Search results
, but in that time and place – hierarchical, absolute, authoritarian, and paternalist. So while the royal presence of Henry VIII had been composed of kingship as a unique identity sustained by no characteristic other than royal grandeur and divine sanction, with purple and cloth of gold denied to all but the royal family and with a richness of dress which set him apart, 12 that of Charles II after the English Civil War and the execution of his father had a religious dimension which engaged, or attempted to engage, with the demanding religious aspirations of at least
and femaleness within the text. Thus she argues that The Kukuana royal family is itself dangerously degenerate – offering a spectacle of familial disorder run amok. In the features of King Twala`s face one reads the degeneration of the race. He is a black paragon of the putative stigmata of the race, excessively fat, repulsively ugly, flat-nosed, one-eyed. (pp. 244–5; emphasis added) It is inaccurate to view Twala as the sole representative of the Kukuana family itself, since the idealised Umbopa/Ignosi is constructed to be as representative, if not more so. In
some role in public life, seclusion is replaced by limited visibility. In Japan, the wedding of the then Crown Prince Akihito in 1959 was followed by an open horse-drawn carriage drive through Tokyo, another break with a tradition which until then had conveyed members of the imperial family in closed palanquins. 30 The presentation was of a royal family who were not only visible to the public, but receiving the approval, support, and acclamation of the public. That is something an absolute ruler, and even more so a semi-divine one, not only would not need, but would
behaviour. Individuals from all social groupings are exposed to more generally available systems of information and each grouping can now see some representations of the private spaces of other social groupings on television. The media have provided a hugely increased circulation of the representations of other people’s lives, including those of elite groups such as the royal family and the working classes depicted on the television soap opera Fair City. This kind of institutionalised voyeurism allows people to adopt the styles of other groups and to cross social
your past – was worth the pain of loss and rejection. One of the other mums on the estate contentedly explained her life to me as a bubble: ‘I’ve grown up on a council estate as well, so that is my world … we’re all very close-knit. I’m not someone who’s majorly into the royal family, I don’t follow politics. I keep myself to myself and I’m in my little bubble, and: “everyone, stay out!”. If you don