Comments on: A note on Diana and “The Queen”

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:07:00 +0000

I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100% regarding at Hugo Schwyzer, but it’s just my opinion, which could be wrong :)

By: redtown

redtown — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:13:57 +0000

The one character not developed in the film was Diana herself. While she remains the icon of superficial popular culture, it was a very different Diana — behind the facades of glamour and pseudo-compassion — whom the Royal family knew personally.

Both Diana and her brother, Charles Spencer, suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder caused by their mother’s abandoning them as young children. A google search reveals that Diana is considered a case study in BPD by mental health professionals.

For Charles Spencer, BPD meant insatiable sexual promiscuity (his wife was divorcing him at the time of Diana’s death). For Diana, BPD meant intense insecurity and insatiable need for attention and affection which even the best husband could never fulfill.

From a BPD perspective, it’s clear that the Royal family did not cause her “problems”. Rather, she brought her multiple issues into the marriage, and the Royal family was hapless to deal with them.

Her illness, untreated, sowed the seeds of her fast and unstable lifestyle, and sadly, her tragic fate.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 05:20:09 +0000

Jay, who the hell were the 2 million people in London for the funeral? All Yanks on vacation? Who wrapped a line around Carlisle Cathedral to sign the condolence book, and left millions of flowers? Who filled Durham cathedral full to the rafters the night after she died? Tourists from Texas? Not quite.

Dude, I’m a British citizen too, and I was there for it — what I saw was an extraordinary outpouring of genuine emotion. And it seemed to me, judging from friends and relatives in Britain, that those who were genuinely moved outnumbered those who watched with a certain academic fascination.

By: Jay

Jay — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:30:17 +0000

I mus point out that actually a majority of Britons didn’t and don’t care very much about Diana’s death. We were interested in the reaction to it, as it was sociologically fascinating - from where did this sudden display of collective, ostentatious, supposedly compulsory mourning spring? But “kind posh girl dies in car crash; foul play suspected” isn’t really epoch-defining… Surely Americans caring about it is just misguided Anglophilia?

By: Hekie

Hekie — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:24:27 +0000

It’s not just England that her death affected, but a number of the Commonwealth countries or those with British ties. Diana’s death was a huge deal here in New Zealand, too, and I feel the same as Hugo in that it was of a similar impact to September 11th. In some ways it was actually bigger.

By: myste

myste — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 23:11:05 +0000

i have been really looking forward to seeing that film and now my interest is renewed. i remember diana’s death vividly. my mother and i were on a road trip up the california coast the weekend before school started back up. we had been roughing it and camping out of our car and had no contact with the rest of the world till we stopped for gas and my mom came out of the mini-mart saying “princess di died”

at the time we talked about how monumental her death was and how we couldnt think of another woman at the time who was more beloved by the general populus and who’s death would be more widely mourned, “except mother teresa” my mom said. a few days later she died too and unfortunately was largely overshadowed and all but forgotten about in the wake of diana’s death.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 22:02:29 +0000

Diana’s death was huge for me too…surprising since I was only 17 at the time. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to watch her funeral. And I’m just a typical American. No British passport here.

By: wolfa

wolfa — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:16:49 +0000

I suspect it has to do with being in England — and your closer ties to England. My events are, unsurprisingly, heavily Canadian. Number 2 for me is the Quebec referendum, for instance — something which I doubt makes your top 100.

I think it makes sense for it to be in the top few for any individual person. I thought then — and think now — that it was silly and offensive to say that it would be the defining (or one of the very few) event for an entire generation. (I know you didn’t say it in this post.)

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:38:40 +0000

Hey, I remember the space shuttle (I was a frosh at Cal in 1986); I remember the shootings of Reagan and the pope; I remember the Gulf War. The 2000 Florida election, the Northridge Earthquake — no other event was so singularly impacting as Diana’s death. Perhaps it was because I was in England, and perhaps it was because I had had that early adolescent crush on the princess. But with the exception of 9/11, it stands alone as an event.

By: carlaviii

carlaviii — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:13:13 +0000

Diana’s death as the big event of a generation? Got to disagree. Yes, there will always be big events that everyone will remember exactly where they were when they heard (like 9/11)… but Diana’s death, tragic as it was, didn’t make that big of an impression on me. The first such event, for me (and I’m an X, FWIW) was the explosion of the Space Shuttle shortly after takeoff.

Somehow, I didn’t see the video footage of that until the 10th anniversary… and it broke my heart all over again.