Are you also obsessively following Princess Kate's Photoshop disaster?
I am, but not for the reason you might think
There’s not much else to say about Princess Kate’s recent Photoshop disaster, which followed her absence from public life after “planned abdominal surgery.” The despairing clone tool didn’t just cajole more perfect smiles, it eroded trust. A press withdrawal notice ushered in a train wreck. Get out the popcorn! ;)
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Transcontinental media events are made from undersea cables, Big Tech, popular culture, and omg virility. They suck the oxygen out of the room.
Naturally, I’ve been breathless in the kitchen reading thought leadership on the royal fandango, filling the void while I struggle to answer the tyrannical question that relentlessly plagues all of us, “what do I make for dinner?” Here’s what I read instead of cooking:
“The Unraveling of A Royal Fairytale” by Anne Helen Peterson on Culture Study
“Princess Kate’s Altered Photo” by Samantha Putterman for Politifact
“Kate Middleton and the End of Shared Reality” by Charlie Warzel for The Atlantic
I had to go to the store for answers. In the checkout line, I admired a handsome woman in a green-striped Cotopaxi coat and print turquoise leggings buying a 12-pack of grapefruit Spindrift and, under a large package of organic hamburger rolls, a pink pregnancy test. I saw her see me reading People, which had the retracted royal photo, so I surprised her by thawing the Seattle freeze and making conversation.
“Can you believe the truthers coming out of the woodwork? It reminds me of the Britney truthers.”
She nodded. I kept going.
“Don’t you wonder, though, what’s happened to Kate?”
“Maybe she had an abortion,” suggested the woman. I don’t think she saw that I saw the pregnancy test. I nevertheless felt vaguely embarrassed, so I avoided eye contact by examining the nutritional panel of wintergreen breath mints. One gram of sugar per mint, if you need to know.
“Maybe she ran away for a break—to find herself,” I said.
I didn’t say, maybe Kate read Emily Gould’s divorce fantasy and decided to take a break. Who doesn’t need a break? I, for one, want a vacation.
“A psychotic break?” she replied. I realized she resembled Kate. I shrugged.
Maybe the Cotopaxi woman had also read Gould’s essay. Maybe we were actually talking about Gould. Or about her? About me? About everyone we know? It’s hard to say.
When trust in something is damaged because of media manipulation—and, obviously, this is not just about the royals but about elections and wars and internet Black feminism and the Pope and you and me—you have to wonder, what did you trust in the first place?
The question reminds me of a guilty pleasure I used to have, looking at Photoshop Disasters. I’d gape at the failures. Memorable was Boing Boing’s repost of PD’s Ralph Lauren advertisement, “Dude her head is bigger than her pelvis.” I realized we’re primed to ask: is this plastic surgery or Photoshop? Sometimes the answer wasn’t clear. It’s akin to The Face Book’s ‘hot or not.’ But each failure draws attention to a less photogenic reality, aspirational—often harmful—narratives about how to live, narratives soggy with power relationships.
So is obsession with Princess Kate’s absence from public life a withdrawal symptom of scopophilia, the perverse pleasure of looking?
You may be familiar with this word if you’ve heard of the “male gaze,” which was coined by British film theorist Laura Mulvey in a 1975 breakthrough essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” She deepened mid-century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s theory of the self. He writes about how your self is formed through looking (at others, at yourself in the mirror). Mulvey discusses the audience experience of viewing Hollywood cinema, which at the time, was largely produced by men and points out how the spectators—who are everyone, male, female, what have you—are seated in the darkened theater and compelled to gaze at the women on the screen from the vantage of a man. On-screen, women are often broken into parts—they are not whole people but asses, lips, breasts, and legs.
As the unsilence of the 21st-century grocery store rose around us, I wondered who could hear the invisible sound of surveillance cameras watching my moves. The invisible sound of everyone gazing at their smartphones. The invisible sound of humans trying to figure out what to make for dinner.
I placed a bag of navel oranges, one shiny purple eggplant, two bunches of garlic, parsley, four boxes of Barilla pasta, and a brown paper package of organic ground beef on the conveyor belt. I had an onion at home.
