The 'Diana business' falls on hard times

We all have flaws. Even I do (really – not terrible ones, but flaws nonetheless). And the flaws of some are more fatal, or at least noteworthy than the flaws of others. My flaws aren’t noteworthy only because I’m not terribly noteworthy. I mean, I’m moderately important to those who know me, and perhaps even love me, but otherwise I’m pretty much a zero in terms of newspaper copy or scandal sheets or TV soundbites.

But, for the more notable, their flaws are magnified to gargantuan levels. The shenanigans of assorted C-list young actresses are blown up to the point that anything they do is worthy of making them even more reviled by a public that ostensibly once loved them. Should Britney be heard to fart in public, you are guaranteed it will result in a People, or at least Enquirer story.

The same sort of thing happens regarding the flaws of public figures we once professed to ‘love’ and cherish. The martyrdom of John F. Kennedy was staggering for a nation and the world back in 1963, as it deserved to be. But later, as his sexual hijinks and questionable backroom dealings, as well as his abominable record on civil rights became known, he wasn’t so loved. He came to be seen as a guy who couldn’t keep it in his pants, made assorted pacts with assorted devils, did virtually nothing to address the rampant racial inequalities of his day, and even screwed the girlfriend of a known gangster.

What that all means is that memories are short, history is always ‘revisionist’ and we all come to believe that we as individuals aren’t so bad considering the peccadilloes of our so-called heroes. It’s all kind of sad in a way.

This weekend we are coming up to the 10th anniversary of the untimely demise of Princess Diana. What are your plans to mark the occasion? If you’re like me, you probably won’t much notice. Neither will hordes of other people notice, it seems.

If you’ll recall, back in 1997 when the storybook beautiful princess died horribly in a Parisian underpass when her paparazzi fleeing drunken driver tried to get Diana and her lover Dodi to safe haven, it all went to hell, and a lot of people wept. Indeed, the outpouring of grief by a public over somebody they didn’t even know other than from pictures, truly was obscene and vulgar. That was then.

Now, this summer, her orphaned (on the maternal side at least) kids mounted a big show in commemoration. It fizzled. About nine people turned up. Well, maybe more than that, but it wasn’t the stunning spectacle the lads had hoped it would be. “Oh yeah, her. She died, didn’t she?” It's not that we don't care, it's just that we care a lot less than we did 10-years ago.

On Sunday there is to be a service in commemoration. The chronically indiscreet Camilla (the other woman) decided for just this one time, that discretion would indeed be the better part of valor, and will stay away.

So, why do we care less by this point? Well, in the first place it is a natural, and I think healthy human phenomenon. We move on. If you don’t move on you should get some psychotherapy. It’s like when your best friends move away and you are heartsick and you long for their return because you have spent so much time in their company. How will you bear life without the people in whose pocket you were living? Yet, you do. You make new friends and do other things, and so do they. And, a decade later they drop by for a visit. You’re very happy to see them. And yet, all you can muster is to sound like Joey on Friends and utter: “So, how ya doin’?” After that it gets strained.

With Diana, we have learned so much garbage about her in the intervening decade that we are hard-put to see her in an objective light. She really did have a hard time keeping her panties on, and she did consort with some pretty objectionable company, her high-profile landmine concerns, or AIDS concerns notwithstanding. Her ex-sister in law, Fergie did a damn sight better job of getting her life in gear.

So, yes it was a nasty bit of news when this beautiful woman died in untimely manner. But, die she did and, alas, only her flaws seem to have made the news in recent years.