Film Friday
So today William marries Kate. I’m not a Royal Wedding enthusiast, but as a cultural historian I’m interested in it as a social phenomenon: why are so many Americans fixated on British royalty?
Thinking of the phenomenon through the vantage point of film is useful. Not only are there a number of movies catering to princess fantasies—The Princess Diaries for starters—but the Hollywood star system can be seen as an American version of the British monarchy. This gives me an excuse to talk about the Hollywood actress who, perhaps more than any other, is princessy. I’m thinking of Aubrey Hepburn, whose signature film Breakfast at Tiffany’s celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
My friend Rachel Kranz mentions Grace Kelly as another candidate for Hollywood princess, and I suppose you could make a case for her. She is radiant on screen and in real life she actually married a prince. But Aubrey Hepburn is the one that, even today, my students keep returning to. As Katie Dove, who has been researching Hepburn, writes in an essay I’ve just finished reading, Hepburn seems the quintessential Cinderella.
Hepburn certainly moves between Cinderella’s two worlds. Sometimes she is a princess who passes as a commoner, as in Roman Holiday. Sometimes she is a commoner who passes successfully as a princess—or at least a duchess—as in My Fair Lady. Sometimes she seems to represent garish celebrity lifestyle but we know that, inside, she is true royalty, the sweet little girl next door (Breakfast at Tiffany’s). The point is that American audiences in the 1950’s and 1960’s could simultaneously relate to her and see her as “a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament” (to quote Singin’ in the Rain).
Take for instance her style, say, the famous little black dress. As Katie writes, women could imagine themselves dressing that way. It seemed accessible and glamorous both.
If stars strike us as unearthly–as stars–my theory is that it is because of the way they effortlessly reconcile impossible contradictions. Monroe is innocence and sexuality both, Bogart toughness and vulnerability. Aubrey Hepburn seems simultaneously to be every woman and royalty.
Some argue that Americans long for royalty because we are a nation founded by middle and lower class immigrants who miss what we left behind. In my own case, my great grandfather Fulcher left off being steward for the estate of Lord Bunbury to come to the States. (I promise I’m not kidding–and yes I know that Lord Bunbury is also a character, or a non-character, in The Importance of Being Earnest.) Maybe he never entirely broke away from class hierarchy and but secretly craved it for himself and then passed that craving down to his descendants.
I prefer a Jungian interpretation, however. I see the princess as the archetype for the soul, that transcendence that we know is somewhere inside us, even though we can’t see it many days. But when we watch a Hepburn film, and when we watch a “commoner” marry a prince (okay, a rich commoner), it is as though we are watching our soul step out of the shadows. Self joins soul, a deep part of us is affirmed, and we are lifted up.
Given our contentious world, it’s an innocent enough pleasure. You therefore won’t hear me scoffing as Will and Kate tie the knot.
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