Have you ever watched Broadcast News? The James L. Brooks film came out in 1987 and largely predicted the decline in quality of broadcast journalism in America. It starred Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks and William Hurt. Hurt played Tom, the handsome newscaster who was not intelligent enough to really be the anchor of a national news broadcast, but he looks the part and he’s good at playing to the cameras. Holly plays Jane, the hard-edged news producer who falls in love with Tom. Part of the plot hinges on Tom doing a one-on-one interview with a rape survivor, which airs as a segment on the nightly news. During the interview, as the rape survivor describes the ordeal, there’s a cutaway to Tom as his eyes well up with tears. Jane thinks the segment is good, but Albert Brooks’ Aaron realizes what happened – Tom was only given one camera for the interview, and he made himself cry and then spliced in the reaction, which is extremely unethical journalism.
I bring up one of my favorite Holly Hunter movies because Prince William went to speak to a Welsh widow whose husband died by suicide. William brought a camera crew with him, and I definitely want to know how many cameras were there, because William was also caught on camera, tearing up as he spoke to Rhian Mannings. The video of William’s interview was published on KensingtonRoyal’s social media and William & Kate’s YouTube channel:
It was possibly a three-camera set-up. One camera for the wide shot of William and Rhian at the table, one camera on Rhian’s closeup and one camera on William’s closeup. Or it could be something else entirely. If KP has the money and personnel for a three-camera set up, just to make their in-house YouTube videos, that’s a stand-alone scandal in my book. What I do know is that William’s tears, however sincere or not, do not make up for his actual words and deeds in the past decade. From calling his mother paranoid, to assaulting his brother, to bullying, smearing and abusing his sister-in-law until she was suicidal, William has zero authenticity or credibility here. It reads as performative because of everything we already know about William. It also reads as performative because royalists are gleefully using the video as evidence for William’s preparations for his reign. From the NY Times:
At a time when the British royal family has been convulsed by drama, infighting and a tendency by some royals to over-share, Prince William has remained largely aloof — loath to reveal the kinds of details found in “Spare,” the memoir by his estranged brother, Prince Harry.
Yet William, too, has lifted the veil in recent weeks, in his own carefully managed way. Appearing with the Canadian comic actor Eugene Levy on an episode of his travel series, and later with a woman who lost her husband to suicide, William has shown a more personal side, speaking about his desire to change the monarchy after he becomes king and tearing up over another family’s tragedy.
The exercise in image making has taken on more urgency since his father was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in early 2024. While Buckingham Palace insists that Charles, 76, is on the mend, the prospect of William having to step up to the throne no longer seems so distant.
“He’s on fast forward,” said Tina Brown, the British American journalist who has written two books about the royal family. “His father had 50 years to tell the world who he was before becoming king. It’s essential for William to show the human side of himself before his image gets set in stone as the stoic foil to Harry.”
In a video released Friday to coincide with World Mental Health Day, William met with Rhian Mannings, who lost a baby to illness and her husband to suicide. As the two sat at Ms. Mannings’s kitchen table in Cardiff, Wales, William asked her what she would say to her husband, if she could.
“I would just like to sit him down like this and say, ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’” she replied. “Because he’s missed out on just so much joy.”
William looked away, his eyes brimming with tears.
“Are you OK?” Ms. Mannings asked.
Struggling to compose himself, William said, “I’m sorry; it’s hard to ask you the questions.”
It was a startling display of emotion — not least in contrast to the stiff-upper-lip stoicism of older-generation royals like Queen Elizabeth II — though it recalled the emotional encounters his mother, Princess Diana, had with people with AIDS in the 1990s. William’s focus on suicide prevention echoed his mother’s desire to destigmatize AIDS.
“The exercise in image making” – Jesus. Am I alone in finding this incredibly exploitative? I’m sure Rhian Mannings simply wants her story out there, with the hope that more people will be willing to talk to loved ones and reach out to people when they’re at their lowest point. But for William to rather ruthlessly exploit her family’s tragedy as part of his really obvious and plodding image rebrand is pretty ghoulish, even for William.
Photos courtesy of YouTube video. Cover courtesy of the Daily Express.