By Gina Barreca
Hartford Courant
Posted: Monday, Sep. 24, 2012
You’d think that being a gorgeous, charming, sophisticated young princess fully accessorized right down to having an adoring, healthy and attentive young king-to-be at one’s side would have solved most problems, wouldn’t you?
But we learned last week that even Kate Middleton isn’t enviable – at least not all the time.
Last week’s collective cultural copping of a feel has transformed the Duchess of Cambridge into merely a pair of breasts. Gone from sight and sound are the young woman’s good works and bon mots; eclipsed are the dazzling smiles and apparently affectionate interactions with her delighted audiences in Britain and abroad.
She’s been reduced to a just another girl gone wild, a young woman without a bathing suit top sunning herself on a deck. The paparazzi wanted to get those photographs of Middleton because she’s “somebody.”
Yet the effect of being photographed in such a way is to be cut down to size: to be made into “any body,” to be made into an object. Finally, it is to be treated like nobody at all: just a pair of breasts and a behind.
Some of Middleton’s critics argue that, as a royal supported by the state, she should have known better than to reveal her naughty bits except indoors with the blackout curtains drawn, as if she were living during the Blitz. Or under Shariah law, perhaps.
But of what, exactly, is Middleton meant to be ashamed? Is she being punished for making us want to look at her? C’mon, she’s one of the most photographed women in the world. She’s not some poor girl with low self-esteem who misjudged how to become popular and removed her top for Twitter.
READ MORE: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/09/24/3547157/no-shame-for-kate-middleton-only.html
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