Princess of Wales, Prince of Camelot by Ian Cooper

As the flowers piled up on North Moore St. in TriBeCa, an occasional motif of the past couple of weeks has been the casual comparison of Dianna, Princess of Wales, and John F. Kennedy Jr., both in their lives and the public reactions to their untimely deaths.

Indeed, there are striking parallels. But there are striking differences too, which give some insight into the contrast between the political cultures of Britain and the United States. For those readers who are weary of the already excessive coverage of JFK Jr.’s death (having reached a point of Grief Fatigue, “closure”, or both) I beg your indulgence while we engage in a bit of pop hagiography.

First, their lives. The similarities are obvious: they were both beautiful, enormously privileged, pursued by paparazzi, and from famous families (though Diana had married into hers). They both had an admirable devotion to charitable causes. They were both in their late thirties, and had seemed to arrive at a time in their lives where they had come into their own (for JFK Jr. this coincided with marriage; for Diana, it came after divorce).

Moreover, they were, and are, both “iconic” in that their images took on a life of their own, upon which their admirers could impose their own meaning and interpretation. And of course, their deaths inspired high public reactions, partly but not wholly media-generated, which were vastly disproportionate to their actual significance as historical figures. But despite these similarities, Diana’s appeal in Britain was very different from JFK Jr.’s appeal in the United States.

In life, Diana was a divisive figure. After her divorce, she came to represent the “modern” values of empathy, glamour, and female independence over the traditional values of self-discipline (the proverbial stiff upper lip), deference, and duty. She was loved by those in the broad middle of British opinion, including celebrity-worshippers, moderate feminists, and monarchy-reformers; but she was disliked by those on the extremes, both on the right (old-line monarchists) and the left (hard-core republicans and feminists).

JFK Jr., by contrast was Apple Pie – a universally liked, non-polarizing figure. This is because, despite all the talk about his “promise” or “potential”, his appeal was grounded in nostalgia – a yearning for the era of his father’s presidency, perceived by Americans (for reasons many non-Americans do not fully understand) to be something of a lost Golden Age. If JFK Jr. had lived to go into politics, he no doubt would have had supporters and detractors; but in his prepolitical state, still basking in the glow of his father, he was disliked by no one.

What made Diana contentious in life made her contentious in death. When Britons laid flowers en masse for Diana, it was in fact a political act; they were insisting not only that Diana was an important public figure, but that she should be mourned in the “modern” – that is, spontaneous and demonstrative – style she embodied. This spilled over into the question of whether she was worthy of official symbols of public mourning (flying the flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, the trappings of a state funeral) and – most bizarrely – the demand that the royal family mourn more conspicuously (one tabloid headline exhorted the reserved Queen, “Show Us You Care, Ma’am”).

During that hysterical week between the death and the funeral, most Britons participated in the public mood, while a minority fumed quietly about the “grief police” who had enforced that mood; in that charged atmosphere, apathy was not an option. There was a performative aspect to the public grief; people felt genuine sorrow, but they also seemed to need to prove themselves capable of an emotional outburst.

The reaction in America to JFK Jr.’s death was reserved by comparison, without the complex emotional turmoil of the Diana aftermath. The makeshift shrine on the TriBeCa sidewalk was positively tiny in comparison to the remarkable cellophane sea that had covered the grounds of Kensington Palace. Whereas hundreds turned out for JFK Jr.’s public and private memorial services, tens of thousands had crowded into Hyde Park and lined the funeral route for Diana. Depending on their temperament, Americans no doubt felt a range of personal feelings, varying from apathy to great sorrow, but they had nothing to prove through a collective expression of grief.

However, there was one disturbing aspect of the mourning for JFK Jr.: it was the tendency to refer to him as America’s version of a “crown prince” (which, to his credit, JFK Jr. Did not cultivate). The U.S., which most of the time is profoundly democratic country, for some reason turns to mush when it comes to the Kennedys, expressing a romantic longing for a dashing leader to sweep them off their feet. This notion, which would be offensive if it were not ridiculous, implies not only a hereditary regal entitlement – that the Presidency would have been his for the asking – but the even more pernicious idea that the nation does not govern itself but requires an anointed leader.

So if I had to draw a conclusion about the public reactions to these deaths, it would be this. The whole collective psychodrama after Diana’s death revealed that Britons could be, as a people, emotionally dysfunctional in mourning a beloved public figure. Americans, by contrast, reacted to JFK.

Jr.’s death with sorrow but not hysteria, showing themselves to be more well-adjusted emotionally. On the other hand, because Britain long ago had the sense to separate princes (and princesses) from politics, the effect of Diana’s death was played out solely on a mass emotional level, with nothing important – either politically or constitutionally – ultimately at stake. The American experience of the last two weeks was more politically revealing; it showed that even a nation which was rejected monarchy might still yearn for a prince.

In short, Britons are at times emotionally dysfunctional but have a well-adjusted relationship with their political leaders, whereas Americans are emotionally well-adjusted but at times have a dysfunctional relationship with their political leaders.

C