The media and serial television do a wonderful job these days of reducing everything to the perfect sound bite. How many reality shows are there with an iota of real in them?
'There is no doubt she would have kept her chin taut with strategic Botox shots and her bare arms buff from the gym."
“I found it really interesting to imagine what she would be doing now, and the best way to kind of communicate that was to put her in a situation where she's standing there with Kate Middleton... I wanted to make her a time traveler,” explains Diana biographer Tina Brown. Tina - Newsweek's editor- also assures her readers that the Lady would have be an avid user of Facebook and Twitter and would have also pressed on with her humanitarian work.
Is it such a stretch to think that Katherine and Diana would have gotten On, or that Diana would have been a user of Facebook and pressed on with her humanitarian work?
More?
Well of course.
A MOCK Facebook page-with over a million FRIENDS- all on intimate terms with the royal- Diana.
A mock post reads 'Sitting with Beckhams front-row at Burberry. Love the shoes!'
I love to read Franca Sozzani's Vogue Italia website, and Yes-there is an English translation page.
Some may say of that editor- too "outspoken"
Well- why not?
all excerpted from VOGUE ITALIA:
Last week, Newsweek published a photo-montage on its cover (Lady D and her daugher-in-law Kate Middleton walking side by side), which left us puzzled. The point is not really comparing the two (it happened an endless number of times before, during and after the Royal Wedding), but the decision to photoshop a picture of Lady D to make her look older. Exactly as if she were here - alive - today.
The goal of this choice can only be a tribute to "realism", an unforgiving "what if" which pointlessly changes the memory of a beautiful - and immortal, due to her premature death - Princess Diana. So here's our reply to the American magazine: Charlene and Grace together, present and past in the same picture. Two timeless beauties, and no wrinkles in sight. We wonder what they could speak about... but anything is possible in the world of imagination, no wrinkles on Grace included.
and elsewhere- this from Betsey Johnson in answer to the question-
Again- a leap?
No Leap. Though the quick captions around the pages of the internet had it seem BJ just volunteered the Andy observation- she was asked and she came up with the obvious.
Good for you Betsey & I can't help thinking she may have also thought- what a dumb question.
Oh yes- and She also likes being called Grandma- saying 'I’ve read some of those “Glamma” articles, but I like good ol’ Grandma'
and I had always thought she was a little kookie. See? Wrong Me-just good ol' Grandma!-just goes to show- I don't know Betsey.
She was- I think- kind to restrain from adding- Andy would likely have tasted the entire MENU.
I prefer the past -those style -art- shapers-makers. Their journals, their memoirs, their moments- I like to think of them the way they were.
EDIE as EDIE was.
She would have been almost 70 in today's 2011.
Had she lived-she would have been EDIE at 70. Should I paint her as the 70 year old woman she never was? Should I draw her with the lines of age she never had?
She died young. Today-this day-EDIE is still as young as she was on her last day-at 28.
Remember them as they were, not as we are-getting older-because we still live.
even Timothy Leary changed his mind-in the End.
.
The goal of this choice can only be a tribute to "realism", an unforgiving "what if" which pointlessly changes the memory of a beautiful - and immortal, due to her premature death - Princess Diana. So here's our reply to the American magazine: Charlene and Grace together, present and past in the same picture. Two timeless beauties, and no wrinkles in sight. We wonder what they could speak about... but anything is possible in the world of imagination, no wrinkles on Grace included.
(Artwork by Giorgia Genocchio)
and elsewhere- this from Betsey Johnson in answer to the question-
Again- a leap?
No Leap. Though the quick captions around the pages of the internet had it seem BJ just volunteered the Andy observation- she was asked and she came up with the obvious.
Good for you Betsey & I can't help thinking she may have also thought- what a dumb question.
Oh yes- and She also likes being called Grandma- saying 'I’ve read some of those “Glamma” articles, but I like good ol’ Grandma'
and I had always thought she was a little kookie. See? Wrong Me-just good ol' Grandma!-just goes to show- I don't know Betsey.
She was- I think- kind to restrain from adding- Andy would likely have tasted the entire MENU.
I prefer the past -those style -art- shapers-makers. Their journals, their memoirs, their moments- I like to think of them the way they were.
EDIE as EDIE was.
She would have been almost 70 in today's 2011.
Had she lived-she would have been EDIE at 70. Should I paint her as the 70 year old woman she never was? Should I draw her with the lines of age she never had?
She died young. Today-this day-EDIE is still as young as she was on her last day-at 28.
Remember them as they were, not as we are-getting older-because we still live.
even Timothy Leary changed his mind-in the End.
.
I LOVE YOUR BLOG!!
ReplyDeleteYou are 100% right, I think! I saw that magazine on the newstand; and it turned my stomach. Completely wrong and it very poor taste.
Diana does live in our memory just as she was when she died. How dare that ridiculous Tina Brown? Tasteless and insensitive. Completely wrong in every way; in my opinion!
Great post!!!
Thank you for giving voice to so much of what I have felt. Mary
ReplyDeleteWonderful post. Curtis
ReplyDeleteIt's not as bad as the RFK alive at 86 coverage — http://splitsider.com/2011/07/an-apology-from-the-editor-by-charlie-nadler
ReplyDeleteOh dear--Gaye, I'm afraid this time I must disagree with you. I was astounded by the Newsweek "what if" cover of an older Diana with Kate. OF COURSE she lives in our memories, as young as when she left us. But, just imagine...if she *were* with us today...stylish, fit, smiling, proud of her sons and their accomplishments, happy to have acquired a "daughter." Doing good and visiting us regularly in the pages of Vogue, Vanity Fair and People. It wrenches the heart as it thrills the imagination. Yes, I can see the other side of the debate: questionable taste, disrespect to her memory, etc. As an artist (and avid Harry Potter fan) I have quite a lot of imagination and I adore make believe, so maybe I'm more susceptible to entering into the spirit of the Newsweek cover. It will take its place with my other Diana memorabilia.
ReplyDeleteI remember many years ago saving an article which showed how famous people would look in 20 years' time. Alas, I lost the article. I did however find a secondhand book of closely written 1980 predictions by various "experts" about what life could be like in the 21st century. The only slightly creepy thing is one commentator thought that a boy was then growing up in the Middle East who would entirely change the face of international relations. But perhaps that was a reasonable thing to assume, even then.
ReplyDeleteOther than this, they didn't really even predict such widespread use of computers, let alone the internet.
Tina Brown destroys whatever she touches; it is her schtick, and she must continue to devour to survive. She ruined The New Yorker, absolutely trashing the highest remaining standard of editing and publishing in American mass media at the time, for the Newhouse syndicate. She has a reputation to uphold, as the trashiest snark of her generation in print. Don't be surprised if she does so.
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDeleteI was totally creeped out by that cover. Didn't dare look inside.
Facebook and botox indeed.