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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Royal Wedding Hype

Yes, when I was seven years old, my sisters and I sat plastered to the TV watching Diana marry Charles. I don't remember getting up exceedingly early to do this. I suspect we watched the rerun version on the major networks. We absolutely loved it and spent years reenacting every detail in games of dress-up and pretend.

I love a lot of things about the Brits, like they do have the better flag, and tea time, Charlotte Bronte and Dickens, dang good fish and chips, Cadbury machines in the Metro stations, martinis and so on. They also have a frickin' lot of mushy peas with everything, and other than the fish and chips and any other menu item brought in by immigrants or citizens of former colonies, I can't say the Anglo-Saxon nations are exactly known for their food.

But they do have royalty, and we do not. I mean, that's kind of the point of America. We were founded on notions of religious freedom and being anti-royalty and anti - the accompanying class system (not that we were very successful on avoiding that last one). And while I know the Royal family has fallen out of favor with a good chunk of the British population, I can't say I have much of an opinion on them.

So as the Royal Wedding hype has circled around, from friends touting the Royal Wedding Blog, or other friends flying to London just for the event, or others saying they just don't give a damn, I've felt a bit like that a  middle school pre-teen faced with peer pressure - is this a bandwagon I want to jump on?

I've hesitated, remaining curious, but not wanting to get swept away by the hype- as I sit with child, with a certain degree of anxiety of if it's a girl, how do I raise her and not get overwhelmed by all the pink and princess crap - it's even invaded Sesame Street. What if I can't find shoes that don't have glitter on them? Will I be like other moms of girls that I see on the playground, reading Peggy Orenstein's  Cinderella Ate My Daughter on a park bench, while their pink sequined off-spring skips about with a tiara on her head and demanding some poor innocent boy child to be her frog? If I have a girl, how many princess dress-up costumes am I going to have to make?

I love fairy tales and mythology. Fairy tales with their happily ever endings and their dark under bellies of dungeons and histories were my first choice subject of study in grad school for English Lit, but I like these stories firmly between the two covers of a book. When they seep into the mentality of girls who think they don't have to work hard or push themselves intellectually because they'll simply marry well, or will just grow up to be a princess just like Kate did or grown single women who view themselves as "less than" simply because they haven't gotten married, I start to have a problem with fairy tales and princess endings.

While keeping in mind, that I loved watching the Royal Wedding of my childhood, and that a certain degree of make believe and pretend is fine and healthy, and even keeping in mind that I do love that the Queen always wears a hat and that she makes her own tea for tea time, I don't know how to reconcile these simple loves with the explosion of pink princess that has splattered into the socialization of little girls.

But Kate Middleton? I can't help it. I like her. And I love that this wedding isn't so fairy tale - that Kate and William have known each other and even lived together (gasp!) almost 8 years. Granted, once she marries, her primary goal is the same as every other woman who marries into the family and that is to reproduce (but at least her in-laws are honest about it. Many in-laws act nice when really they're just interested in your womb and its potential and how soon they'll see the fruition of that potential). Still.

So will I get up hours before sunrise to gallop into the city for an elaborate celebration in some fancy hotel with bunting and clotted cream and tea to watch the Royal Wedding?

No.

But when I do get up, will I enjoy the scones and clotted cream I made the day before and Google images for Kate Middleton's dress and flowers?

Abs-a-frickin-lutely.

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