For the past decade, our country has been obsessed with the celebrity couple du jour. First it was Bennifer (Lopez). Then Bennifer (Garner). Then Brangelina, TomKat, Vaughinston, Speidi, PatStew, the slightly creepy Swiftenhaal. And the newest celeb couple to hit the pages of Us Weekly: WillKat. Or is it Katilliam? British royal Prince William and his girlfriend of eight years, Kate Middleton, have taken the tabloid world by storm since they announced their engagement last week. But while to those of us only glimpsing at them from magazine covers while we wait on the supermarket checkout line this dazzling couple appears to be just another passing celebrity fad, to the Brits they represent the continuation of a centuries-old line of royalty, a real-life fairy tale in the making.
In England, Will-Kat has been a national sensation for the eight years they’ve been together, ever since they met at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland. But this intensely private pairing has stayed almost astonishingly under-the-radar stateside, garnering very little tabloid attention until their engagement. But now that they’re forced into the spotlight, Americans are confronted with constant media coverage of the first royal wedding since Charles and Diana almost thirty years ago. How have American perceptions of royals changed since then? Do Americans still care about the fairy tale of British royalty, or are Will and Kate just another celebrity couple? And how will this wedding change how we see the royal family? HC talked to American and British students, as well as Syracuse University professor and pop culture expert Robert Thompson, to find out.
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WillKat…the next Charles and Diana?
Will and Kate certainly aren’t the first royal couple to attract tabloid attention. Thirty years ago, Prince Charles and Princess Diana created a national obsession. Their fairy-tale wedding led to a nasty divorce, and eventually, to Diana’s tragic death in a car accident, making their marriage one of the most iconic — and infamous — in history. Robert Thomas remembers the media frenzy surrounding their 1981 nuptials: “It was an absolutely enormous affair…it was on every channel, everyone was talking about it, you could buy souvenirs…it had that whole medieval, even Cinderella-like, quality.”
But will Kate and Will be the next Charles and Diana? Thompson isn’t so sure. He says, “In the early 1980s there was still a sense that we could naïvely engage in this fairy-tale story of old-world royalty with a straight face. I’m not so sure this many years later that that will still be the case…for one thing, we know what happened to that fairy-tale wedding. That story went bad in so many different ways…I’m not sure we’re in the same cultural position as we were in 1981. “
In today’s more cynical culture, where anyone can be famous, and everyone’s private lives are fair game for Perez Hilton and TMZ, it’s a lot harder to imagine a Disney-fied happily ever after for the royal couple. But for us, it’s all brand new — after all, Charles and Diana got married before we were even born, and when Diana died the only news we followed was Nick News with Linda Ellerby. For girls of our generation, Kate and Will’s wedding might still seem like a Cinderella story. Kate was, after all, like Diana, and like Cinderella, a “commoner” swept off her feet by a prince and welcomed into the royal family.
Jaclyn, a junior at Cornell University, says, “William and Kate are a really huge deal to me. Theirs is the first royal wedding I’ll ever see, and I definitely have high expectations for their marriage. I never saw the last marriage fall apart, so to me their story is a fairy tale.”
However, this intense fascination was only partially echoed by the 50 college students polled by Her Campus. Most of the students polled (74%) seemed to be pretty indifferent to the British monarchy — but William and Kate have definitely piqued interest in the monarchy, as 48% of respondents noted they were really excited about the engagement.
One reason college students seem interested in this fairly tale is because Kate Middleton was just another co-ed, before she was swept off her feet by a prince.
“I love the fact that she is just a normal girl getting married to a prince,” one polled student exclaimed. “I think it sends a really good message to everyone that love has very little to do with status, money and where you came from and has more to do with the person you are on the inside.”
Her college education also makes her more relatable. Another student explained: “I think it’s really great because it means Kate will be the first queen to have a university degree! A great step up for ladies in the world.”
It seems that Americans remain at least somewhat fascinated by British culture: “There’s still a level of Anglophilia in this country,” Thompson explained. “To this day, when we hear a British accent, we assume the person is intelligent…we’re still fascinated by the culture of royalty and aristocracy that we presumably left behind when we crossed the Atlantic.”
What can we expect from the wedding?
Remember Chelsea Clinton’s wedding this summer? Super-secretive, held in rural Rhinebeck, NY, away from the prying eyes of paparazzi? Constant guesswork as to who was invited, who Chelsea was wearing, what Hillary was wearing, what Mark was wearing, what Bill was wearing…and almost no pictures of the actual event? As the daughter of one of the most politically powerful couples in America, Chelsea Clinton could arguably be seen as an American princess. But if you think her wedding was anything like a royal wedding in England, you have another thing coming.
Royal weddings are enormous national events, broadcast totally openly by the media. We already know the date and location (April 29 at Westminster Abbey, get your calendars out!) and we’ll be able to watch the entire thing on TV when the time comes, even across the Atlantic. Nothing is left to the imagination, and everything is on display for envious onlookers. As April approaches, we can probably expect the wedding mania to reach a fever pitch, not only in Britain but in America too.
Hilary, a University of Pennsylvania student from England who is currently abroad at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, comments on the national obsession and publicity already surrounding the couple: “They’ve already made the day of their wedding a national holiday, and the blue wrap dress Kate wore when they announced the engagement is already selling out all over the country. I can’t think of a couple in America whose wedding would generate this much widespread interest or media coverage!”
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Royals vs. Celebrities
But can we? What if Brangelina were to finally tie the knot? Would their wedding garner as much attention in America as the royal nuptials? American celebrities are our royals, after all, right?
Thompson doesn’t think so. He admits that celebrity culture is huge here in the states, but he says royals are a different idea entirely. “For Brits, the media has been following royals as voraciously as the American tabloids follow the most famous celebrities, but they see them totally differently. It’s their royals, their leaders, even if they don’t have real political power anymore…the idea of royals comes with a long history and tradition of nobility, and for Brits they’re much more important than celebrities.”
But just because Americans don’t have a royal tradition doesn’t mean they see Kate and Will as just another celebrity pair. We can get involved in the fantasy, too — possibly with even more naïveté, because we’re viewing them from across an ocean. Brittany Dreilbelbis, a student (and HC Campus Correspondent) at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland (where the pair met), notices that Americans there are just as excited about the wedding as Brits: “I don’t see a marked difference between the way Americans feel about the engagement versus the British reaction. Everyone is pretty excited about it here — the day they made the announcement St. Andrews was swarmed with TV presenters and newscasters, so it was thrilling for the Brits who are very proud of the Royals, and the Americans who find it very interesting as we don’t have anything similar in the States.”
So for British people, the wedding represents a continuation of a long royal tradition and a cause for national pride, while for Americans it’s a fascinating fairy tale. But either way, come April we’re sure to be glued to our TVs, no matter which country we’re watching from. As Thompson puts it, “Whether or not we’re interested in the story now, it will be such a big media event that Americans will be forced to pay attention.” Even if we’ve ignored their private and mostly scandal-free courtship for nine years, we’re about to get a whole lot of Kate and Will in our daily celebrity juice. Whether you’re already fantasizing about becoming Kate or you’d rather focus on Kim Kardashian, you just might have to get sucked into this Cinderella story. Start practicing your British accent!
Sources:
Jaclyn T., Junior at Cornell University
Brittany Dreibelbis, student at St. Andrew’s Univeristy
Robert Thompson, Syracuse University professor and pop culture expert
Hilary Greenwald, exchange student at the University of Edinburgh