Royal Family, Part I: The Brits

By Pepper

Americans, particularly the middle classes, have always had a certain fondness for British royalty.

We love them so much that we put them on our magazine covers, celebrate their second marriages on the cable-news channels, and worry about the state of society if they dress in offensive costumes.

We love Diana so much that Houston has devoted an entire exhibit to her - at their Museum of Natural Science.

We love the royals so much that some Americans felt we had to have a royal family of our own. And we've got one - right down to a president who has ears exactly like Charles'.

(Wondering why we let this happen after the jump ...)

Driftglass and Jurassic Pork have scathingly brilliant descriptions of the upper crust that we have allowed to form on our American Pie. They eloquently describe the ignorant cruelties of our overprivileged leaders.

Why have we let this happen? How did we wind up with a royal court? (I've been calling them the Court of George II for some time.) Why weren't we satisfied with ordering commemorative 'People's Princess' plates from the Franklin Mint?

I think that in some instances we want to be them. In all of us is the dream and desire to be successful without working for it. Why else are game shows and lotteries so popular? Why is the story of Lana Turner being discovered at the soda fountain still passed down from generation to generation? Royalty is the ultimate example of those who were lucky enough to be born with all the world's riches at their fingertips. We want our leaders to be successful precisely because they didn't have to work for it.

If you had to work for success, like Clinton did, like Carter did, like John Edwards did, that success is somehow tainted. Working for something isolates you because your achievement is more yours. Hard work indicates its limits. Royalty indicates endless possibility. It is an achievement that you can't really share with the people.

These leaders might have respect, but they don't have mystique, the type of glamour or luck that might rub off on the proles.