Has the Dianaisation of Britain changed the country for the better?
12:13pmThe new issue of the always excellent Prospect has a great debate between Andrew Marr and Joan Smith about whether the mass emotionalism that followed Diana’s death, and is now a regular part of our national life, is a good thing or not.
Andrew Marr argues that thanks to it:
"We are a more relaxed and more emotionally healthy people than we used to be, and the “Diana moment,” for all its weirdness and excess, marked this change. It was a telling national catharsis, and the moment too when “holding it all in” was no longer seen as a virtue.
I like what we have become. I like the footballers’ hugs, and the rude musical girl power of Lily Allen, and the disrespect for unearned authority, and the fact that gay people can amble around the centre of our cities unconcernedly.”
While Joan Smith counters that to her the very public grief for Diana
“looked much less benign, an abrupt shift in which the shock waves from the death legitimised not just being in touch with your emotions but a kind of emotional exhibitionism. I’ve sometimes thought that Diana’s death was the first in a series of coercive moments in which we are told what the national mood is—sorrow, joy, anger, triumph—and that we’d bloody well better join in with it. The link I’d make here isn’t to Mediterranean or indeed middle eastern culture, where grief and celebration have always been performed much more publicly, but to Big Brother and the whole phenomenon of “reality” television. If Diana were alive today, do you really think she would be able to resist an invitation to appear in the next series of Celebrity Big Brother?”
What do you think?
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Comments
Traditional Tory
July 26th, 2007 12:37pmNo, no and no again
CG
July 26th, 2007 12:45pmAndrew Marr seems a bit desperate to get down with da kids, doesn't he? How embarrassing.
Michael McGowan
July 26th, 2007 1:03pmI prefer Joan Smith's take on the whole thing. My recollections are of mandatory mob grief where the "done thing" was to weep for someone who none of us really knew. In a curious way, this new form of socially-approved behaviour was very 1950's: it was being orchestrated from the top and of course Westminster Abbey was heaving with the New Establishment, led by its icons-in-residence such as Elton John and Blair. People of Marr's generation (the one before mine) are always very preoccupied with how "relaxed" Britain has become. In some senses it has and I do not pine for the fifties. But in some cases Britain is as hidebound as ever. In the fifties, being actively homosexual, having sex before marriage and using soft drugs were criminal offences and/or actively frowned on. Nowadays, the New Puritans have virtually made such activities compulsory and football has become the State Religion. I enjoy both sex and football but whatever happened to freedom to choose?
JH
July 26th, 2007 3:04pmThe mourning of Diana was not spontaneous - It was characterised by a bullying sentimentality which led to aggressive criticism of those who did not wish to join in the compulsory wailing and gnashing of teeth. The obvious example was the gruesome 'Show-us-you-care-Ma'am' attitude of the tabloids.
Graeme Stewart
July 26th, 2007 3:20pmOne point of interest was that the further North you went the less noticeable was the public grieving. This was confirmed in that there was surge in newspaper sales but this is also reduced as you went North. I think it was primarily a SE/Mid England phenomena orchetrated by the great Shyster TB and these people were happy to wallow in their pseudo grief. As to bullying I recollect that Glasgow Rangers were to play on the day of the funeral. However the tabloids went into their full mock outrage mode and the game was eventually postponed. The vast majority of the fans were rather puzzled. What had happened was the death of young woman and Mother which was a personnal family tragedy and people (in Scotland) sympathised but grieved, no.
CG
July 26th, 2007 3:48pmAll rugby league matches went ahead that day, and the RFL got pilloried for it. All tney were doing was offering entertainment to people who didn't want to be restricted to mourning by carpet bomb on the TV channels, yet the main sports writer on the Daily Mail, compared them unffavourable with their RFU counterparts and spoke of their 'everlasting shame' or some such nonsense.
EyeSee
July 26th, 2007 5:02pmOn the day of the funeral I went down to the edge of the M1 to watch the cortege go past on the way to Northants. It was surreal in many ways; the wait, the mass of police vehicles acting as escort. I had taken a camera, but couldn't bring myself to use it as the cars went past, rather I found myself bowing my head. At no time did I feel the need to applaud either. One other thing I think shows the stupidty that comes from the centre just as surely as Blairs ten years of laws and edicts; a policewoman in a traffic car was zooming up and down the carriageway telling people to get off the hard shoulder. The motorway was shut you stupid woman! But there she was, trying to enforce normal rules in an abnormal situation, so completely was she unable to think for herself. There is a kind of conditioning seeping into us all, caused by centralised, nanny state socialism, which takes away any abilty to do anything for ourselves. It is why Labour are so keen on speed cameras; it is an area where we are allowed to make too many of our own decisions, driving, that they seek any way possible to limit it. Well, that and the tax it raises (the fact they cause accidents rather than prevent them is irrelevant to the implementation of ideology).
Lee Jakeman
July 26th, 2007 11:11pmI was working on the day of Diana's funeral. On the way to work, the train was full of Diana funeral-goers. I remember vividly how shallow and pathetic they were. Most of their commentary was about what a "scumbag" Prince Charles was - an emotional aspect of the event that didn't seem to filter through to the newspapers.
Cicero
July 28th, 2007 10:25amIt has not just allowed all the bleeding hearts to hold sway over the community, but also inflicted upon us the wretched spectacle of such poseurs who want to be seen as "more grieving than thou".
Perry
July 28th, 2007 8:44pmThe death was an early and convenient vehicle for NooLayba gush and piffle. Emotional incontinence is now an accepted, - and highly profitable, - part of *normal* life.