Where were you when you heard?
Friday August 31, 2007
Categories: Culture
Ten years ago today, the Princess of Wales died. Where were you when you heard the news? I was at my mom and dad's house in Louisiana, visiting from Florida. We were talking about my upcoming trip to Canada to...
Filed Under: Alex Massie, Diana
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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"And yet, as cultural analysis, I find it impossible to disagree with."
To a degree. It's easy and fun enough to attempt to play it forward and speculate on Diana's future directions. Let's keep in mind that she went into that royal wedding as a teenager, a nineteen-year-old pre-school teacher. Not quite a tart, unless she and the royals were hiding it pretty well.
Naturally, Diana's life choices were her own responsibility, but it doesn't bode well for the quality of the monarchy, except perhaps as tart makers, even if they are feeling a Nixonian rejuvenation.
Otherwise, I agree Diana died at about the right moment for her public image. Unless she would have had the clout to get something done about land mines. That would have been worth watching.
I was in L.A. I couldn't have cared less. I still don't. Sad for her kids, but otherwise, it was just one of those events which catapulted the media obsession over personality to new levels which unfortunately hasn't abated and probably never will.
I had been wilderness camping in the bayou (no electricity, no radio) for the long Labor Day weekend, so I missed the whole thing. When I walked into the little shop at the dock, the front page of the paper was about the planning of her funeral.
I wasn't much interested in Diana, but I've got to say it took me at least a minute of reading the headline, looking at the photos, etc., before I understood what was going on. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that she was not just dead, but had been dead for several days. Very surreal.
I was at a friend's house helping them clear out their dad's (who had died several weeks before) possessions.
We found a old shortwave radio, and turned it on just to see if it still worked (it did), and heard the first bulletin (s) on the BBC.
I was (and still am not) a royal watcher, but I did feel sorry for her children.
I watched a bit of the funeral, but really didn't obsess over it. (Managed to miss the wedding, though, thankfully :-)).
Tragic deaths are always sad but it was just another rock star death to me. It seems that Britian went off the rails over it and has only gotten it back together with Stephen Frears: "The Queen".
Elton certainly milked it for all it was worth.
The morning we first found out about it my wife and I called British friends in London, woke them up and told them the news. I must say, I cried and was glued to the tv. I never paid that much attention to her when she was alive. To this day I don't know why it affected me so much.
I paid almost no attention to it at the time. Had and still have no interest in her or her life or the lives of the royals (although I must admit The Queen was an outstanding film).
I do remember thinking at the time what a contrast her death was with that of Mother Teresa the same week, and how all the syrupy faux grief directed toward Diana said something very unflattering about our culture.
Whenever it comes to ANY celebrity, we have to remind ourselves constantly: "WE DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE!"
We may think we do. We may think we understand them, and we may love them or hate them irrationally, as a result. But we don't know them.
We didn't know Diana Spencer. We may have seen her in People Magazine and formed opinions of her, but our opinions are baseless and worthless. For me to adore her OR to loathe her would be silly. I feel sorry for her and for her children, but no sorrier than for any person who dies young and leaves children behind. The peoper response to her death was to leave Harry and William alone to grieve for their Mum- because that's who she really was. A human being, and somebody's Mum. Those boys knew and loved a real, flesh and blood human being, not an icon.
Some of the celebs we admire aren't nearly so wonderful as we imagine. Some that we despise are nowhere near as awful as we think. Let's not pretend to be wiser than we are.
I was in the freight elevator in a hotel in San Antonio where I was attending LoneStarCon, which was the World Science Fiction Convention that year. I received the news from a a woman in exotic garb who had a dragon puppet on her arm. I thought she was joking, and laughed inappropriately. When I got off the elevator and entered the party I was heading for, I saw the crushed car on the TV news, and realized it was no joke. I felt sick. Celebrity phenomena leave me baffled, but this was the brutal end of a human life being broadcast to the world. Looking at that crushed vehicle was very disturbing.
It's also rather disturbing to recall that it was Charles who entered the marriage with, apparently, no intention of fidelity. Now he's living happily ever after with his mistress, while, not to put too fine a point on it, tarts like Alex Massie make a few more bucks by vilifying a dead woman. Give it a rest.
