Prince Harry, Therapized and Californicated, Gets One Thing Right: The Role of the Press in the Royal Circus.

Marina Hyde’s brilliant piece on the Prince Harry "Spare" saga, perhaps most notably its opening description of the Prince as a "J. Crew Hamlet," has forced my grudging reflection on Britain's latest meltdown I have been so desperate to ignore. 

 

Hyde accurately captures the inherent madness of all parties in this seemingly unending and significantly pointless royal family drama, regardless of your opinion on the inane characters and events involved. Moreover, she rightly expresses what I believe to be widespread exasperation at the number of recent column inches given over to its silliness. 

 

Hyde writes: "In the end, though, people have decided what Harry’s book says about him, one way or another. But the bigger, unanswered question after this latest tide of revelations is surely: what does it say about us? On an immediate level, the past week has presented yet another way for the UK to look mad, weird and chaotic on the world stage." 

 

It is difficult not to feel sympathy for Prince Harry, regardless of my anti-monarchy, anti-bs tendencies (which coincidentally make up much of what he says these days). As Polly Toynbee, also in the Guardian, put it: “Few parental divorces are as horrible as the one these boys suffered, their school friends snickering over the tampon tape and the James Gilbey recordings, everyone ogling Diana and Charles's self-justifying TV interviews and books, capped by their mother's horrific death." 

 

But Britain's monarchical madness stems from the toxic relationship between the nation's 'red tops' and the royal family more than it does the bitter and jealous brother on brother, son on father and individuals vs the institution squabbling. 

 

Prince Harry has made outlandish claims against the tabloid media throughout his latest PR campaign, and many would say he has every right. He despises the press, regularly detailing his vitriolic hatred for their treatment and behavior towards his mother in life and tragic death, and who could blame him? 

 

As James Marriott in the Times describes: “In the best bit of writing in the book, he describes how the illumination of camera flashbulbs trapped the paparazzi's own reflections in their photographs of the crumpled car. The photographers who hunted his mother to her death, who continued to photograph her as she lay dying and who cannot ever be escaped." 

 

However, if his new book "Spare" reveals anything, it is this: Harry wants to be the center of attention more than he wants to be free of the press. He has some solid grievances and, as everyone knows, is entirely right about the corrosive effect of tabloid media on British life. 

 

But he doesn't seem to understand that being a royal in today's media environment is a PR exercise, as with every other so-called celebrity. And he still wants to be a royal, lest we forget. Desperately. Monarchies require public consent, and today that means they need the press. Publicity is the monarchy’s lifeblood. 

 

So, if he maintains his role as the disgruntled prince safe in the warm embrace of TV audiences, folks will continue to enjoy the show. The rest of us can only laugh at its stupidity.