April 29 marks the one-year anniversary of Prince William‘s wedding to Kate Middleton, but TLC is jumping on the nostalgia train early with last night’s special William & Kate: One Year Later. Talking heads (mostly from Britain’s press) chattered about the Duke and Duchess’ relatively low-key first year of marriage — and their glaring lack of children — but rosy-eyed hindsight had them gushing over the Royal Wedding like it was something that should be included in textbooks.
It was almost as bad as the TLC special Crazy About Pippa, though the overstatements were somewhat diluted since it was two people, not one, being analyzed. Still, last night’s special did not disappoint, and I pulled out several amusing bits of hyperbole.
“Nothing else was going to happen that day in April. The Royal Family are the biggest celebrities in the world. It was the biggest story in the world that year.” Already the talking head is wrong, because January Jones‘ publicist slyly released news of January’s pregnancy (and unidentified baby daddy) that same weekend so it would get swallowed up in the Royal Wedding coverage. Also, the wedding didn’t even occur halfway through 2011; here are a few other things that happened during the year:
- March – A 9.1 magnitude earthquake/tsunami hits Japan, killing at least 15,000 people
- May – U.S. army finds and kills Osama bin Laden
- September – The tenth anniversary of 9/11 and Occupy Wall Street begins
Suffice to say, a lot more happened last year.
“I think people found it quite extraordinary to see Kate shopping within days of getting married.” Because princesses don’t know how shopping carts work! Several commenters made note of Kate’s willingness to slum it in grocery stores and clothing stores like Zara; obviously it’s fantastic that she wears clothes that normal women can afford, but it doesn’t need to be mentioned every seven minutes.
“The goodwill they generate helps lift the monarchy from the abyss.” TLC’s narrator got so many great lines out of this special, including this bit of hyperbole that sounds like it’s taken from the trailer for a political thriller. What he meant to say was, now that the British monarchy had a hot young married couple at the helm, they didn’t have to worry about seeming outdated.
“If you brought back Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, they wouldn’t excite Americans this much.” It was actually actor Stephen Fry who said this on the red carpet when Will and Kate visited Hollywood. Of course, he’s British, so he’s a bit biased to be saying that Kate reigns over Marilyn. After all, it’s not as if there’s some British drama about the making of a Kate Middleton musical currently on the air, now is there?
