Trooping the Colour, while a
beautiful display of affection for Queen Elizabeth II, many years ago favored
to move away from being the purposeful transferring of battalion flags that represented
the spirit of regiment into a commercialized display of spectacle that turns the
royalty
Debord writes in his analysis of
society as spectacle that commodity, “attains its ultimate fulfillment in the
spectacle, where the perceptible world is replaced by a selection of images
which is projected above it, yet which at the same time succeeds in making
itself regarded as the perceptible par excellence”. Trooping the Colour
takes an ‘image’, an event rooted in history and heritage, and projects onto it
a selection of images that display the grandiose nature and face value of the royalty
that becomes the norm of what the event represents. Society soaks up the over
the top nature of this heritage and turns it into an event associated with
profit. Every corner near The Mall that day had someone selling Queen or other royalty
related merchandize with people most definitely willing to pay. A quote
from Richard Hewison that reflects the state of Trooping of the Colour well
states that, “instead of manufacturing goods, we are manufacturing heritage, a
commodity which nobody seems able to define, but which everybody is eager to
sell”.
The Queen’s face placed upon T-Shirts
galore and purchased by the masses instills a sense of literal objectification
on the Queen. More than just T-Shirts, the Queen displays herself as
essentially an object for the people to gleam towards. People don’t awe at the
Queen because she has a fantastic personality or because she has made great
legislative movements, they awe at her because she is The Queen. In Berger’s analysis
of women as objects he writes, “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being
looked at”. This is akin to the way the royalty acts and how they perceive
themselves. The common man looks at the royalty and the royalty must watch
themselves being looked at, to assure that every move they make is the right
one, to appear as if they are the perfect person they seem to be. This
especially represents The Queen, being more of a neutral figurehead of the
United Kingdom and it’s commonwealth than anything. Elizabeth’s neutrality can
even be displayed when watching her ride along at her birthday celebration,
displaying no smile towards the crowd and only a brief hand wave every few
minutes to barley acknowledge the people that so greatly adore her. In this way
she perpetuates that this ceremony is about the objectification and commercialization
of royalty. Best told by Berger, he writes, “Thus she turns herself into an
object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”
References:
Kennedy, Dennis. "Shakespeare and Cultural
Tourism." Theatre Journal, 50.2 (1998): 175-188.
Berger, John. “Ways of Seeing.” 1973. Chapter 3
Debord, Guy. “Society as Spectacle.” 2005. Chapter 2
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