The newlyweds have been shagging for the best part of ten years already, so it can't have been the novelty value. Did this (to my mind) utterly weird and not a little icky lustlust (as opposed to bloodlust) come from some deep unsatisfaction in the hive mind, a desire for vicarious untainted lerve – as opposed to the crowd's and, presumably, the journalists' own unsatisfactorily imperfect love lives? Are we all now so shaped by screen conventions and tropes that we think of a kiss as some sort of compulsory narrative climax? Was it just porn in acceptable form?
Or was it a remnant of the days when newlyweds hung the bloody sheet out of the window the morning after the wedding? (Look! A woman has been caused to suffer pain, shed blood, and prove that she is no-one's chattel but her new husband's, and therefore all is right with the world! Don't laugh, Diana was medically examined for virginity before her wedding to Charles could go ahead, a test Camilla could not have passed at the same age, much less by the time she married him herself.)
I really was a bit shocked, and more than a bit squicked, by the way the commentators in particular, and the print journalists afterwards, ceaselessly harped on The Kiss. They might as well have been shouting 'Give us the money shot!' But it seemed to me to go much deeper than that. Especially with the crowd. People are incredibly strange, she said profoundly.
At one point Camilla picked up her bridesmaid-granddaughter awkwardly under the arms and appeared to be about to dangle her over the balcony like Michael Jackson, which would have been far more interesting for journalists, you would have thought. And what are they going to do when Harry gets married? Encourage him to barf over the balcony onto the furry heads of the Grenadier Guards? (He looked as if he was going to, I thought, as he and William made their way towards the Abbey; he looked far more nervous than the groom, though it was probably just a hangover. And what's with the walk? Hasn't even the Army been able to teach Harry how to carry himself, or is it some sort of undiagnosed childhood hip wockiness?)
Speaking of Harry, I found this wonderful comment when, struck yet again by the total lack of physical similarity between the groom and his brother, I went image-googling and stumbled on this wonderful remark, by which I was completely convinced:
His glare/look is exactly the same of that of Prince Philip ... he does have that ‘I will tear you apart from limb to limb Mr Fox and drink your blood through a straw‘ look.Anyway. All theories about the Kiss weirdness gratefully considered. And in the meantime, if I have to look at other people's kisses then I might go with this one, thanks.
Would I trust Prince Harry to look after my Children’s pet rabbits and hamsters if we went away?
No I would not.
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19 comments:
Nice commentary PC. My friend in Germany said that the German media dug out statistics about the longest and shortest royal kisses and compared this one. Who collects this kind of stuff? I mean really, yes, you're right...people are strange.
Harry definitely doesn't have the long horse-face Windsor look, which raises all sorts of interesting questions . . . However he does seem to have the kind of walk they attribute to people who spend much of their day astride horses. Not sure if he's a polo nut like Dad, but the bandy legged cowboy swagger might suggest as much.
Re the much anticipated kiss. I think it might have summat to do with the Royals of yore never ever showing affection in public. Elizabeth R, most certainly did not kiss her prince on the balcony post nups, but the young Diana did, in front of squillions doing what her stuffy mother-in-law considered unthinkable and setting a precedent for the future marriages of immediate heirs.
You are right about Harry. First here's a shot where he looks like Charles anyway
http://www.sponkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/prince-harry6.jpg
Then if you look at the grandfather:
http://images.dailyexpress.co.uk/img/dynamic/10/285x214/35562_1.jpg
Compare it with the grandson
http://www.omgnews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Prince-Harry-for-GQ-UK-May-2011-DesignSceneNet.jpg
It becomes more apparent that he is all Mountbatten Windsor Gothe Saxe Coburg Gotha Tudor.
Have you read Jaqueline Rose on 'the Cult of Celebrity'? See: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n16/jacqueline-rose/the-cult-of-celebrity
I think she goes some way to considering aspects of this phenomenon, from a psychoanalytic perspective.
Thanks, Elisabeth. I've not read all that much Jacqueline Rose but I've admired what I have read, so will scamper after that link the next time I have a break from the apparently massive preparation it takes to have a dead fridge removed and a newborn fridge installed.
The public's focus on the kiss is just the fairly natural desire to impose common cultural norms on the royals, who are now subject to their subjects. You see the same over-romantic theatricality at regular weddings. The high profile of this one just takes it up to 11, if not 12.
