The Violet Smells to Him As It Doth to Me

If I were really worried about it, I suppose I could always whip together a convoluted explanation flavored heavily by my background as a holder of an advanced degree in Anglo-Welsh history to explain why someone like me--American, male, straight--would give a shit about something like a royal wedding among British people. But it's 2018, man. A dude can be more than one thing at a time. I can have strong opinions about whether or not it's a good idea to draft an offensive lineman in the first round AND whether or not taffeta is ever OK at a formal event.* I contain multitudes. All of them tastefully outfitted.

The truth of the matter is I find the British royal family pretty fascinating, and you know when I say it that I mean the family as an idea and not as people. Because as people, I can't imagine a group of humans more likely to have been crafted entirely out of wallpaper paste. Both in pallor and demeanor.

I'm not fascinated by them in spite of the fact that they are supernaturally boring, but specifically because of the fact that they are supernaturally boring. I mean, it's right there in the adjective: supernatural. They're like ghosts if ghosts hadn't died and stayed being regular people. That's right, they're exactly as interesting as the idea of non-ghost people. Which is to say not at all. I'm not sure I'm hitting this point hard enough: they're dull.

But are they dull because they lack charisma? Maybe! Or do they lack charisma because they have been trained their entire lives not to be but to present? To act, to seem, to behave, to show, knowing always, always, always that there will be a camera aperture ready to snap open the second one of them does anything untoward, unkind, thoughtless, or even recognizably human. This may sound like overstating, but think about what a picture of Kate Middleton actively sneezing would garner, in terms of both attention worldwide and filthy lucre for the paparazzo who stole that moment. A break in the measured smile, the presentational posture, the poised wave... plus, think of the breathless headlines speculating that she had contracted sinus cancer or whatever.

The duchess of Cambridge and the soon-to-be-duchess-of-Sussex-maybe have to learn this thing when they opt into it, but what I can't wrap my head around are the ones born into it. The more I think about it, they're not being born, as the old line goes, chosen by God to be rulers or monarchs in any meaningful sense. Sure, you get the ventilated hat and a scepter--an honest-to-Christ scepter--which absolutely looks a lot more impressive than the regalia I'm going to get when my dad dies,** but that's just part of the show. From the minute William and Harry and now little George and Charlotte and... uh... the new one... were all born (before that even), they already had lifelong jobs they were committed to: public relations brand ambassadors for an obsolete form of government.

Hey, think they look stiff and unrelatable at times? If someone told you you'd have to bear the responsibility of being a sovereign one day, back when you were, like, four, how would you have turned out? Now add the bubbles of extreme wealth and well justified security paranoia. And hey, how about if the weight of constant observation hadn't also literally killed your mother?

Some of them are better at it than others, certainly, but what choice do any of them really have? If one of them were a Mozart-level composer or the world's greatest figure skater, we'd never know. Because all they'll ever be asked to do is cut a ribbon in front of a refurbished hospital wing on opening day. And literally nothing else.

It also makes it fascinating that an American woman has chosen to marry into this. Because given the media interest on a regular day, add to that the typical structure and dynamic of your average American family and you're going to get... well, exactly what we're getting as we learn about the Markle clan. A whole mess of regular people with not at all atypical American problems and, oh by the way, lacking entirely in a lifetime of forced-upon-them media savvy and associated training.

Every time a new person marries into the family, they're announced as a "breath of fresh air." But everything's a breath of fresh air in an 800-room house nobody actually lives in. Meghan Markle, with her actorly media polish and--ahem--common touch will certainly add a dash of color to a spectrum that currently ranges from snow to alabaster.

But watch as she's subsumed by a machine that's been chugging along since 1066, perfecting and calibrating itself even as parts fall away and all we're left with is smile and wave, smile and wave...

It's not really a thing to be operated or steered. You either learn to take the ride or it throws you. And that can be a rough landing.

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*The answer is obviously "it depends on who is wearing it," but come on. It's the Oscars, not the MTV Video Music Awards in 1986, Hillary Swank. Make a goddamned effort.

**All heavily used and somehow related to University of Michigan football. Please live forever, dad.