I think I've seen this film before
Four different women, one eerily similar plot line.
Four different women, one eerily similar plot line.
This article is opinion.
The Queen is dead. A hot new bombshell - in King Charles III - has entered the villa.
And the Elizabethan era of a press that showed deference to the Crown is long gone, what the monarchy needs now to survive a republican uprising are characters to make headlines and win hearts.
However while the King should have main character energy, Charles is boring.
The women of his new court are the cultural catnip.
Sexist? Absolutely. Like that time Karl Stefanovic wore the same suit for a year and no one noticed, women - royally adjacent ones - have universal appeal. What they wear, their new hair styles, their side hustles and public appearances are all analysed and opined on at length.
But they must play a role. One cannot be unique. It's still a sport of royal watchers to build women up only to tear them down, or vice versa.
Look at the Camilla Parker-Bowles turned Camilla, Queen Consort narrative arc and Meghan - saviour of the Monarchy to Judas in just a few short years.
But persona not personality is paramount in this new series of The Monarchy.
All the world's a stage and the royals know this more than anyone considering they've been entertained by Shakespeare himself.
This is why Meghan Markle has been softly cast as the Princess Diana for a new generation.
And the artist formerly known as Kate Middleton/Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, now the new Princess of Wales, is the Camilla.
Markle is a celebrity, not a philanthropist. It's the former gig that sees her assume the role of the glamourous, vivacious Princess Diana. Diana in her latter years when she broke free of The Firm, wore revenge dresses and walked over landmines in front of the cameras.
She leads with her heart, not her head, much like Diana did. Which endears her to some, and riles up others.
Before Meghan sat down with Oprah, Diana did the "royal tell all" first.
In 1995 she sat down with Martin Bashir of the BBC in a bombshell interview where she:
- admitted to also having an affair
- said Prince Charles's relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles (now his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall) had made her feel worthless
- spoke of there being "three of us" in the marriage
- said she had had bulimia and self-harmed
- suggested Prince Charles might not be able to adapt to being king
- said Prince Charles's staff were waging a campaign against her
An investigation last year found Bashir deceived Diana and lied to the BBC in order to land and air the damaging chat that was watched by 20 million people.
The Queen then practically begged Charles and Diana to get divorced, which they did later that year.
Meghan, unlike her late mother-in-law, had a life before Harry and has found it hard to adjust, just like the young, virgin bride Diana Spencer did.
So much so they quit the show and moved for a "quieter life" in California. She is similar to Diana in the way she knows how to play a role and play the media. It doesn't always come off and the abuse and criticism she copped, and continues to do so, is indicative of the old Diana v Camilla feud of yesteryear.
Except this iteration of Diana has been cast as the baddie. News on Tuesday the Sussexes are still planning on publishing their "tell all" book in November, despite the Queen's death and the two couples seemingly reuniting for a hot minute, have flared up the public and PR scrutiny again.
As India Knight wrote in The Times of London: "People want fairytales, happy endings, goodies and baddies. As soon as news of Charles’s infidelity was made public Diana was cast, in part by herself, as a monstrously wronged saint-martyr, and Camilla as a witch without morals, a wicked enchantress with no care for anything other than her own base lust."
Camilla is the bad girl come good. It just took more than 50-odd years of slander, ridicule and character assassination to get here. But she stuck around despite it all.
Love 'eh.
"Camilla has gone from wicked witch to happy ever after," Knight wrote.
While Charles and Diana split for good in '95, so too did Camilla and her husband, army officer Andrew Parker Bowles.
Ten years later - 34 years after first meeting at a party and hitting it off - Charles and Camilla got married. There was no pomp, no pageantry, just a small civil service followed by a reception where the Queen, finally, toasted the couple who were destined to be together all along.
“They have overcome Becher’s Brook and The Chair [fences at Aintree] and all kinds of other terrible obstacles. They have come through and I’m very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves,” The Queen said.
When Charles was entering his 30s he was advised against pursuing a relationship with her and instead married the beautiful, naive, 19-year-old Diana due to (an unspoken) royal decree the heir to the throne needs a hot wife.
Camilla - like Charles - loves dogs, horses and being in the country.
Diana loved Duran Duran, parties, dancing and was keen on doing more for controversial subjects of her day like the AIDS epidemic. Issues the royal family back then avoided for fear of being too "political".
During a televised interview following their engagement in 1981 Charles and Diana were asked if they were in love.
"Of course," a coy Diana said.
"Whatever love means," was Charles' reply.
It was doomed, no one wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the castle.
Kate - despite having a Diana aura with her glossy hair, impossibly small waist and impeccable style - is the Camilla.
The enduring, stoic "staid" of not only William but the modern royals. The one, dignified presence during #megxit, and during the Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein saga.
A woman who appears to be a grounding force for the future King after persisting for years - more than 20 of them - with snide commentary about her "common" yet upwardly mobile and middle-class upbringing from both William's inner circle and the wider blue blooded community.
There was barely a blip on the cultural radar when Zara Phillips - daughter of Princess Anne - shacked up with rugby player in Mike Tindall.
Middleton throughout her 20s became known as "Waity Katie" due to the on-again, off-again relationship with William. There were wide spread reports that whenever she would enter a room, Wills' mates would poke fun at her by uttering the phrase "doors to manual" as a reference to Carole Middleton - Catherine's mum - once being an air hostess.
"She gritted her teeth, kept her head down, never publicly made even a squeak of complaint at the crude and brutal treatment doled out by both media and public, and quietly stood by her man," Knight wrote about Camilla -the exact same thing could be said about Kate today.
And also maybe Meghan.
Could the death of the Queen be the death of the royal's most recent villian? Stay tuned.
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