"I will tear you apart from limb to limb Mr Fox and drink your blood through a straw"
She says that like it's a bad thing. That kind of look would have been a core competency for Harry's ancestors, and perhaps one of the reasons why they got to the top of the thugocracy pile in the first place.
Not only but also, in the vein of dynastic pendantry, Philip and his patrilineal descendants aren't of the house Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, renamed Windsor, or even "Mountbatten". They're members of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a cadet branch of the Danish royal house.
"Not only but also, in the vein of dynastic pendantry, Philip and his patrilineal descendants aren't of the house Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, renamed Windsor, or even "Mountbatten". They're members of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a cadet branch of the Danish royal house."
Oh pardon me for not getting it right on purpose. Always with your imperial evidence, Fjordor. (My new name for you, no particular reason). I mean, truly, what an impertinence to even know the royal line down to that detail.
WV: Pednest. What do you know? A nest of them. Imagine.
Heh! "Fjordor", me like - Mordor with water views.
WV = sottess. Remarque? J'en ai pas.
"Can someone out there more clued-up than I in the ways of psychoanalysis give me some sort of explanation of the hysterical hype about The Kiss on the balcony after The Wedding?
Are we all now so shaped by screen conventions and tropes that we think of a kiss as some sort of compulsory narrative climax?
Was it just porn in acceptable form?
Or was it a remnant of the days when newlyweds hung the bloody sheet out of the window the morning after the wedding?
And what are they going to do when Harry gets married?
And what's with the walk?
Hasn't even the Army been able to teach Harry how to carry himself, or is it some sort of undiagnosed childhood hip wockiness?)"
Oh God, one question at a time, puh-leeze.
I guess the kiss on the balcony, despite them shagging each other since their Uni days, has to do with the Grandma (RIP, played by Helena Bonham Carter) and her hubby (played by Colin Firth in a recent movie) kissing on the balcony and making public what would otherwise be a private occasion and hence giving rise to what Eric Hobsbawn called an "invented tradition". A bit like the ANZAC Day match between Collingwood & Essendon
Pining.
Sottess, c'est moi. Je bois la cognac, and about temps aussi.
I think you'll find the Anzac Day game is only an invented tradition if you're an Essendon fan.
Thing I find interesting /odd is within a decade two royal families have commoners as co-heirs to their thrones - Disraeli's middle classes have finally won. So perhaps the kisslust is both the George+Eliz tradition and our re-working of Cinderella.
I found the wedding riveting, although I hadn't planned to watch it, as I was reminded of all the Shakespeare plays I'd been to. Harry reminded me so much of a swaggering Shakespearian actor - but it was real - and it would have represented a real political THING just a few generations ago. It was weird, and fascinating on a sociological level.
Also, what Fyodor said about the thuggish thing. It was just so palpable that this represented real political clout just a couple of short centuries ago.
another aspect of the Kiss = the Grumpy Bridesmaid, who is going down in history, and will probably end with a needle in her arm because of it, poor thing. But she looks like that Putto print that's so popular.
"Je bois la cognac"
Brandy in the forest? Sorry, I'm lost here. But as Gomez Addams would say, I love it when you talk French
Anthony, no, brandy in the study, which is a fine place for it, n'est-ce pas? Bois: same word as the word for forest, different meaning when a verb. Boire, to drink: je bois, tu bois, il (elle) boit, nous buvons, vous buvez, ils boivent.
IIRC.
It was very telling the way the journalist in the street who the BBC studio kept cutting to, constantly referred to "the balcony scene".
However I have to disagree with you all re Harry. To me he's the dead spit of James Hewitt (not just the hair colour).
The maternal uncle who spoke at Diana's funeral is also a ranga so that doesn't mean much, but I do know what you mean. However, did you look at those links of Casey's? They are pretty conclusive, especially the first one where he has Charles' exact sad/resentful/worried/furtive look. (As distinct from the more usual limb, drink, blood, straw etc.)
Actually I've just had another look, and put the GQ cover of Harry and the pic of the young Philip side by side. Ears, jawline and chin are all practically identical. And the hairline as well, although the hair itself is different. Look at the limb, drink, blood, straw etc look on Philip even when young!
Poor Harry. I think that photo in the link above, where he looks just like Charles, is pretty conclusive.
When I was a child people often remarked that I looked like my mother, or my brother or my father. And yet I was adopted at birth.
I said the same thing to my sister-in-law, before I found out she was adopted too.
The moral of the story - people see what they want to see.
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