By Steve Rhodes
There’s no rule that says media coverage of the royal wedding has to be so approving.
In fact, the principles of journalism dictate just the opposite. We should be outraged – and our coverage should reflect that.
We should be offended by the continuing existence of a monarchy; by the absurdity of a royal family; by the elitism, sexism, and outright falsities projected by the media managers carefully cultivating cliched narratives for the masses to lap up.
A modern fairy tale? More like a modern nightmare.
I mean, my God.
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And really, are there many people more insufferable – and despicable – than people like this who think they are so specially chosen by God as to qualify as royalty?
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“The media refuses to examine where England’s ‘Royal’ family got their wealth: from the blood and resources of Indigenous Peoples,” Censored News notes. “Instead, the media wants the world to celebrate this opulence, greed and genocide.”
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“On Friday 29 April the people of Britain will be invited to participate in the joyful celebration of the marriage of Mr. William Windsor and Ms. Katherine Middleton,” Alan Woods writes. “At the same time that the government is cutting billions from unnecessary extravagances such as hospitals, schools, teachers, nurses, the old and the sick, the unemployed and single parents, the Coalition has had the good sense to spend a lot of money on something as essential to the Public Good as the nuptials of Willy and Kate.”
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“At the wedding, the Archbishop of Canterbury declared the ceremony for Princess Elizabeth was ‘exactly the same as it would be for any cottager who might be married this afternoon in some small country church,'” Kitty Kelley wrote in The Royals. “The differences: the twelve wedding cakes at the royal reception, including one nine feet high that Philip cut with his sword, 2,666 wedding presents, including a Thoroughbred horse, a mink coat, a 54-four carat pink diamond said to be one of its kind in the world, and a plantation and a hunting lodge in Kenya.”
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“Kelley provides a hilarious account of Princess Margaret’s difficulties with political correctness, especially when it necessitates being polite to Irish, Jewish or dusky persons,” Christopher Hitchens wrote in his review of Kelley’s book. “And an early, non-gossipy chapter is particularly enlightening on the Windsors’ attempt to live down – actually to conceal – their German connection and some of its more embarrassing ramifications. How lucky they were that Hitler bombed Buckingham Palace, enabling them to rehabilitate their image as well as their home from the damage.”
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I could go on, you get the point. The royal family being celebrated today is a hateful, bigoted, delusional bunch. (Hitchens: “Even if, before reading The Royals, you thought that it was a good idea to pick your head of state from the gene pool of just one family, you would close the book realizing that to fish from this particular pool was a deeply serious mistake.”)
Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
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Oh what the hell. Let’s keep going.
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“In Naperville, It’s Hats Off To The Royal Couple.”
Close, Naperville. Next time, though, let’s make it “Heads Off.”
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Um, hate to break it to everybody, but the Middletons are super wealthy.
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Really, Sun-Times?
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Coming Tomorrow: Another Fairy Tale Makeover.
Mancow Is (Still) A Birther
And other tales from the Manchurian front.
Cooking For Kyle Korver
A Paleo Diet for Sensational Shooting.
Where Books Are Going
Someplace very cool.
The Week in Chicago Rock
They played at a venue near you – especially if you live by the Empty Bottle.
The Week in WTF
Pfleger, Oprah, Trump, the Round Lake police, and a tiny Indiana governor.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Common carrier.
Posted on April 29, 2011