Late last night I was bored and watching TV, and I happened upon a showing of “The Queen” here on one of SLC’s broadcast networks (I don’t have cable) and I started watching the film about 20 minutes after it had started, which itself is EXTREMELY rare for me—One of my biggest pet-peeves in the world is trying to watch a movie after it has begun, even if it’s only been a matter of 2 or 3 minutes. It is something I virtually NEVER do, as I always have the feeling that I have missed something absolutely crucial to understanding the totality of the plot…
Anyway, I don’t know what I must have missed, but apparently according to the writers of “The Queen”, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband (don’t know his title) absolutely LOATHED Princess Di, and were not sorry in the least when she was killed in the car accident in Paris.
I know next to nothing about Britain’s Royal Family or their various family dramas, and not very much about Diana’s life either; Can anyone tell me if QEII really hated Diana so passionately, and if so, why?
Just curious, and looking for opinions of Dopers from any country, although English Dopers’ contributions would certainly be especially welcome…
The Royals don’t like to air their dirty laundry. Diana marriage to Charles was always a little messy, and they were trying to keep it from being publicly messy.
Then Diana did that interview with Martin Bashir (yes, the same guy who did that Michael Jackson interview - not a good sign) and they didn’t like how it portrayed the Royal Family. You have to remember Diana was going around publicly accusing her sons’ nanny of getting pregnant with and aborting Charles’s baby among other things. So she was a little bit trainwrecky, and yet was cultivating a lot of public sympathy.
Basically, they were trying to run a tight ship from a PR perspective, but she didn’t toe the line the way they wanted her too. She was really popular, so they had to tread carefully or else they’d come across looking like the bad guys in the eyes of public opinion.
At least that’s the impression I got back in the 1990s. I was a student though, so I didn’t really follow the politics of it.
I don’t know that the movie revealed all of the reasons that they didn’t like Diana, but as Swallowed said, the main one that was portrayed was that they hated the fact that she was (1) spilling private personal business in public, and (2) using the press to make the family look bad. They hated Diana’s relationship with the paparazzi and the way she would use it to get attention at key moments. And I’m sure they hated it even more because Diana was so good at it and always managed to come out on top as the innocent victim. The marriage, the infidelities, the divorce, the death, the funeral, so far as they were concerned, it was all a family matter – it was her ex-daughter-in-law and the mother of her grandchildren that died – that was no one else’s fucking business and they hated Diana for forcing them to take it public.
It was touched on a bit in the movie. They thought she was an upstarter. They felt she was always getting into trouble and doing things royals just didn’t do. In many ways, Diana, Princess of Wales was a loose cannon. She made people question royality.
While the film doesn’t touch on this. In real life, there is the matter that Diana was the most beloved (publically) royal during her life time. Even more so the Queen Mother (who was seen as the favorite publically before Diana). Diana didn’t fall into line. The Queen didn’t really enjoy that.
Basicially, she lived a flashy lifestyle and had the media wrapped around her finger. I think they thought she would go quietly into the night after divorce. Not doing that really annoyed them. I often wonder if they (the royal family) had anything to do with her death.
she never carried herself the way her title and status dictated. that’s the plain truth. flashy dress, unguarded remarks, attempts to shrug off long-standing traditions. i’ve a feeling some fools advised her in a lot of ways. if they’re around, they should know her ways killed her.
She had very sympathetic side, but the flip side was that she was needy, manipulative, and (from a common sense perspective) not all that bright, although she was cunning when she wanted to be. The real bottom line, however, was that she was emotionally immature, and was a loose cannon anytime she opened her mouth. She also took wild risks for someone in her position, carrying on an affair with guardsman while still married.
A chunk of this can be laid at the door of the royals as she married way too young for someone as immature as she was to begin with, and was basically a breeding machine while Charles expected to be able to continue his affair with Camilla undisturbed.
The Queen despised her mainly because she acted like a child, and refused to behave and act like like a proper Royal wife, and after the divorce was a major league blabber mouth dishing royal dirt.
Whilst I agree with everything everyone else has said, I think the idea that they were quite happy about her death sounds like pretty gross speculation on the part of the programme makers.
Don’t know about this, but Charles (and Diana) were both unhappy Harry was a boy. They were hoping for a girl. Some say, despite obligation, they wanted a girl when she was pregnant with William too. Charles was said to make ill remarks about having a son with red hair. So, a double insult in his eyes.
Looking at their relationship now, it’s clear they get on well.
I doubt very much that the Windsors had anything to do with the fact that Diana and the other three people in the car weren’t wearing seatbelts. Plus I remember at the time that some American EMT’'s questioned the way their French counterparts handled the accident.
Without getting too deeply into this since I haven’t seen the movie (and how many movies are there that don’t try to exaggerate one side’s faults?), didn’t the Windsors do things that were normal by their standards but not by others? For example, initially the flag wasn’t lowered at the palace. this caused people to say that they didn’t care she was dead but some analysts pointed out that it was royal custom…that the flag wouldn’t have been lowered if it was Liz herself that was dead. The old 'the king is dead, long live the king" idea.
Indeed they would. The reasons the Windsors disliked Diana, if they did, are remarkably similar to the reasons anyone would have for disliking a former in-law.
The movie actually downplayed the how upset the Mountbatten-Windsors were. As has emerged since Charles broke down when he heard of Diana’s death and also did again when he saw her body. The Queen was stiff lipped, but upset.
The thing is despite the whole corny “peoples princess” bullshit that was being raised at the time; Diana was from a very blue blooded family, her family knew the Royals very well; she was Prince Andrew’s playmate for instance.
Finally I also saw the movie recently and looking back at the funeral and remembering what it was at the time; God the reaction seems strange and weird, perhaps because it seems less of a tragedy in these times of war and recession then it did in that era of peace and properity.
I’ve seen the movie several time and I don’t think the OP characterizes the, uh, characterization, accurately. The royal family’s private reaction was portrayed quite consistently with that of any family who learns that someone they knew well and weren’t particularly fond of died in sudden, tragic circumstance. Very upset but at a loss to process the distaste they felt for her while alive with the grief they feel for her now.
Right after the accident, while Diana’s still alive, the Queen prohibits Charles from taking the royal jet down to bring her back for treatment, but that’s in a (tin-eared) effort to comply with popular desires that the royals not be so extravagant. And indeed, that’s the theme of the movie – how Diana’s death exposed nothing negative about the Queen’s humanity, but rather her incapacity for understanding what the people wanted in their sovereign. She works hard to keep up a stiff upper lip despite having taken an emotional blow because she assumes the people need that of her – to be a bastion of strength they can lean on, while the people just see it as coldness.
You’re not seriously taking your history from movies, are you? :dubious: Since Her Maj has never voiced her thoughts on the subject (or anything, save the most commonplace of subjects) it’s hardly a basis for analysis.
You should read some proper books then. The Queen and Di; the untold story spends a lot of time on it; and based upoin recollections and interviews of people who were there. The family was very upset when it happend and genuinely did not know what to do. The movie showcases a lot of the latter; not much of the former; even though pretty much source states that the family were shattered.
There’s two fairly recent movies on Netflix called “The Queen”. One is from 2006 and has Helen Mirren, and the other is from 2009 and is a mini-series from the BBC. I’m guessing it’s the first one?
I have often wondered why her own family didn’t prepare her a little more. Wasn’t her father an equerry? Didn’t her sister’s husband work for the Queen? Weren’t her parents at Court? They knew exactly what life would be like for her, and I am surprised they didn’t sit her down and tell her what it would be like. Of course they could have, and she, like many kids, didn’t want to hear it.