12/10/2009 6:00 am
Culture
Liz Smith: Can England's Queen Elizabeth Command a Merry 'Private' Christmas?
Our Gossip Girl also asks: Can Jordan's Queen Rania command the protection of women? And can Chanel command Shanghai?
Queen Elizabeth II/Image: CC/Flickr
Let’s now try to follow some international news that is not just about Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Dubai and Iraq!
***
British Royals are fighting back! The Queen herself and her beleaguered grandsons, Prince William and Prince Harry, are now determined to take legal action against what reporter Andrew Alderson describes as "intrusive and unacceptable behavior."
As the Royals troop off to enjoy their traditional Christmas break at Sandringham, which is the Queen’s Norfolk estate, her aides say they will no longer put up with photographers lurking on the outskirts, using telephoto lenses. They are masterminding a new privacy strategy. (Prince William has been carefully studying privacy laws ever since he became old enough to consider the death of his mother while she was pursued by paparazzi. And he learned some bitter lessons about privacy when he was dating Kate Middleton. He has often threatened to take legal action.)
Here is a senior Buckingham Palace aide talking to the Sunday Telegraph: "Many years of being intruded upon have taken their toll. The Royal family feels they are entitled to a private life, particularly at Christmas."
***
Jordan’s elegant and popular Queen Rania serves as a fashion maven and also a human rights activist in her own country.
Queen Rania/Image: WhiteHouse.gov
She is determined to put an end to the honor killings that involve Jordanian women. But Jordan’s MPs have a lot of influence, perhaps more than their Royals. They show little enthusiasm for Queen Rania’s point of view. They claim she exaggerates the issue and some have blocked attempts to put up tough sentences for men who kill sisters and daughters for bringing "shame" on their families by being raped.
These men do not want to become a "westernized society." But the queen and king of Jordan are already "westernized." He went to Sandhurst and speaks perfect English. She is a user of Twitter and watches chick flicks with their children.
The government is now introducing a special tribunal to hear honor-killing cases. However, the laws are weak when it comes to punishment for these killings. Women have been attacked for merely talking to a stranger. One brother killed his sister after she had been given a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
***
Chanel is the talk of the fashion world after opening its first fashion show in Shanghai where the Karl Lagerfeld extravaganza happened with film shown on buildings of the skyline as the audience sat atop a giant glass box on top of a barge in the Huangpu River. The Chanel boutique in the Peninsula Hotel was hot, hot, hot.
Karl Lagerfeld/Image: Wikipedia
Chanel flashed its name in black and white lights up on the walls of the Aurora skyscraper. There was a short film, "Paris Shanghai: A Fantasy," in which designer Lagerfeld imagines Coco Chanel traveling to China and swapping her couture jacket for a Chairman Mao jacket back in the ’60s. The Chinese laughed heartily at this. They also enjoyed seeing film that purported to be of Chanel herself in gambling dens and nightclubs of the ’20s and ’30s. She was accompanied by the Duchess of Windsor and Marlene Dietrich. Lagerfeld showed one little red dress that was clearly a takeoff on Mao’s Little Red Book. Suits in jade green or Chinese red were accessorized with thigh-high boots in shiny Oriental lacquer.
Chanel opened in Beijing ten years ago, but this is the fastest-growing market in the world and it is expanding as China expands. Chanel’s new boutique in Shanghai was sold out of the limited-edition red handbags made just for this mysterious city and they cost almost $5,000 apiece. (Reporter Justine Picardie notes that this was happening in a city where the average monthly wage is a measly 2,000 yuan – $293 American dollars.)
- Email this Post
- login or register to post comments
11 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I saw the clip yesterday about the Queen’s new decree. I think it is wonderful and yes she can indeed command this. We’re talking about photogs….photogs who are encroaching on their right to have private moments because of all the new fangled equipment that has been developed to get a the closest shot of a subject.
They have a right to privacy. We aren’t talking about keeping important national information from the masses, we are talking about photos of family members in swimsuits, or kissing and holding hands, or taking a dip in the ocean on vacation…. the British public doesn’t NEED to see these photos they simply WANT to. There is a distinct difference.
Even if the Queen files the suit and wins, I doubt it will stop the paparazzi. As long as the photographs are saleable to tabloids or whomever, the photographers will continue to hide in the shrubbery and use whatever lens they choose.
What would be the penalty for violating an ordinance prohibiting the taking of photographs of the Royals while off duty? Whatever it is, it will not be large enough to stop the paparazzi. They make their living by snapping pictures of the Royal Family and they have shown little reticence about invading the privacy of any celebrity, including the Queen.
I completely sympathize with the royals on the privacy issue. I know that when in the public venue, one cannot expect privacy, and I know the arguments about "public figures," but there should be a hard line that the paparazzi cannot cross, both for safety and just for plain old human dignity.
I am sooooo glad that I am anonymous.
Kudos to Queen Rania of Jordan for her public stance against honor killings. Yet another cultural phenomenon masquerading under the aegis of "religion." The Quran does NOT call for killing women who "dishonor" their families; it calls for 100 lashes for both the man AND the woman guilty of fornication/adultery. And anyone who accuses a woman of fornication is supposed to produce four witnesses or suffer the lash themselves, for "these are the transgressors."
I say pip-pip for the Royals and their straightforward request to enjoy their hols in privacy. Everyone, no matter how famous and public, needs to have some truly private moments with family and friends. These are the moments that help us all to relax, forget the everyday cares, and recharge ourselves. And for Princes William and Harry, the bitterness of losing their mother in part due to her pursuit by a pack of paparazzi, it must be especially bitter to be stalked by telephoto lenses and shouting, shoving photogs looking to make a fast buck from the tabloids.
I hope, too, that the admirable Queen Rania will succeed in making a change in the culture that abides the very notion of "honor killings" - and if you ever needed an example of an oxymoron, that’s it! It is simply not good enough for male politicians in Jordan to claim their culture must be protected from becoming too "westernized", and using that idea as an excuse to go soft when sentencing perpetrators of such killings. This is a misogynistic, wrongheaded, cruel and barbarous suppression of women, plain and simple. It is a means to ensure that a malecentric society continues unabated, and uninterrupted by pesky women demanding such outrages as "rights and representation". Brava, Rania, and only by speaking out can any progress be made in sending this benighted custom back to the dark ages from whence it came.