Victorian Visual Culture

While I took this trip during the summer, and therefore before the start of this class, I’ve been able to link some of what I saw and noticed to ideas discussed in class. Over the summer, my family and I took a trip to England, beginning in London and making our way around the countryside, as well as some of the other cities. While we were there, I learned a lot about the royal family (my mom is a huge nerd for them, and so she also knew a lot of facts). I knew that Prince Harry and Megan Markle moved away from London to the States, but I didn’t know the extent of the drama in the family. First off, what was really interesting to me is the documentation of this family for over 1000 years. Their history, good and bad, has always been documented in some sort of way, and has always been given to the public eye. With the rise of visual media, from the invention of photography and now with mass distribution and viewing of digital media, it is very easy to access information about them. I also think it’s interesting how there have been so many different movies and tv shows based on their family at some point in time. They have become a spectacle now, since they don’t hold nearly as much political power. They are displayed now more for entertainment rather than any sort of government influence, and they feed into that. From what I’m aware of, the Queen never made any of her personal political opinions known. However, she made social appearances when needed, and kept up with society in other ways. I think it’s interesting how over the course of this family’s reign, they went from being the ones with the political power, to not having quite nearly as much, but are exposed to the public in a very new, intimate way. Social media, paparazzi, televised news, etc. all exploit and showcase the family in ways they both choose, and not, and use the issues between them as content. I’m not saying I support the royal family (I don’t know enough about them to have a formed opinion), but it’s interesting to see how the world uses their existence, and how their history is marked and shown in such a variety of ways. From what I know, Megan and Harry left the family partly because of the constant exposure and stress the media gave them, which can be understandable. I can’t imagine my life, and all my family’s lives, being open and expected to be publicized for everyone to consume as they wish.