bitchy | Royalist: Princess Kate’s nature video is ‘annoying, grating & patronizing’

The Princess of Wales’s big “Four Seasons” video announcement landed with a dull thud this week. On Monday, Kensington Palace released a video which is part of a new project for Kate. The project: Kate doing voiceover commentary about how nature is important on videos produced in-house by KP. Kate plans to make similar videos for each season, the first video being a celebration of “spring.” You can tell how much the British royalists hate this dumb project because they refuse to even hype it up or pretend that Kate is obviously the best future queen ever for these cheesy 30 Rock-esque videos. There’s been chatter on social media about it, and the Daily Beast’s Royalist column was brave enough to mock the video out loud. This piece was magnificently bitchy, some highlights from “Why Is Kate Middleton’s Nature Video So Damn Annoying?”

Kate’s video is grating: As entirely unoffensive positions go, “Spring is nice” is hard to beat. So it is hard to put your finger on exactly why Kate Middleton’s new video celebrating spring as (checks notes) the “season of rebirth, of hope and new beginnings” is so grating. It’s not just the gloating, although there is something jarring about the sight of Kate, and her insanely privileged family, frolicking on their extensive landholdings while simultaneously cosplaying as totally normal members of the middle class.

Will & Kate are not a straight-forward couple: The performative happiness of William and Kate as a straightforward couple who love hiking is similarly difficult to stomach, not least because we all know that the two of them are a) locked in a brutal reputational death match with William’s brother, Prince Harry; b) have made it clear they will never forgive Harry, as Harry reminded us in his recent BBC interview; and c) won’t lend you a dab of lip gloss in a pinch.

Patronizing language: On top the main course of hypocrisy—an inevitable undercurrent in so much of what the royals do, owing to their determination to represent themselves as a normal family—there is a side serving of patronizing language that could make the most committed royalist’s toes curl. Kate, who has credited her connection with nature as being an important part of her recovery from cancer, kicks off her voiceover with a subtle reminder of that fact, declaring: “Over the past year, nature has been my sanctuary. The natural world’s capacity to inspire us, to nurture us and help us heal and grow is boundless, and has been understood for generations.” At the risk of being committed for treason, boundless? Is it?

A script written by AI?? Kate continues burbling in this enthusiastic kindergarten hippie teacher vein for the remainder of the video, as she and William celebrate their happy marriage with lots of hugs, meaningful three-quarter profile shots of William’s beard and lingering imagery of their hands making brief but, crucially, non-damaging contact with flowers…Many of the turns of phrase are what you would expect an AI chatbot raised on a diet of Eat, Pray, Love and inspiring online quotes to churn out, including: “Let us reconnect to nature and celebrate a new dawn within our hearts,” and, “The outside world quietly awakens with new life, and there comes a sense of optimism, anticipation, and positive, hopeful change.”

Kate should stick to regular old events: Kate drifts by in floaty dresses, but it seems William neglected to stop at the wardrobe department; in one meaningful clifftop shot he seems to be wearing a suit….The bad news, for those of us who find this video a tiny bit smug, is that this is just part one of a four-part “Mother Nature” series, with one video also due for each of summer, fall, and winter….This would be a marvelous advertisement for, say, a national park, or Anthropologie. But the next queen urging us all to reimagine our lives in the context of Gaia? It all makes one rather nostalgic for the days when the royals contented themselves with opening village halls.

[From The Daily Beast]

I want Sykes and all of the monarchists to ask themselves a difficult question: if Meghan and Harry had produced an asinine video in which Meghan sounded like she was reading from a malfunctioning AI script, what would the coverage look like? How widely would the Sussexes be mocked? How many columns would be written? The (relative) silence on Kate’s keen four seasons video project speaks volumes. It’s also pretty notable that no one is asking about all of that keen Early Years busywork which was supposed to be Kate’s lifelong project? Whatever happened to the Early Years Business Taskforce on Business? Whatever happened to the KP closet that was the Keenwell Early Years Foundation or whatever it was? Are all of those resources now being rerouted to “Kate enjoys being outside?”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, screengrabs from KP video.