Is it news? Is it entertainment? A fairy tale or a state affair?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/04/2011 (5637 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Once remote monarchs, members of the British royal family are now scrutinized celebrities, a fact never more clear than when they decide to get hitched.

If the average wedding is both a personal expression of love and a public affirmation of commitment, then royal nuptials are that and more. Classified as a “semi-state occasion,” William and Kate’s wedding has combined aspects of the march of history, the red-carpet spectacle, the organizational nightmare and the knees-up party, with just a bit of prime-time soap thrown in.

The hybrid nature of the wedding reflects the contradictory status of royalty in the modern era of mass-media infotainment. The British royals are now expected to be down to earth but above the fray, accessible but not over-sharey, well-behaved but still scandalously entertaining. The Queen, of course, just carries on, but her heirs seem to be struggling with an identity crisis.

The media has been struggling, too, trying to find a consistent tone. Should their approach be solemn and reverential or gushy and gossipy? Is the royal romance hard news or whimsical fairy tale? Are William and Kate dignitaries or pop stars or characters in a Regency romance novel?

Some outlets have been taking a quasi-journalistic line, sending reporters who are more accustomed to covering civil wars and tsunamis to parse issues of seating arrangements and ladies’ hats. You could see some of these veterans clutching desperately at actual political issues — the fact that the Syrian ambassador was abruptly uninvited, for instance — before sinking reluctantly back into fun and frippery.

The awkwardness of this strategy could be seen last week in a self-spoofing video in which Anderson Cooper received pre-wedding etiquette tips — no fist-bumping the queen! — while categorically refusing to wear a morning suit. Cooper seemed a little embarrassed by the whole thing.

Other media coverage gave up on any semblance of real reporting, jettisoning facts in favour of myth. The most popular storyline focused on Kate Middleton as the “commoner who would be queen,” though the way some commentators went on about it you’d think she rose up from a Dickensian slum rather than the prosperous upper-middle classes.

The drawback to this approach is that the last “fairy-tale wedding” — that of William’s parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer — had a very unfortunate ending. The mythmakers still couldn’t resist the Diana-Kate parallels, with TV specials and websites offering side-by-side comparisons of William’s mother and his bride-to-be in different outfits, all converging on that supposedly ill-fated engagement ring. (Aside from the creepy Oedipal connotations, this seems a bit rude. Shouldn’t we let Will and Kate honeymoon before we start predicting their future?)

Finally, the most bizarre media interpretation of the royal couple might have been last Sunday’s Lifetime movie, which was “inspired by true events” but filmed entirely in Los Angeles. Turning William and Kate into cute, completely banal characters, it was like an episode of Dawson’s Creek with fake-posh accents.

Of course, reducing the young couple to royal bores will seem harmless enough once the post-wedding press crackdown begins. Time enough for that later.

For now, let’s just wish them well. Kate and William very kindly invited everybody to their wedding. (Well, everybody except the Syrian ambassador and former British prime minister Tony Blair and his non-curtsying wife, Cherie.) And whatever your attitude to the modern monarchy might be, the only proper way to attend a wedding — in the Abbey or in front of the telly — is with a glad heart and a good hat.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca