[GandalfTheGrey]

This is a transcript of ABC's media watch program. The video is available at the link that follows.

Royally missing the point

" A PLASTIC PRINCESS DESIGNED TO BREED

Booker prize winner’s venomous attack on Kate

— Daily Mail, 19th February, 2013"

Welcome to Media Watch, I’m Jonathan Holmes. Where Britain’s Daily Mail led, the Aussie media breathlessly followed...


" Brett Mason: Author Hilary Mantel says she’s a plastic princess, and varnished mannequin, whose only purpose is to breed.

— Channel Ten, News, 20th February, 2013"

Denham Hitchcock: This is a vicious, vicious attack ...


"...Whether Hilary just wanted to sell books we just don’t know but what she has become today is an enemy of the state

— Channel Nine, News, 20th February, 2013"

And Denham Hitchcock, in Los Angeles, is certainly well-placed to know.

Of course, Denham was on safe ground, because the British Prime Minister had already joined the fray:


" David Cameron: Well I think she writes great books but I think what she said about Kate Middleton is completely misguided completely wrong.

— ABC News Breakfast, 20th February, 2013"

It was a cue for some vicious, vicious attacks – on Hilary Mantel...


" Samantha Armytage: She sounds like a really bitter, twisted old bag, to say this

— Channel Seven, Sunrise, 20th February, 2013"


" Sonia Kruger: Yeah look I think the technical term for Hilary Mantel is that she’s a jealous biatch.

— Channel Nine, Today, 20th February, 2013"


" Genevieve Jacobs: A couple of texts from listeners on this, Dawn says 'comments from a very ordinary looking woman with her mouth very full of grapes’.

— ABC Radio 666 Canberra, Mornings with Genevieve Jacobs, 20th February, 2013"

That was ABC Radio’s Genevieve Jacobs in Canberra. She discussed the issue for more than nine minutes with – in her words – “seasoned old-school feminist” Marie Coleman, who brought us gems like this...


" Marie Coleman: You know I think this business of getting stuck in to the public appearance or the clothes of people who are in public life is absolutely fatuous.

— ABC Radio 666 Canberra, Mornings with Genevieve Jacobs, 20th February, 2013"

But at the end of it, Coleman cheerily admitted that ...


" Marie Coleman: ... I only read the superficial stuff and then thought I had much more to do with my time than to go burrowing into the whole speech.

— ABC Radio 666 Canberra, Mornings with Genevieve Jacobs, 20th February, 2013"

She hadn’t read the speech. And she wasn’t alone. It seems almost nobody had. The Australian media was reacting to brief excerpts, shorn of their context. For example, this one on Nine News ...


" Hilary Mantel: In those days she was a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore... her only point and purpose being to give birth.

Denham Hitchcock: Pretty nasty huh?

— Channel Nine, News, 20th February, 2013"

But, whether Denham Hitchcock realised it or not, that soundbite had been brutally edited. Here’s what Hilary Mantel actually said :


" Hilary Mantel: ... entirely defined by what she wore. These days, as the mother-to-be, she’s draped in another set of threadbare attributions. Once she gets over being sick, the press will decide she’s radiant. They will find that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose – like other royal ladies we’ll come to – her only point and purpose being to give birth

— London Review of Books, Winter Lecture, 4th February, 2013"

Bit different, isn’t it? The real Kate Middleton wasn’t Mantel’s target. Her target was the creature that the media – and the mere fact of being royal – have forced Kate to become like so many Queens and Princesses before her, to become. And the irony is that last Wednesday morning, the Australian media amply reinforced Mantel’s point.


" Hilary Mantel: ...entirely defined by what she wore.

— London Review of Books, Winter Lecture, 4th February, 2013"


" Larry Emdur: Now we know fashion is her forte so now what can you tell us about her new maternity wardrobe – we haven't been this excited since the Kardashian maternity wardrobe which was fabulous.

— Channel Seven, The Morning Show, 20th February, 2013"


" Hilary Mantel: Once she gets over being sick, the press will decide she’s radiant.

— London Review of Books, Winter Lecture, 4th February, 2013"


" Rob Jobson: She looked fantastic actually when she stepped out of the car. Obviously that holiday in Mustique really did appeal and she looked the picture of health so all that talk of the morning sickness, that seems to have gone away.

— Channel Seven, Sunrise, 20th February, 2013"


" Hilary Mantel: Along with the reverence and awe accorded to royal persons goes the conviction that the body of the monarch is public property.

— London Review of Books, Winter Lecture, 4th February, 2013"


" Kylie Gillies: She needs to stop putting her hands in front of her tummy because it’s obstructing my view.

— Channel Seven, The Morning Show, 20th February, 2013"

Only joking, weren’t you, Kylie? But Mantel’s point was that this obsessive objectification has driven many royal women to distraction, and even death:


" Hilary Mantel: I’m not asking for censorship. I’m not asking for pious humbug and smarmy reverence. I’m asking us to back off and not be brutes.

— London Review of Books, Winter Lecture, 4th February, 2013"

Not a chance, Hilary.

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transc ... 697995.htm

This trial-by-media has been happening both in the UK and Australia.

Whats funny is that Hilary is trying to protect Kate - by calling on the media to desist from making Kate - as well as all royal wives - into a one dimensional, single purpose creature. Of course, as media watch demonstrated, while the media is frothing at the mouth over Hilary's plea, they are doing the exact same objectifying of Kate that Hilary was warning about in the first place!