Perspectives

1. Perspectives Diana in the Dock

2. Glossary of key terms • Apogee • Escutcheons • Faustian • Fiduciary • Flagrante • Injunction • Ipso facto • Malfeasance • mercenary • Obloquy • Paparazzi • Penumbra • Prurience • Quandary • Surreptitious • Tawdry • Violation • Vociferous • voyeur

3. Positions us to view Diana • Opening explanation subtly denigrates Diana’s behaviour as being trivial/silly “exercising on a contraption called a leg-press” (as opposed to “exercising on a leg-press” – note how one sounds flippant!)

4. Positions Diana as self-motivated/interested: “She asked the court to shape the common law so as to shelter her…” “…Could the justice game be won…and without damage to herself?” In line with anti-royalist ideology?

5. The Powerful • “…obtaining injunctions and orders of every kind against Taylor, freezing his assets and effectively ruining him” • (Note the use of passive and active here – Diana is the active here – the “doer”) • As opposed to the “victim” Gym Owner, who “offered to give Diana all his rights and profits in the photographs if only she would call off the lawyers”

6. Gym owner • “impoverished Mr Taylor” – should we really feel sorry for a gym owner who sold photos to make money? We are being positioned to sympathise with him here!

7. Diana’s Choice of Gym • Note how Robertson attacks Diana’s choice of gym. • Time Out quote “the least private gym in London” • Quotes (who? Nobody!) “You have no hiding place” • Why does Robertson choose to explain that the gym is “criss-crossed by catwalks”? • Simile “it was like working out in a shop window.”

8. Mocking Gyms – Why? • To further his idea that the gym is simply for self-obsessed prima donnas who want to be watched, he hypothetically tells us that he would have asked Diana “What, Ms Windsor, is cardio-funk?” • This Qn would lead to a “nether world” conversation about “choreographed colonics and the art of toning buttock muscles on the lifecycle, the rotary torso, the lateral pull-down machine and the concept II Rowing Ergometer”

9. Anti – Di - Subtleties • She was welcomed “whenever she chose to grace the premises with her presence” • Describe this tone? • He describes Diana’s motivation (how would he know, truly? This is a representation of his truth!) to go to this gym as being “to chat them up and light them up” – perpetuates the image of a flirtatious, sensual/sexual?/whimsical woman. • Again, children “gawked” at her and she didn’t complain… (note “gawking” is often associated with sexual images)

10. Acknowledges Diana’s pain • the “shock and sense of powerlessness” she had suffered. • (“See, I am really quite even-handed and decent”) • Then – new paragraph and a new sentence beginning with… • BUT…

11. Attacks Diana further… • “But Diana wanted privacy only when it suited her.” • Powerful sentence/Beginning. Full stop. • Was very much in line with the opinion many had of Diana (‘she courted the media, so deserved it’) • Question: Who DOES NOT WANT their privacy when it suits them? • I want privacy when I go to bed/But I want to go to a non-private concert too!

12. Andrew Morton & Diana • Diana is shown to be sneaky • We question her honesty • She “corrected the proofs” of Morton’s book (Despite assuring people she had nothing to do with him)

13. Robertson on Royalty • Placing “her on a pedestal” (note the cheeky, mocking tone – in line with his earlier comments – which together work to suggest she is a spoilt, self-obsessed, glory-seeking, “Princess” • He says she was “not prepared to pay the price” for this pedestal, but was neither “prepared to relinquish the pedestal.” • Spoilt brat?

14. Disdain for her role as “Queen of Hearts”? • “Instead, she had chosen to revel in the role of Queen of Hearts, a high-profile and unique life, in which the paparazzi were an occupational hazard” (Why revel?) • What is the point of reducing the paparrazzi to an “occupational hazard”? (What might occupational hazard be in your chosen career?)

