule book on gender roles without society falling apart or families breaking down. Despite heavy restrictions on what she could do as a woman let alone a Queen, she forged her own path – and invited the rest of us to follow.

Historically Speaking: The Women Who Have Gone to War

There have been female soldiers since antiquity, but only in modern times have military forces accepted and integrated them

The Wall Street Journal

July 14, 2022

“War is men’s business,” Prince Hector of Troy declares in Homer’s Iliad, a sentiment shared by almost every culture since the beginning of history. But Hector was wrong. War is women’s business, too, even though their roles are frequently overlooked.

This month marks 75 years since the first American woman received a regular Army commission. Florence Aby Blanchfield, superintendent of the 59,000-strong Army Nurse Corps during World War II, was appointed Lt. Colonel by General Dwight Eisenhower in July, 1947. Today, women make up approximately 19% of the officer corps of the Armed Forces.

The integration of women into the military is a fundamental difference between the ancient and modern worlds. In the past, a weapon-wielding woman was seen as symbolizing the shame and emasculation of men. Among the foundation myths depicted on the Parthenon are scenes of the Athenian army defeating the Amazons, a race of warrior women.

Such propaganda couldn’t hide, however, the fact that in real life the Greeks and Romans on occasion fought and even lost against female commanders. Artemisia I of Caria was one of the Persian king Xerxes’s most successful naval commanders. Hearing about her exploits against the Greeks during the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C., he is alleged to have exclaimed: “My men have become women, and my women men.” The Romans crushed Queen Boudica’s revolt in what is now eastern England in 61 A.D., but not before she had destroyed the 9th Roman Legion and massacred 70,000 others.

The medieval church was similarly torn between ideology and reality in its attitude toward female Christian warriors. Yet women did take part in the Crusades. Most famously, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine accompanied her husband King Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade (1147-1149) and was by far the better strategist of the two. However, Eleanor’s enemies cited her presence as proof that she was a gender-bending harlot.

Florence Aby Blanchfield was the first woman to receive a regular commission with the U.S. Army

For centuries, the easiest way for a woman to become a soldier was to pass as a boy. In 1782, Massachusetts-born Deborah Sampson became one of the first American women to fight for her country by enlisting as a youth named Robert Shurtleff. During the Civil War, anywhere between 400 and 750 women practiced similar deceptions.

A dire personnel shortage finally opened a legal route for women to enter the Armed Forces. Unable to meet its recruitment targets, in March, 1917, the U.S. Navy announced that it would allow all qualified persons to enlist in the reserves. Loretta Perfectus Walsh, a secretary in the Philadelphia naval recruiting office, signed up almost immediately. The publicity surrounding her enlistment as the Navy’s first female chief yeoman encouraged thousands more to step forward.

World War II proved to be similarly transformative. In the U.S., more than 350,000 women served in uniform. In Britain, Queen Elizabeth II made history by becoming a military mechanic in the women’s branch of the British Army.

Although military women have made steady gains in terms of parity, the debate over their presence is by no means over. Yet the “firsts” keep coming. In June, Adm. Linda L. Fagan of the U.S. Coast Guard became the first woman to lead a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. In the past as now, whatever the challenge, there’s always been a woman keen to accept it.

The Guardian: Feminist Queen. Show explores how Victoria transformed monarchy

Queen Victoria was responsible for a “feminist transformation” of the monarchy and initiated some of its best-known traditions, according to the curator of a new exhibition at Buckingham Palace.

The Guardian,

by

The story of how Victoria and Prince Albert rebuilt the palace into the most glittering court in Europe is explored through paintings, sketches and costumes, and includes a Hollywood-produced immersive experience that brings to life the balls for which she was famous.

Visiting the exhibition, Victoria’s great-great granddaughter, the Queen, was “totally engrossed” as she watched virtual-reality dancers recreate a quadrille, a dance that was fashionable at 19th-century balls. “Thank God we don’t have to do that any more,” said the Queen.

Quadrilles, in which four couples dance together, may no longer be performed but many of Victoria’s innovations remain. She created the balcony, and bequeathed balcony appearances and garden parties to a nation. “It is now unimaginable you would have a national celebration without this balcony, so embedded is it in the nation’s consciousness,” said Dr Amanda Foreman, the historian and co-curator of the exhibition, Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace.

Queen Victoria’s maternal role is highlighted in the sketches she made of her nine children, as well as an ornate casket containing their milk teeth and marble sculptures she had made of their tiny arms and feet.

The centrepiece of the exhibition, which marks the 200th anniversary of Victoria’s birth, is a recreation of the grand ballroom which she had built. She believed the picture gallery was too small for lavish entertainment, noting in her journal how the dresses get squashed and ruined during an attempt at a quadrille.

Digital technology by a Hollywood-based production company recreates the ballroom as it looked during a ball in 1856, with images of the wall furnishings and paintings, as shown in contemporary watercolours, projected on to its walls.

A quadrille is recreated through a hologram effect, using actors in replicas of the costumes featured in the watercolour. The technology was inspired by the Victorian illusionist trick known as Pepper’s Ghost, which used angled glass to reflect images on to the Victorian stage.

“Queen Victoria transformed Buckingham Palace, the fabric of this building, and in so doing created new traditions, those traditions which we now associate with the modern monarchy,” said Foreman.

“It is significant that it was a woman who was responsible for these traditions and a woman who defined our nation’s understanding and concept of sovereign power, how it’s experienced, how it’s expressed.

“It’s very much a feminist transformation, although Queen Victoria herself would not have used those words, and those words would not have meant to the Victorians what they mean to us today.

“We tend to diminish the contribution of women in particular. We assign their success to the men around them. We tend to simply forget who was responsible for certain things. So by putting on this exhibition, we are stripping away those layers of oblivion, forgetfulness, discounting, and allowing Queen Victoria the space to shine.”

Victoria turned the once-unloved palace into a home fit for state, public and private events. But for 10 years after her beloved Albert’s death, she rarely set foot in it, describing it in her journals as “one of my saddest of sad houses”.

• Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace exhibition is at the summer opening of Buckingham Palace, 20 July to 29 September 2019.

WSJ Historically Speaking: When a Monarch Calls It Quits

Photo: THOMAS FUCHS

Photo: THOMAS FUCHS

Abdication fever is sweeping the royal palaces of Europe. Recently, Spain’s King Juan Carlos became the third monarch in just over a year to renounce his crown. In January 2013, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands declared that she was stepping down in favor of her son, Prince Willem-Alexander. King Albert II of Belgium followed six months later.

Abdication in the old days was usually a prelude to execution. Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud (who ruled from 534 to 509 B.C.), is one of the earliest recorded examples of a monarch who was forced to abdicate and still lived to tell the tale. Tarquin was the seventh and last king of the Romans. Burdened by heavy taxes, the aristocracy was already wishing to be rid of Tarquin when his son raped the pious Lucretia. The crime proved to be the catalyst for the birth of the Roman republic.

Tarquin eventually retired to the court of a neighboring tyrant. There, bored and angry, he plotted endlessly to reconquer Rome. Today, if Tarquin is remembered at all, it is by the generations of British schoolchildren who grew up learning to recite “Horatius at the Bridge,” Thomas Babington Macaulay’s stirring ballad on Tarquin’s defeat: “Lars Porsena of Clusium, / by the Nine Gods he swore, / That the great house of Tarquin / Should suffer wrong no more…And how can man die better/ Than facing fearful odds / For the ashes of his fathers / And the temples of his gods.”

Continue reading…