The Royal Family is quite complex and like watching a reality TV series, says one royal expert. Daily Express US spoke to Sarah Lyall, a New York Times writer, about why that is, with her saying people are fascinated with the royals for “different reasons.”
Ms Lyall worked as the London correspondent for the US paper from 1995 to 2013. Just last year, she wrote the original audiobook Unroyal: Three Women Who Shook the Monarchy, so she has a good handle on the topic.
When speaking to the author about public perception, she broke it down into two parts; how the royals are seen in the UK and the US. In the UK, the royals “have always been a part of the system,” and in the US, Americans are “fascinated by the old-fashioned nature of the British class system.”
With Lyall being American, she says: “It plays into our latent snobbery, our latent fascination with a system that we fought a revolution to get away from.”
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Lyall elaborates on the differences between the British and American public’s ties to the Royal Family. In the UK, the royals are a part of the fabric of society and in the US, the royals are a part of American history.
The royal author says: “In the UK, as long as there’s been a monarchy, there have been people questioning whether or not it should exist, questioning the amount of money that should be devoted to it, questioning what the role of the monarch is, etcetera, etcetera.”
She adds: “In the US, it’s a little different, because we are meant to be a class-free society, which, of course, isn’t true, but we’re meant to be. But we are absolutely fascinated by the old-fashioned nature of the British class system.”
She uses pop culture as an example, saying, “I think it explains why we used to be fascinated with Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey, and all these other shows that focus on the upper class and their relationship to the lower class.”
She adds: “I think, this structure to be so startling represented.”
Lyall goes one step further, as to why it’s so captivating to the viewer: “It plays into our latent snobbery, our latent fascination with a system that we fought a revolution to get away from.”
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The royal author points out, royal watchers are “two steps removed,” which adds to the mystery, but at the same time, “it’s low-stakes” and it’s something everyone can have an opinion on as an observer.
She points out: “I also feel like, in this incredibly difficult moment in the world right now, and I found this when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle did their interview, like why do people care so much?”
On one level, people care, because Harry and Meghan were speaking to the public via an interview with Orpah Winfrey, and saying things that royals don’t typically say, talking about private matters, which resulted in a family divide.
Lyall talks about royal-watching, kind of like being a club, and everyone is invited to join: “In some ways, it’s a pretty low-stakes issue that everyone already knows about, there aren’t that many things, that everyone knows the people in, that everyone can talk about, everyone can have an opinion about and it’s not a very controversial opinion, you can like them or not like them.”
