This popped up on my FB feed from Michael Rosen, excellent:
This post is not about Andrew.
This post is not even really about the Royal Family.
What I'm trying to do is get into the assumptions of what's being saId by commentators.
So here goes:
for the Royal Family (the British monarchy) to exist, there has to be a whole apparatus of commentary that ensures we accept that the British monarchy must exist. Mostly, it is massively successful. Most of the time, most people seem to think that it's a good idea. Some people are hugely enthusiastic about it. Some people like it. Some people think it's OK. Some people simply accept it.
When things are trogging along - appearances and highlights (weddings, funerals, etc) - the apparatus doesn't have to do very much other than just make sure that these events get coverage. It really is not much different from people like me or anyone else in the entertainment industry getting 'coverage'.
The interesting moments are when a crisis happens. At times like these the apparatus has to go into top gear to ensure that no matter what excrement is hurled at individuals, the brand (the 'Firm') stays. How do they do it?
One way is to ensure that whatever is going on in the crisis is portrayed as a soap opera ie that it's 'about' the personalities involved. ('He was good. She was bad.' Or vice versa 'She was good. He was bad.' etc etc, as if it's a film or novel). This way, we are shielded from seeing anything going on because of the power, the wealth and the privileged position. We're allowed to glimpse it - and outsiders, like Americans, are allowed to say it - but what can't be said is that an event like this crisis, can't be described as an inevitable, essential part of the craziness of having such an incredible piece of wealth and privilege at the heart of British society.
Another way is to have commentators on TV etc, nodding sagely about how this or that member of the Brand is behaving really well, in the midst of the chaos and scandal. So we get constructions that appear to be critical but are in fact about retrieving virtue from the wreckage. We get phrases like, 'the Royal Family may be tarnished but...' Along with words like 'damaged but...' What this does is appear to concede that something awful has happened but the institution is good and must be seen to be good. The 'but' in these sentences is all important. The 'but' is about how Royal x or Royal y has behaved really well. Or that Royal x was deeply troubled but in the end 'got it right'.
And one other way the apparatus gets to work is to normalise the abnormal. I said that I wasn't going to refer to the specifics about this latest crisis, but in one sense I will. What has happened to Andrew (and here's me using his first name as if I know him! See how I got sucked into the Brand there!) is some kind of punishment and that now 'he's one of us'. 'He's just an ordinary citizen.' Is he? He seems to have been given a house on a private estate. And this is presented as if he's out on his ear, on the streets and tomorrow he's standing outside a letting agency looking at the photos of one-bedroom flats in a run-down side of town, wondering who's going to help him out with his deposit, and who's going to write a reference for him, based on good behaviour during his previous tenancies. Lols.
So once again, the Brand is saved through descriptions of this exile into luxury as normal. We should agree and accept that's fine. I've forgotten the arrangement made for little fascist Duke of Windsor but I can remember how his complaints that he didn't have enough dosh did occasionally reach the ears of the British public. Didn't he have a rather nice flat in Paris or on the French Riviera (or both?)? Again, it's not the personal that I'm talking about here. It's the way the commentators structure our acceptance that this is how this Brand must behave.
In toto then, we are given a brilliantly managed bit of tutting. There's unease, concern, a lot of frowning, a bit of sighing, occasional condemnation but overall it's all OK, and it's the best we can have, the most desirable institution, the best way to organise the machinery of the state's ceremonial duties. In short we are blessed. Concerned but blessed.
Amen.