Diana was as nauseating as the society which canonized her - and in so doing it gave her exactly what she wanted. My only concern at the time was that her narcissism - magnified and projected in death out onto the world stage - and the narcissistic "I-will-mourn-and-in-so-doing-participate -in-this-great- event-with-my-noble-emotions" vibe the world projected back, might create a feedback loop of self-regard so intense the planet would be destroyed. Catastrophic Global Smarming.
Notice how everyone says now how sorry they feel for the boys. At the time, that had bugger all to do with it and the revisionist feeling for her sons is the only redemptive aspect of an otherwise repulsive spectacle. Christopher Hitchens' brother wrote a book on the death of Britain. The opening passage compares the public reaction to the death of the Windsor Tart to that of Winston Churchill. The great man, the savior of his country, was placed in a hearse which was met with quiet dignity and respect by mourners clad in suits and ties. Compare that with the abject orgy of hysteria which greeted the drunken and drugged wreck of a car on the lam from the stalkerazzi. Nietzsche's last man enjoys a delicious weep. Repulsive.
The third line of my post SHOULD have read...
I was NOT (and still am not) a royal watcher, ...
(To paraphrase Dr. Evil:)
"Can somebody throw me a frickin' "Preview" link on here???" :-)
I was at a friend's house for dinner in Bellingham, WA when I heard about the crash; I was at a Blockbuster renting the movie M*A*S*H a little bit later when I heard that she died. Since John Tavener's "Song for Athene" was sung at her funeral, a choral concert I was already involved with, featuring the works Tavener as well as those of polyphonic composer John Taverner, turned into a bit of a Diana tribute at the request of the English consulate, and "Song for Athene" was added to the program.
Richard
"Where were you when you heard?
IMHO, if you're a man . . . and you remember where you were when you heard that the Princess of Wales died . . . and you are willing to talk about it . . . you might be gay.
Not that there's anything wrong with that . . .
I'll also say this--I was born in 1976. I grew up with people talking about how they all remembered where they were when JFK was shot, when the moon landing occurred, when Nixon resigned, etc. I think for my generation, Diana's death, for better or for worse, is an event like that, and I'd posit that there are three (thus far)--the Challenger explosion (I was in fourth grade and standing in line to buy my lunch token), Diana, and 9/11 (I was in Houston, TX, and had just turned on the radio in my rental car as I was driving to visit the Moores School of Music at University of Houston). Other possibilities might be the shootings of either John Lennon or Ronald Reagan, except that I know I was too young to really be able to remember much, if anything, about those.
Richard
"I never really gave a fig about Diana and all that, but I am fascinated by cultural phenomena, and woke up before daylight as an adolescent to watch her wedding to Charles because ... well, it seemed like the thing to do."
Same here--although, to be fair, as an adolescent girl I know there was some strong enchantment in the very words "royal wedding" despite the best efforts of all those feminist teachers I had had over the years.
I heard about her death because my husband, knowing me to be a bit of a news addict, thoughtfully called me from work to tell me about it, since he knew that as I was taking care of our eighteen-month-old and seven-month-old there'd be little chance that I'd hear about it until the end of the day otherwise. I remember thinking how sad that her life had unraveled so much in just sixteen years. Other than that, though, the aforementioned children kept me from getting caught up in much of the news coverage and details, and I remember more about Mother Teresa's death and funeral than Diana's.
Kirk: That would definitely surprise my wife.
I don't know; people my age grew up with her face *everywhere*. Her name and face were absolutely ubiquitous from the royal wedding on, at least as I remember it (on the other hand, my parents subscribed to People Magazine, so that may color my perceptions a bit). Her dying could hardly *not* be noticed by anyone who grew up during the '80s.
At least, that's my sense of it.
Richard
Somebody called her:"The biggest humanitarian of XX century". She was compared to Mother Teresa. A cab driver cried:"Our princess died".
Give me a break.
Richard: I just sayin'...
I was in fifth grade when the news came and the teacher became visibly upset.
