| April 28th, 2011 |
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Prompted by Chas coming across yet another instance of anti-redhead prejudice from a British source:
I can't help but feel that Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia could never have been half so successful in politics in the UK.
What odds a "ginger" Prime Minister over there?
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"If you're in the public eye, that's the price you've gotta pay."
This was the comment made by one person responding to the decision by Clarence House that footage of Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding may not be used for purposes of satire.
That's all well and good, dude, but there's two points worth considering here, in my view:
Firstly, that though their positions come with great attendant privilege that can be seen to offset much of the onerous duty of royalty (seriously, an awful lot of what they do is horribly tedious at best), being "in the public eye" is not something any member of the royal family had a choice about. They were born famous.
And secondly, while public scrutiny is inevitable, while they have to accept all sorts of things, there are certain things which shouldn't be public domain for mockery. Weddings are on that list, especially when the satirists in question are the Chaser, who, much as I love their work in general - and I do - occasionally do cross the line of "inappropriate".
Miss Middleton is wearing the engagement ring formerly worn by the late Diana, erstwhile Princess of Wales. Some people have commented negatively on this, apparently being unaware that it's not a hugely uncommon thing for a young man to present his future bride with his mother's engagement ring - it's bordering on traditional.
Do I trust the Chaser not to use this kind of thing for cheap jokes? No, I really don't. And for some reason people have a depressing tendency, when it comes to Diana, to forget that, leaving aside all else about her and her life, she was the mother of two boys who were children when she died.
I don't know about the rest of you, but if I were getting married, actually, I wouldn't want that to be someone's vehicle for comedy, especially if that comedy were premised largely on mocking my entire family, up to and including my dead mother.
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