We as a society enjoy seeing the face behind the perfect facade. Throughout the years, we’ve had many untouchable celebrities that leave the public raving for just a look into their real lives. What it’s like to live as them. Pop singers like Britney Spears, style icons like Zendaya, and real-life royal families like the British monarchy. This is evident in the success of shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians and The Crown. It begs the question– what makes these shows so appealing to people? How does something like The Crown, which is somewhat inaccurate and dramatized, draw in such a large audience, many of which don’t have a monarchy in their own country and might even be against monarchies existing in the first place?
Being based on true events (some very public) brings a certain amount of scrutiny and invasiveness to the show. But despite that, it also shields it from seeming too personal because they make it clear that it’s still fictional. It walks a fine line between fiction and reality, dramatizing what is already the quite dramatic spectacle of the royal family. The very concept of royals thrives off of both attention and lack of it in order to appear perfect; something the show repeatedly displays through the unending pressure that every member of the royal family is constantly under. The show capitalizes on the fantasy and prestige of royalty while also humanizing them. This works to expose what this life would be like and how it would inevitably bring out the imperfect aspects of people born into it. That humanizing of Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, Prince Phillip, and all those who were born into the vast wealth and aristocracy of the British monarchy was the basis for the first two seasons of the show. Especially with how young the characters were in those early years when the first two seasons take place, some of their more heinous or unsympathetic actions are easier to forgive. By the time season 3 comes around it gets a bit harder to forgive the way they treat those around them. Almost everyone in the royal family is shown to feel trapped at some point or another but they push through because this is all they’ve ever known. At the end of the day, they still want the life of a royal, even if it means making sacrifices for things like friendships and marriage. Then comes season 4.
The reason season 4 of The Crown was so controversial (while also being their most popular season) was because it took a series of events that had played out in the public eye and magnified it, casting a negative light on Prince Charles in particular. Up till then the previous seasons had worked to make the royals real and show the different ways that they protect and betray each other, painting them mostly in a sympathetic light. But once Diana entered the picture it was easy for viewers to see the otherness that existed between the royals and those that weren’t. There’s a scene in season 4 when Diana first meets the royal family and is made to bow to everyone standing around her in a circle. It’s almost akin to wolves circling around a lost puppy. She’s not only sent in without being informed of the customs she was expected to know, but the royals don’t seem to realize what a grotesque spectacle they’re making of her. It shows them as out of touch and reminds viewers that while the early seasons might have made the royal family seem more like normal people in extraordinary paths of life, they still considered themselves above most others around them. We’ve seen snippets of this in previous episodes as well but when it’s told from someone else’s perspective, namely Diana who was never born into the royal family, it shows people who also weren’t born in the royal family how they treat those who aren’t one of them.
The show proves that from the outside you might want to fulfill your childhood dreams of being a princess in a beautiful palace, but that the reality can be much more brutal. The life of a royal makes those that are trapped in it care about the wrong things. They treat people in ways that us watching would likely never dream of doing but we see that they believe they have no choice. It’s the way it is and there’s no other way for them to be as this is all they know. One slip up and the mask of divinity and the right to rule might disappear.