Ten years on and people are still dwelling on Diana
I turned on my TV today for the first time in about three weeks. I flicked through a few channels and somehow found my way to Fox News, where a groundbreaking documentary about Diana, Princess of Wales, was being butchered by Geraldo.
“Ten years on, why do people still care?” mused Geraldo. I really couldn’t tell you. I don’t know how people reacted to Princess Diana’s death in Thailand, but in the UK it was as if somebody had dropped a nuclear bomb in the middle of London. I woke up one morning and turned on my television – all the TV stations were covering the same thing. At first I thought somebody important was getting married because they were replaying clips of Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles.
I asked my mum where my usual Sunday-morning shows were and she told me that Princess Diana had died. I shrugged and turned on the radio. The whole country was in mourning! To this day it still bewilders me just how much Diana’s death affected people, not just in Britain, but around the world.
While Diana did a lot of high-profile charity work, which is commendable in its own way, so did Mother Teresa, whose death a week after Diana’s was practically eclipsed. Fox News won’t touch a story about the life and times of Mother Teresa because there is nothing in it that can be sensationalized.
In the case of Diana, there are pundits and old friends and people who saw her in Tesco a few times testifying that she was murdered in a conspiracy plot thrown together by the Palace, MI5 or any number of other groups. Fox News is too liberal with its references to people not wanting Diana to marry a Muslim. I don’t believe Diana would be killed for this reason and it’s silly to dwell on this matter.
Would you believe that some people actually made a case for Diana to be made a saint after her death? For the love of God – why? Next Friday will be 10 years to the day after Diana’s death. Can’t we lay this one to rest without making it into an X-File?
Techno’ tags: Princess Diana
August 26th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I think people grieve over Diana because she was a beautiful princess, and an imperfect one at that, and she brought humanity to an otherwise cold monarchy.
And the way she died was sudden, tragic, controversial, and even scandalous. I don’t think people would have reacted nearly as emotionally if she had slowly succumbed to cancer or something.
My mother worked with Mother Theresa, and I do remember feeling that her death was somewhat overshadowed by Diana’s, but I think it’s because Mother Theresa was old and lived a full, giving, and non-controversial life. Although now they’re trying to sensationalize her life because, apparently, she was a human being:
LINK
August 26th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
You say THAT was an over-reaction? I can see a far bigger bombshell in the future, not in England but somewhere else and when it happens, I don’t want to be around.
Hope you get what I’m trying to say?
August 26th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I think it will be an interesting time for us bloggers!
August 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
maybe this is anal - but I think the word ‘liberal’ should not be used anywhere near ‘Fox news’. Perhaps‘fascist, polarizing, cultural relativist, wanting the clash of civilizations for media ratings’ but not liberal. It concerns me 1,000,000X more than a nice natured blonde woman who married into a German family dying in a car accident, that the word liberal is now associated with its total antithesis and people don’t bother questioning what it (liberal) means.
August 26th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I just meant that they were referring to it too much. But I see what you mean.
August 26th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
It is merely a way to capitalise on the story by the media.
I wonder what would happen if one of Geraldo’s dead family got mercilessly hammered by the press; that could be more engrossing.
August 27th, 2007 at 4:05 am
quote lost boy: “the princess of whales”???
August 27th, 2007 at 4:35 am
Hahahahaha. That’s too funny. Better edit that one. Lol.
August 27th, 2007 at 4:38 am
Check this out. Hahaha.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:56 am
The same way they have a shrine at Graceland and a skydiving troupe called the “Flying Elvises” …
August 29th, 2007 at 1:24 am
I think it will be an interesting time for us bloggers!
very strange comment. did you really get what was ‘red and white’ trying to say?
August 29th, 2007 at 1:39 am
and feel free to delete my comment. i don’t want throw attention on that little moment when you didn’t see the bigger picture.
may you should delete yours too.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:14 am
I got exactly what he was trying to say. I think it will be highly interesting to see how bloggers deal with the situation and read people’s responses to it. Is that so hard to understand?
August 29th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Leave it now you people!
I know what you mean. I just pretended I didn’t see.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:28 am
Yes, enough said.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:43 am
A girl in my high school near Seattle in the USA flew to London just to be there for the funeral procession.
Whatever for I will never understand. The local weekly paper devoted a special section to her trip.