By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com
The Royal Wedding Reality Show
I confess to having an unseemly fascination for the media hoopla around the upcoming nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Aside from the undeniable fact that William is slowly morphing physically into his father while Harry has officially become the Hot One (who saw that coming?), the Royal Family’s use of internet technology around this whole thing just feels weird.
The British royals always feel to me about as old school as old school can be, and yet here they are, with an official web page, plans to live stream (and live blog!) the wedding online, and the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, talking about the importance of the upcoming nuptials on YouTube.
Actually, I’m not making fun of that video … I like what he has to say about marriage, and about how “to be a witness is more than to be a spectator.”
When Prince William was born back in 1982, my friends and I were at the water park in Oklahoma City, and they actually interuppted the piped in pop music to announce his birth. The birth of a prince was officially a Big Deal, even in Oklahoma.
I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like, to have to grow up with the weight of a country on your shoulders, the world watching your every move, waiting for you to screw up, scrutinizing your face for streaks of tears at your mother’s funeral. Nor can I imagine what it must be like to be Kate Middleton, finally marrying William after years of tabloid media following their every move. The royal family may be loaded, and Kate will ride to her wedding in the fabled glass carriage, but marrying a prince doesn’t come without a cost. Her life will never be her own again.
This whole thing is just weird, isn’t it? And yet, no doubt I will be watching, because it’s an historic moment and all that. Will you?