If I had the eye of the camera, of a satellite, I wondered if I’d see the same scene, over and over, across America. It would be too much to take in, too much to make sense of, I decided, I was already overwhelmed by dinner.
Tayden, the cashier, interrupted my thoughts, politely asking about my reusable bags. Ugh, I’d forgotten. Then I remembered I had a folded nylon art bag I’d gotten at the Albertina gift shop in Vienna. It wasn’t The Kiss but just as cliche. Campy in Vienna is cool in Seattle?
By the time I’d dug it out, I saw Cotopaxi woman was gone.
I couldn’t help myself. I wondered, was she pregnant? Who would eat those hamburger buns? What did she do for a living? Where did she get those leggings? How old was she? The grocery store loyalty program might know, but I couldn’t. There’s only so much you can know about other people even when they’re right in front of you.
In the years since the publication of her essay, Mulvey’s theory has been deepened and debated. But the point that interests me is simply that scopophilia is a type of voyeurism in which people find themselves forced to ogle from a subject position that isn’t theirs. While they may identify against or with the view, the framing and setting coerces them, they are somewhat powerless to change. The film is already on celluloid. They can refuse to look, I suppose. The oppositional gaze, as bell hooks theorized in 1997.
At home, after the dishes (I made lasagna), I did what many of us do. I ogled at social media. I ogled at the news. In doing this, I let myself be consumed. My habits are quantified. My groceries counted up. My curiosities are capitalized. I am broken into parts.
Did you know I made the mistake of searching “neck skin tightening treatments” in addition to lingering on some video Drew Berrymore posted about perimenopause and now, to my horror, Internet ads target me with anti-aging creams and neck-tightening miracle potions. I am also regularly targeted as a potential buyer of “nap dresses” but I don’t wear dresses and I never nap. How did this happen?
I feel powerless to change what I see. I want to look away.
There’s not much left to say about Princess Kate’s recent Photoshop disaster, except to suggest we are all worked on by invisible, despairing clone tools, which mutate images and erode trust, turning us into messy trainwrecks.
I did make popcorn.
Actually, a few days after my encounter at the grocery store, thankfully, the mystery of Princess Kate’s disappearance was solved in an online conversation with Amelia* Wilson. She writes Some Happy Scribbles and is on the vacation I’ve been dreaming about and we figured it all out in the comments!
I can’t promise there’s anything there that hasn’t already been said, except gossip is everyone’s favorite perverse pleasure so I will close my eyes and not imagine all the things you are saying about me behind my back. I know there’s only so much you can know about people, even when they’re right in front of you.
Hope you’re doing okay, Kate.
Recipe recommendation
Grandma’s no-bake cucumber cookies
I thought I’d share this amusing recipe, courtesy of my mom.
First. Get yourself to the grocery store and purchase a cucumber. Any variety. I prefer Persian, personally. You could also grow them, which I aspire to do one day, but I am not currently at that stage in life.
Second. Go home and unload the groceries. Unload the dishwasher. Wash a cutting board. Prepare dinner. Forget about the cucumber. Unload the lunch boxes. Make a cup of tea. Check work email. Read something random on the internet. Tidy up the Legos. Sort the mail. Wait until the children beg for a snack after dinner.
Third. Tell the children, “cucumber cookies, coming right up!”
Fourth. Find the cucumbers in the crisper.
Fifth. Enlist their help to find the cutting board. Peel and slice the cucumber into rounds. Optional: Sprinkle with salt and a garnish of fresh mint.
Sixth. Ta-da! Cucumber cookies!
Upcoming courses
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Recommendations
I’m still working on a Book Tok video. I plan to finish before TikTok goes offline (!!). In the meantime, one of my talented and hardworking students, Rafael gave me permission to share! Check it out!
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Thank you for reading The Gift!
Until next time,
Monika
The Gift
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*Forgive me, I mistakenly wrote “Amanda” instead of “Amelia.” Apologies Amelia! <3
thanks for the mention!
"At home, after the dishes, I made lasagna, I did what many of us do. I ogled at social media. I ogled at the news. In doing this, I let myself be consumed. My habits are quantified. My groceries counted up. My curiosities are capitalized. I am broken into parts. " Brilliant