Page 183 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

MICHAEL REAL

‘Candle in the Wind’, originally a tribute to Marilyn Monroe. Just as Diana had
won popular favor by opposing the stuffier of Windsor traditions, this intru-
sion of the pop amongst the sacred won favor with a vast world audience that
quickly made John’s song a global bestseller.
Popular and elite mixed elsewhere in the ceremony as well. The world
cyber-pulpit presented by Diana’s funeral was seized by the Church of England
but more so by Diana’s brother Charles, the ninth Earl of Spencer. His moving
tribute to Diana was spiced with righteous criticism of the royal family, Satanic
paparazzi, and the media exploitation of celebrities. Adding to the postmodern
pastiche, those attending the funeral reflected the many spheres of media
celebrity. There were royalty from many countries, politicians (Tony Blair and
Margaret Thatcher), foreign dignitaries (Hillary Rodham Clinton and Henry
Kissinger), fashion designers (Valentino and the Versaces), and entertainers
(Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Cruise, Richard Attenborough, Tom Hanks, Nicole
Kidman, Sting, Steven Spielberg, et alii).
An understanding of the intriguing power and role of such a ‘media celebrity’
is another example of the definitional advance of popular culture theorizing. 4
The sheer scale of popular cultural practice, technological systems, and the
global media spectacle is of theoretical significance. Huge numbers of people
are connected through the televised funeral, and that fact alone makes the event
distinct from the small-scale face-to-face culture of colonial anthropology.
Under the title ‘TV once again unites the world in grief’, Tom Shales (1997)
notes, ‘The simple point of the whole amazing international ordeal may be that
the entire world felt it needed a good cry, and the ceremony and its coverage
was certainly designed to inspire one’. The concept of ‘ritual power’ in popular
culture theory helps explain the funeral experience of viewers. Caryn James
(1997) found that television began its final Diana watch immediately after her
death by ‘serving a communal function and uniting the country in grief and
acceptance . . . Like a wake, watching television allows viewers to overcome
their disbelief and grasp the reality of death’. But this soon gave way to ‘wall-
to-wall trivia about her life’ in a ‘voyeuristic overload’. Finally, when the
funeral procession began a week later, James notes, ‘television returned to its
significant communal function’ with elements ‘typical of wakes and funerals in
real life’.
This is classical mythic ritual at work, as first theorized by colonial anthro-
pologists and later complexified through mass media. In the ritual act, the
participant feels and expresses a unity with the ritual story and meaning, with
others in the ritual, with the origins and purposes of human life and death. In
Diana’s funeral, television ritual showed its power to connect the participant to
richer meanings and larger forces. Its liturgical relay took the global audience
through the profane to reach out towards the sacred. The ritual participant was
transported. For the collective, the Diana funeral ritual marked a suspension
of normal activities and structure and a transformation towards a better
community. The trans-human model and the repetition of an exemplary

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