Gross display of affection makes fallen princess less human

James Miller Miller on Tap

I never wanted to write this piece. The morning I found out about the accident that killed Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales, I tried to keep my mouth shut, knowing many a superior editorialist would cover the territory I had in mind. I prayed that someone would steal my idea and spare me from having to do this.

But no one did.

First things first: Diana was a nice lady. She left behind a family that misses her and a country that loved her, and kneaded a kindly face on a monarchy that somehow manages to be dull and morally corrupt at the same time. She died a terrible death, surrounded by vultures and corpse eaters who sold pictures of the freshly dead Diana and associates. None of this should have happened.

By way of parentheses, I do feel more pity for the kids of some line worker at Ford who keels over at 46, with no retirement, who won't shoot through Eaton and Oxford like Grape Nuts through a goose. There will be a great deal of pain for the royal family, but probably less than that of a family who has to temper their tears with thoughts of how they are going to pay for the funeral.

The princess' death has received more publicity than the death of any other celebrity in recent memory, eclipsing the breast-beating that occurred over Nixon and Jacqueline Onassis. My first question was: why? Why is she so important to us here on the other side of the pond? The English have a right to mourn, I suppose, as she was their princess.

But why us? Because she appeals to a musty, ugly part of our nation psychology: The idolatry of the pretty, a kind of inverted vanity. Ask most people why they feel a sense of loss for someone they never met, never heard speak and knew only through second- and third-hand information and pictures on the cover of the New York Post; they will tell you that they remember watching her wedding to Charles on TV.

Because she was pretty and glamorous. Because she had a nice smile, attractive clothes and a storybook life. Married to a prince, living in a castle and raising the heirs to the throne in a life of luxury and public adulation.

Call it the homecoming queen reflex. We watch her from across the room, but she never speaks to us, except to borrow our homework. We don't know anything about her, but gobble up all the rumors and innuendo about her, because it makes us feel like we're a part of her life, even though she wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire.

A glance from her, accidental maybe, gives us one of those sudden, classroom erections that makes you feel like a sex offender for the rest of the lecture.

We don't know a thing about her and when she dies, we rush to eulogize her and praise her like Caesar on the pyre.

She was a wonderful person, right?

I mean, we never met, but since she was so rich and popular, she had to deserve it, right? There is a very good reason for this reflex. We need to believe that she earned all this fame and fortune. We need to believe that she is such a good, decent and deserving a person that she had all of this coming to her. Because if she doesn't, there is a problem.

The problem is luck and the randomness of life. If Diana Spencer was an angel who walked among us, then she deserved to be rich and famous, people get exactly what they deserve, God is in His heaven and the kids are asleep in bed. If she is not feminine perfection, then she was just lucky. A school teacher who married well, a phrase I think I stole from someone else.

If she was as blemished and petty and ugly in the morning as the rest of us, then she became rich and famous because she was born into social circles that rub together with royalty and happened to catch the eye of a passing noble. Which raises the ugly question: why not us? Why wasn't I born into privilege like Diana and Charles? I'm just as good and charitable as they are!

I could be glamorous and alluring if I had a fortune inherited on the back of centuries of elitism and boneheaded agrarian policies! I always wanted to be suave, debonair and regal, but I was too tired after I got home from work, cleaned the house, paid the bills and put the kids to bed. If Diana was as perfect as we make her out to be, then we can worship her and mourn her without feeling like we are 15 and writing our names together on the back of a notebook.

If she isn't, then we have spent all this time idolizing someone as flawed and fractured as the rest of us, whose only accomplishment was marrying up.

Diana, I hope you were a saint. Our national ego is riding on it.

- James Miller can be reached over e-mail at jamespm@umich.edu

09-10-97