15. A way with words…on her “conduct” • Conduct! A word often used for naughty school children… • Her “conduct” – which can now be diagnosed more kindly as manifestations of a stress disorder (what is the underlying suggestion here do you think?) – seemed… (wait for it!) • “calculated” to “promote” a “self-indulgent”… “culture of victimisation and complaint”

16. On Diana’s humanitarian works • “fleeting visits” which “appeared to be quests for photo opportunities”… • “it was said” (this would never be used in court! It’s hearsay!)…she was “using the diseased and dying as visual props to make herself look better than she was” (OUCH!) • She had nonetheless “been inviting it to happen”

17. Diana the “performer” • The princess…had constructed a miniature courtroom at Kensington Palace…to rehearse for her cross-examination” • “At her request she was pictured hugging dying black AIDS babies” (Is this so bad if you are trying to raise awareness for AIDS??) • Notice again, she is positioned as a bossy boots “requesting” etc… If it was put “she was pictured with dying black babies…” How would the meaning change?

18. The afterthought- powerful! • When he details Diana being presented with a Humanitarian award by Kissinger, Robertson deflates the award completely by using brackets (whose decision to bomb Cambodia counts…as a crime against humanity) • What is the effect of these brackets in terms of how we perceive Diana?

19. Robertson on the Media • “gloating” • “stories would be written” not about “the rights and wrongs” of the case, but to “boost circulation”. • He puts “courtroom artists” in inverted commas (implying they are not artists, much the way he uses an ironic reference to the “art” of buttock toning earlier) and… • Makes a comparison about how they had drawn him negatively (“all jowls and a splutter”) with the image of Diana who he phrases as “Her Radiance” as she “stood serenely in the witness box”. Notice the mocking tone here.

20. Anti-Monarchy • Clear articulation of point of view: • “I was in favour of privacy law but opposed to monarchy” • Humour: “A hereditary Head of State is as sensible as an hereditary poet” – persuasive line! (Yes, that does sound rather ridiculous, Geoffrey!)

21. Interesting! • For one so “for the everyday people” and anti-establishment, he certainly enjoys name-dropping a fair bit… WHY does he do this? • “James Hewitt sought my advice” (As opposed to James Hewitt needed advice) • “following Salman Rushdie…he bunked down in my attic” • Sees James Hewitt as good guy he “did not deserve the obliquy heaped upon him… as “his affair with Diana was bound to come out” (says who?) and he made sure it was told as a fairy tale, with malice towards nobody”…in romantic (“but excruciating” – note how he cleverly shows himself to be objective here? I can see him as a poor writer! Therefore I am objective – Manipulative)

22. Mocking Royalty Again • “…the contribution made by Royalty and all its associates to public entertainment” • Reduces royal family to…buskers/soap operas – public entertainment = fairly meaningless stuff!

23. “Facts” • I have related these facts about the case (some of the ideas are certainly not “facts”) to… • “locate points on a penumbra – spanning the two values of press freedom and privacy”

24. For the real deal… • His real purpose is now obvious: • Britain “most oppressive libel laws” prevent “reportage of great importance about crime and malfeasance” but allow “Kiss and Sell stories by bedroom sneaks”. • Compares to French stringent privacy laws.

25. “It’s about Britain’s national preferences and values…”(he says) • Compares to US (Onassis case, “acceptable compromise”) • “Libel is a rich man’s sport”, a “class act” which serves to…cover up awkward truths about important plaintiffs” • Britain known for (acc to GR) “prurience and prudishness” • Quite denigrating about the British national character… find examples page 350. • Without privacy laws Britain is…?

26. Reflection questions(complete after reading the essay) • Outline the case for and against Taylor that Robertson outlines in the beginning of the chapter. Do you think her privacy was invaded? • Do you think fame should deny a person the right to privacy? • Do you think the paparazzi are after the truth in pictures or just a sensational shot to take money? This chapter allows for the examination of the various/conflicting perspectives of truth and censorship. Consider the links on the PowerPoint – Mod C-Related Materials. In particular, focus on the viewing from Media Watch and The Chaser’s War on Everything.