“Less famous you are, more you can do for people”.

This great thought I heard today from my best friend when we started talking about today mass media. For me this story actually started a week ago, from “Diana”, a recent movie about Princess Diana with Naomi Watts. You know these moments when idols of your childhood suddenly become unsteady and some of them even fall, because you grew up and found out that they were way far from being ideal? So that’s what happened with the image of Lady Di in my world after I watched the movie.

I don’t remember the day this “queen of people’s heart” died, but I do remember this beautiful, blondish angel with a warm smile and kind eyes, always elegant and shining, always ready to hug kids and beggars and to help everyone in poor Africa. A real princess, the one I wanted to be like. A true princess from fairy-tales, killed (together with the man she loved) by evil British prince and his mom-queen. A perfect plot of the story for kids… and - as it turned out - for half of the world adult population too. You can imagine, how high were my expectation from the movie.

It was a complete disappointment. First of all, there wasn’t a poor, unfairly offended woman whose husband cheated on her, while she wasn’t allowed to say a word because her husband was a prince. There was a smart and strong politician, who knew the rules of the game and who made this interview with BBC about her marriage with the exactly right words in the exactly right time. And who celebrated her victory over her disgraced opponent, as well as counted how many points she got by that speech in the morning newspapers. There was the woman who easily organized a media scandal with pictures of herself on Dodi Fayed’s (son of an Egyptian millionaire) yacht, pretending to kiss the guy she didn’t have any feelings to (according to the movie).

Second of all, the whole movie was mostly about her ridiculously banal relations with this Pakistani doctor. There was no even an attempt to persuade the viewer that Diana found something precious in this unconfident guy with the inferiority complex, who pretended to be independent, “real man”. As a result, the viewer actively dislikes the guy and starts doubting where Diana is actually a smart woman. After all, it’s really hard to believe that he accused her in not understanding how much his job meant for him – she wasn’t even trying to make him quit his job, she did the opposite, she tried to find him better place to work as a doctor in the other country. Honestly, I didn’t get what was the problem and why they couldn’t be together if they really loved each other (which again looked very questionable in the movie).

The last, but not the least thing, that actually bothered me the most. Diana doesn’t really help anyone in the movie!!! Ok, she comes to the hospital in Africa to see kids who lost parts of their bodies because of the land mines. What does she do there? She makes a sad face and strokes their heads so that the photographer can make a perfect picture for the morning magazines. That’s it. How did that picture help a scared, 5-year-old, black boy in his broken life?! She fights for banning land mines and even walks on the mine-free field in Angola. To make another perfect picture and an amazing story for the world newspapers.

The land mines were finally banned, and everyone praised Lady Di for that. Nobody remembered that there were hundreds of people who fought against those mines years and years before her! That in all those associations against AIDS or supporting prisoner’s families, there were thousands of people who actually worked there every day to help by giving not just money, but medical and psychological treatment to those who needed it. And these people are not on magazines’ covers (oh yes, Lady Di appeared 7 times on Newsweek cover, 8 times – on Time cover, and 50 times – on People cover), nobody knows their last names (except their patients), but THEY were the ones who changed our world to better, THEY were the ones who stopped peoples’ deaths from land mines and AIDS.  

I guess, Princess Diana was a wonderful person and she truly wanted to help people by giving them extra money that she still had left from buying nice clothes. She also probably was pretty unhappy woman who had to deal with her husband’s unfaithfulness and indiscretion. So let her rest in peace! However, a lot of this “angel” image was created by mass media and her good acting, starting from the smart idea to charm the prince who dated her sister. I’m not saying that it’s only her fault. “Less famous you are, more you can do for people”, as my friend says. Doesn’t sound that controversial any more, does it?

P.S. Lady Di had an inborn love to kids: she even worked as kindergarten teacher when she was 18! Small remark: it was a private kindergarten for kids from rich, privileged families.  

Reading News.

Thinking a career in journalism, I started reading different media resources both in Russian and English pretty often. Things happening in Ukraine made me read them even more often, every morning opening the Internet expecting the worst. Yesterday my fears came true: Odessa happened. But it wasn’t just nightmare of a lot of people being killed without any reasons or explanations that made me angry. It was actually another story that was in the top list of BBC that I read right after reading about conflict in Ukraine. Jeremy Clarkson: BBC upbraids presenter over 'racist' clip. Basically, three pages discussing whether some journalist from BBC used an N-word in his clip
“filmed several years ago and never broadcast” or not. The article cites different editors and the journalist himself, gives arguments pro and contra and discusses whether Mr. Clarkson should be punished or not. Finally, it posts the video itself. I watched it three times in a row. Here it is: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/video-watch-jeremy-clarkson-use-3481201

I mean, may be English is not my native language, but  for God’s sake, there is NO N-word in this clip: the guy pronounces his speech very quickly and unclear so you can notice there whatever you want.

            Anyway, at the end of the article the journalist gives other examples of Mr. Clarkson “racism”: joking in his TV-show that “they would not receive complaints because the Mexican ambassador would be asleep” and using the word "slope" as an Asian man crossed a newly built bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand. I read this article right after reading about dozens of people being killed, injured, and arrested, about tanks shooting at the crowd of unarmed people, about the police not trying to prevent any acts of violence. Those stories were next to each other as “the most read” recently. Then I went to The New York Times to see what they say about this slaughter in Ukraine. There was nothing on the first page. Nothing! I had to go to “World” section to see four sentences with scant facts about the building on fire and 30 victims.

So three pages discussing whether some guy said N-word or not and how bad was his joke about Mexican minister and four sentences about dozens of people in Europe (not even in Africa!) dying ridiculously and pointlessly, by someone’s stupid mistake or by someone’s malicious intent. Obviously, everyone chooses whatever is more important for him, what he wants to discuss. But it seems to me ridiculous to organize huge discussions about gay marriages and to argue whether a girl should always pay for herself in the restaurant - in the world where we can’t prevent people from being killed for nothing, for someone’s wealth or power. I don’t talk about politicians and government (I never really relied on those ones), I talk about everyone’s personal responsibility. After all, mass media publishes not only things that they are told to publish but also things that a reader would like to see, that a reader loves to discuss. May be, we should start from fighting for basic human rights before talking about N-words or jokes about someone’s ministers?