Diana; The People's Princess remembered

 

 

For me Diana is both an icon and an inspiration. I was 11 when she died but even then I knew she was a special person and that her loss was something that would not easily be forgotten nor accepted.

 

Even as the 10th anniversary of death comes closer she is loved as much today as she was  when she stood on the balcony with Prince Charles as a 19 year old all those years.

 

Yes she was flawed but who isn't? It's tragic how such a beautiful and spirited woman could suffer such crippling insecurities about herself.

 

I think that her appeal is how she was able to see that there were many people far worse off than she and she always made time to do her bit even if it was just to smile at a dying child or shake hands with an AIDS victim when no-one else would.

 

I though I'd open a tribute thread as it is both the 10th anniversary of her death and what would have been her 46th birthday.

 

RIP Diana, you're still loved and missed.

 

Also, although it's sad what happened to her, I don't think that one can call her a huge advocater in the war against poverty - she gave some money and hugged some children. Sure, there wasn't much else she was allowed to do being a royal, but those people who go into Africa, right into the fray and help in hospitals and aid missions - they are the heroes, not Diana, and I think that many sensible aid workers would be offended by that amount of attention she gets for being "an aid to global poverty".

 

...Also, "The people's princess"? That's throughly oxymoronic because the entire concept of monarchy goes against such a socialist term like that. In a country in which were a known officially as "the subjects" rather than "the citizens".

 

A prime example of media manufacturing.

 

Don't agree at all. Charles and Diana were seperated when she got together with Dodi, Charles himself had cheated on her on numerous occasions and had always been in love with Camilla. He even said ' oh it depends on what you mean by love..' when he was asked just weeks after marrying Diana, with her beside him, if he loved her. Washing dirty linen in public..? What, speaking candidly about the most secretive family in Britain? So what? It was her nature to speak candidly and not become embroiled in the inward lies and hypocricy of royalty..Blackmail? Where's your evidence for that?

 

The woman was of course turned into a veritable angel by the media, which she wasn't. She was human, arrogant, rich and spoilt, but she was still an over-ridingly good person. That is why I refuse to confuse the problem I have with the media treatment of her with the actual person herself, a person who is no more, or less, faulted than the rest of us. I personally think it is unfair to dismiss her as a person because she doesn't meet the requirements of the false media image that was created around her. She was Diana, the media created the 'People's Princess'.

 

Look at Madeleine McCann. There is no doubt that the media frenzy that surrounded her dissappearance was a key factor in her not being found, because she would have become too 'hot' to sell on into child pornography, or to be sold into illegal adoption. Hot potato? Inter-continental police action? Get rid of the child. Kill and hide. My point is that, despite the fact that I think the media were totally irresponsible, and distorted and manipulated the image and story of the girl, I'm not going to start thinking differently of her, she just was, just like Diana. Their media distortion should not make them any less worthy of pity or admiration, and Diana, just like others who have died, should be remembered for the good in her life, because it is too easy to judge a life you haven't lived.

 

We all have skeletons, just because she was in the constant public eye doesn't mean it is our right to pull it out of the cupboard and stamp over it in judgement, with a disregard to her family. She should be judged as a human being, not against the angelic distortion of her that she never wanted or embraced in the first place. She never said she was perfect, so lets dwell on her good points, instead of looking for some intellectual rebuttal against the general public admiration for the sake of it.

 

I'm NOT saying her death was tragic only because of her status. I'm saying it was tragic because it was the untimely loss a woman who although insecure and in a way lonely had real empathy with people and a heart of gold.

 

I suppose there will always be those few who think she was nothing more than a pretty face but being flawed DOES NOT equal being a bad person.

 

Diana could not help having insecurities and being needy. It was just how she was. She didn't ask for it. And she just dealt with it in her own way.

 

But again she is an inspiration because she came out of her marriage and the stuffy life of royalty more or else in one piece and she never forgot those less fortunate than she.

 

To listen to some you'd swear the poor Princess was some manic depressive media whore with nothing but air between her ears!

Yes Diana was flawed but who isn't? I'm sure even Mother Tereasa and Gandhi were flawed in some way.

Show me one person who says they're perfect and I show you a liar.

Yes she was Bulimic, yes she suffered severe insecurities and depression, yes she craved attention, yes she cut herself though not severely but she is not to be judged for that.

All she wanted was for Charles to love her as much as she loved him. He didn'(not his fault. He didn't ask to fall in love with Camilla) and her disorders were her way of reacting to that as well as being the product of her troubled childhood.

But yet through all her personal suffering Diana still realised that there were people far worse off than she and she found the time to do her bit.

Even her presence was soothing for those needy worldwide.I bet that shaking hands with AIDS victim ment much more to him than any amount of money she could have given to the cause.

And the fact that she did it because she really believed in her causes and and real empathy with people shouldn't be forgotten.

Diana gave more to the people than they realised till after she was gone. She didn't even realise it herself which makes her life and death all the more tragic.

to quote Elton John

" We'll miss the wings of your compassion more than you will ever know"

 

And as to the person who critized her being called The People's Princess, like it or not she was. She brought a human face to the monarchy and she was some-one the ordinary people could relate to, a young Mother in a troubled marriage being forced to live a life in which she had to hide a lot of herself. And she loved by the people to this day because of.

 

She wasn't the People's Princess for nothing.

People really need to learn a little respect.