No, wait ... that was Kennedy's death.
Oh, yeah, we were in our apartment when the news came.
No, wait, that was John Lennon's death.
Diane who?
I was at the beach. I always liked her and was sad when she died. We had a couple friends come to visit that day. I was surprised by the scorn that my friend heaped upon her. I always thought that she was really pretty. My husband always claimed to think that she was OK but nothing extraordinarily beautiful.
I always thought that Prince Charles was a bit of a toad. Really, I couldn't have done that man if he had placed 2 paper bags over his head. I wish that she had found someone to love and been loved in return before she died.
Of course, I felt sorry for her boys.
Things have really turned around for the toad since the visual reminder of his infidelity is no longer with us.
I must admit I thought the all-Diana, all-the-time response of the media (giving the public what it wanted) in the weeks and months following Diana's death was nauseating, too. But when the actual event happened, "Princess Diana has died" I found it intensely sad.
I did not cry for her, however, because my personal connection to her was very limited. She was a celebrity, and not one of my heroes.
Interestingly, I did cry a lot while watching the outdoor televised internment service for Ronald Reagan at the Reagan Presidential Library in Santa Barbara. I found it intensely moving, and one of the most dignified memorials I've ever seen. And I didn't even like Reagan much. So, I think there is a place for public mourning if it can be done in a dignified way.
When the new's about Diana's accident was all over the media, I remember thinking, "Don't you people have any *real* news to report?"
Still feel that way.
Of course, I felt that way when Reagan died, too. It was my first summer in Texas, and I felt as if I was drowning in Reagan hagiography. Yech.
Far from being daring, the sentiments in Massie's column strike me as having become conventional wisdom at least nine years ago. It's been a long time since I saw any intelligent columnist treat the Diana mourning phenomenon with respect.
Trivia question - Who said on his TV show in September 1997, "I wonder if God took Mother Teresa when he did to show us how stupid we all were for making Diana out to be a saint when there are real saints around?" (Not an exact quote; paraphrased from memory.) Answer.... Bill Maher! See, no one is all bad.
I was just home.
Diana's messed-up life and early death taught me not to envy anyone, rich, beautiful, acclaimed...
R.I.P.
I have no idea where I was. I know where I was when I heard that JFK had been shot, and again when Reagan was shot. But for some reason, although I thought Di a beautiful young woman, it apparently hit me about like any other "Jet-Setting Celebrity ____ Killed!" That's a "dog bites man" story.
I'm just not tempted to celebrity worship - never have been. So as C.S. Lewis wrote about his avoidance of gambling, I don't suppose there's much virtue in my apparent indifference at the time and since.
I don't remember where I was, because I paid little notice. The close proximity in time to Mother Teresa's death assured that I paid no attention to Diana's.
The wallowing in kitsch and bathos that followed Diana's death, however, was remarkable. It gave the lie to the notion that Britain had ever been a great nation; they'd rather become a nation of overly sentimental sots.
Ten years on, and the Scots are suing for separation, with some success, and it can't be long before John Bull gives back those six counties in Northern Ireland.
The recent episode with the Iranians this past summer, in which the Royal Navy surrendered without firing a shot, was a coda to this theme.
Leaving aside the holy like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II and sticking strictly with pop culture:
Many of us have these moments, but it wasn't always for Princess Diana.
For me, it was the race-car driver Ayrton Senna. For a close friend, it was Kurt Cobain. For many others, it was John Lennon or Elvis.
Heroes are heroes because they make a connection with us, even though we never have and never will meet them. And the very reason you even made such a post on your blog is the knowledge that such connections can be so strong that they live on even (or sometimes especially) if the hero dies too soon.
Or as Elton John sang of his beloved Di, "Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did."
I had a line back then about the Diana nonsense and it still applies. "Excuse me while I puke!"
It was a last day at the country house before going to the city, i heard neighbours daughter shouting to her mama: Princess Diana died in car crash!
It seemed strange. I never cared about her, and openly showed it at first, but after some days of hysteria and endless programmes on TV perhaps even dropped some tears.
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