My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 3, #41, April 13, 1998

THE QUEEN OF TOUCHY-FEELY

While Britain's week-long festival of mourning for Princess Diana was going on, were you as struck as I by the way the public and the tabloids condemned the royal family for not being visibly emotional? "Let the princes cry!" screamed the headlines. Now this may have stemmed from a strong suspicion that the Queen was not all that sorrowful, that her feelings about Diana's death might have included profound relief as well as regret. But they wanted her to open up, to let a few errant tears course down her cheeks. They wanted her to prove she was one of them by sharing their grief.

We live in an age in which dignified reserve is uncommon, and not all that much admired. Ordinary people go on talk shows to cry as they tell the world about how their husbands two-timed them, and how their ungrateful daughters stole their boyfriends. Ordinary people caught in the middle of unbearable personal tragedy find themselves having to talk to TV reporters who ask them breathlessly "How do you FEEL about your daughter being shot to death by a deranged schoolboy?"

Our celebrities are expected to not only share with us the news of their marriages and divorces and drug rehabilitation, but to tell us all the intimate details besides: How did you find out your husband was cheating on you? What do you think of your husband's new girlfriend? When did you realize you were hooked on cocaine? What was the crisis moment when you knew you couldn't hold it together any more? The trade off is, you can advance your career by going on Barbara Walters, but some time during those 15 minutes you are going to have to cry (and tell her what kind of a tree you'd be).

It's a devil's bargain that we exact of our celebrities. We will make you rich. We will pay to go to your movies, we will buy your records, buy tickets to your concerts. And you will spill your guts to us, let us feel we know you. Many people are happy enough to make that bargain, though they will rightly complain about photographers who go outside the terms of that agreement, invading legitimately private moments with telescopic lenses.

Why should Queen Elizabeth be any different? She lives off the public bounty, so why shouldn't the public get to see her bleed? Why, for that matter, shouldn't President Clinton whimper to Barbara Walters about how the endless attacks on him will leave him in hock to lawyers for the rest of his life?

The answer is, they are not just celebrities. They are people who represent their nations. And when you deal, day after day, with dignitaries from different cultures, who have different ways of doing things, the simple natural expression of your feelings ("My God, you actually EAT this?") could cause an international incident, could even cause people to worry about your sanity. It is worth remembering that when Boris Yeltsin behaves with a wonderful lack of inhibition, it does not strike us as charmingly spontaneous--it makes us think nervously about all those nuclear warheads he's still in charge of.

It's not just heads of state that have to think carefully about what they say, or what the expressions on their faces reveal. When there are public consequences to your words and actions, you can't risk sending unintended signals. When the chief of police is asked about an officer caught with his hand in the till, he can't say "I'm gonna fire his ass," because there has to be an investigation and due process first, and if the police chief has pre-judged the case, the fairness of the result will be questioned. Bill Gates could not publicly muse about abandoning the rat race and becoming a beachcomber without Microsoft's stock prices tumbling.

Imagine yourself in the position of Mike McCurry, the President's press secretary. When Sam Donaldson asks an unusually pompous stupid self-righteous question, you couldn't say, "Sam, that's dumb even by your standards," (no matter how much pleasure it would give you to say it) because Sam has the power to exact revenge, not only on you, but on the administration you represent. Whatever the point the President wanted to make that day, it would not be made, because the story would have become YOU. The reason Bill Clinton won't complain to Barbara Walters is: he knows the story would not be about his enemies, but about his whining.

But to be able to refrain from telling Sam Donaldson what you really think takes long years of training in keeping your opinions and feelings to yourself. The unrevealing face, the modulated voice, and the carefully chosen words have to become habitual, automatic responses. It's not something you can turn off and turn on at will, because then you could be tricked into revealing something. You have to feel sad for the young princes, who must know that any casual confidence they make to a friend could turn up next week in the tabloids.

Bill Clinton has given us some taste of what a touchy-feely presidency could be, and it clearly gives a number of people indigestion. Granted that it was not his fault that a girl asked him in an MTV forum whether he wore boxers or briefs; floored by the question, and lacking much time to come up with an answer, he decided in favor of truth. That's natural enough, and perfectly defensible. Nonetheless, we are left with a vivid image of our pudgy President wearing briefs, and it is not a pretty picture. Nor do we entirely like suspecting that lamps were flying at the White House when Clinton had to tell his wife, oh, by the way, there'll be an item in the news tonight about a White House intern.

It's enough to make you see a certain charm in those stony royal Windsor faces. Do we REALLY want the queen rending her garments and wailing? Do we REALLY want to know quite as much about her private life as we ended up knowing about Diana's? As folk wisdom tells us, be careful what you ask the gods, for they may grant it.