False Identifications essays

False Identifications essays Events like Diana's funeral punctuate the global consciousness. For the duration of the spectacle, billions of people worldwide focus on the same imagery and ideas even if just for a fleeting moment. Even for those who did not see Diana's funeral on television, her death evoked some universal themes. For instance, death in itself is a universal phenomenon. With no exception, death touches the lives of all persons regardless of their social status or their ethnic heritage. Romance or filial love are also universals, as are divorce, and depression. Social strata, social roles, and caste can also be considered universal phenomena: features of most if not all human societies. The funeral of Diana drew attention to the universality of these phenomena, as Diana Taylor points out in "False Identifications." However, Taylor also stresses that universality of theme does not necessarily mean that a performance plays well to a global audience. The spectacle of the "people's princess" only seemed to unite people across all cultures. In fact, Diana's funereal spectacle isolated key segments of the global population by pretending to represent "the people." Taylor notes that "mourning rituals" like Diana's funeral "may be similar; they may encourage fantasies that they are communicable to different populations. But the politics are untranslatable," (Taylor 146). Ironically, the "ordinary people" of England demanded that their "people's princess" be crystallized into a royal icon. During an era in which monarchies are becoming vestiges of the past and emblems of outworn political and social ideologies, the people suddenly romanticized royalty. As Taylor describes, social dramas tend to progress through four phases, the last of which is the reintegration of existing social norms. In this case, the monarchy became reinvented as a possession of the people. Diana provided a novel and convenient vehicle for expressing the social values waiting to eme...