07.21.2008
I know like this seems like an odd place to post thoughts on the movie The Queen, a movie ostensibly about the death of Princess Diana, but it'll make more sense in a minute.
The movie is not so much about the death of Diana as it is about the Government and the Monarchy's reaction to the events around the death of Diana. In the end, it's really about a monarch avoiding a rising popular revolution against the institution.
The plot, in brief, is that Diana dies and the Queen Elizabeth and her family, with the exception of a surprisingly maudlin Charles, mostly laugh about what a stroke of luck they have just had. A newly elected Prime Minister Blair is also in office as a "modernizer" with a wife who has sympathies toward removing the Monarchy.
At first, it does seem like a stroke of luck. The royals are solved of their "embarrassment" and Blair has a moment in the sun as he addresses the people expressing the popular sentiment of sadness for what has happened. But soon, the tide begins to change. Blair is still the poster boy for how things should be done but popular anger forms at how the royals are, or more specifically, not reacting. Instead, they have been on holiday up in Scotland, nowhere to be seen. In the meantime, people are laying so many flowers in front of Buckingham Palace that it's actually blocking the driveway and the changing of the guard has to start happening on the other side.
The first blow to Elizabeth comes when people notice that there's no flag, and certainly not one at half mast, flying over the palace. This is no one's fault. It's tradition that the flag is there to announce the presence of the monarch and then it's the royal standard, not the Union Jack, and it's never flown at half mast, no matter who's died. But that doesn't matter to the people. By now, they're used to half mast flags for the least tragedies and they view this one as huge.
Blair, much to the chagrin of his wife, tries to inform the queen of the sentiment that's beginning to take hold but she's a queen in the old British way: quiet, stoic, and bound by tradition. And she's not willing to change. And no one in her family--sans Charles who seems paralyzed with fear that the Monarchy might be abolished before he gets to be king--thinks she should change either, especially Consort Phillip and the Queen Mum.
But things only get worse and Elizabeth can begin to feel it. The breaking point reaches when Blair informs her that one in four Britons are now for the abolishment of the Monarchy. He then "advises" her on how to rectify the situation. This is an interesting moment because Blair and his wife and staff were, up until the election, promising all sorts of reforms and a new way of doing things. But Blair, at the end of the day, is still the Prime Minister to the Queen and realizes that its his duty, regardless of all other considerations, to help her. His power derives through hers but more importantly, he respects her and what she has done for the country.
And that's it. But the reason I'm posting here about it is the fascination I have with monarchies, the governments based on them, how the ones still in existence today have managed to survive, and government in general. Brittan, after all, has had a republic once before. It isn't like there haven't been threats to the crown in the past. The monarchy today doesn't just exist as some quaint institution the English never got around to abolishing. And, though this one did not involve guns or bombs, it was just as real as any of the others. When the queen sees the hundreds of thousands of people waiting outside of Buckingham Palace, there is a look in her eyes that revealed that right then, it didn't matter that they were upset over Diana's death. It could have been over poverty, over famine, over whatever. The point is, their votes were just as dangerous as torches and pitchforks to her rule.
It's interesting to me, as a writer who spends a lot of time trying to construct governmental systems in my head, that popular uprisings rarely occur because of the reason that's often given. I mean, had the British Monarchy been abolished after those events, what would "official" the reason have been? Surely a monarchy doesn't collapse because a fairly attractive princess died that people liked. No, they would have come up with some grand thing about self-rule, yadda yadda yadda. The American Colonies didn't just become the United States because of taxation without representation or the desire to found a republic, sans king. Let's face it, there were just a lot of people who thought of themselves more as Americans than as Britons. And the king thing is just bullshit. People wanted to make Washington king. And as long as he ruled from North America and had a decent "parliament", I think the United States had a fair shot at becoming one were it not for him.
To bring this all back to writing, I think The Queen is an important story for anyone who wants to reflect on popular movements within their stories. In science-fiction and fantasy especially, I see a lot of over simplification. You know, logical 1-2-3 step procession on how and why something is the way it is. But it rarely is that simple.
Remember this, the fathers of the United States were no doubt great men but they alone could not stir up a whole revolution on their own. There had to be an underlying sentiment that they focused and directed. And I'm not saying there was just one. There were probably hundreds, or thousands, or as many as there were people who supported independence. But whatever it was, by the time it reached a fever pitch, there was nothing King George or Parliament could have done to prevent it. They refused to act before it boiled over, a mistake that Elizabeth, with the help of Blair, avoided in her own country.
And remember one other thing: A government may seem powerful and all encompassing but that is only to an individual. To large enough united front, it stands no chance. As an example, the New York City police department has one of the highest officer to citizen forces in the country. But that's still only fifty-five thousand police in a city of eight million. Or put another way, one cop for every 145 people. If the people of New York decided to do away with city government through violent means, there would be nothing that could be done about it.
Next time you're writing a story, put that in your pipe and smoke it.