FOR those who mourned (many profusely) when the news broke that Queen Elizabeth II of England had died, they must have been shocked—and surprised—by the negative criticisms posted against them or directly at the otherwise sad event. While John Donne’s claim that any man’s death should diminish us, this time the world, it appears, has generally shifted its positions.
“Why mourn for an oppressor?” was the most virulent statement that came out online. One should ask: When can one not exercise virulence against oppression? If we examine the adverse reactions where we expected sympathy, we begin to see a bracketing taking place—it is not the person being critiqued but the system she represented and helped maintain. Critiquing the death and the splendor and solemnity of the ceremonies after it is not easy. The most common rationale being that respect for the dead is higher in importance than a social commentary on the deceased. In Asia and in our country as well, this is the etiquette observed during deaths and memorials.
A season of contradictions indeed. Postpone the political analysis and let us mourn. But that is easy to say to peoples from nations whose development were at the mercy of a great master, a monarch across the ocean.
History has made the dynamics between England and certain nations—from the more developed Australia, for example, to a small African state—complex and conflicted. In talk shows, panelists composed of the politically astute and socially oriented note how the United Kingdom may not be united after all. If there was one figure that united the UK, it was the Queen.
Online, time, while it has stopped for death, comes in endless supply as the TV and the Internet spend luxurious hours focusing on a long trip meandering across hills and dales as the funeral cortege leaves Balmoral.
A commentator said the Queen, whose favored location (in another broadcast, a royal observer claims the Queen once said she wanted to die in Balmoral) is now the subject of an eternal drone shot, seems to have given a boost to its tourism program. This was uttered, of course, with due respect, the commentator said.
More contradictions are realized when the Queen’s cortege winds its way down from Balmoral Castle to Giles Castle in another part of Scotland. A baroness echoes how politics has no space at this moment. People are there to pay tribute to a great woman, a leader, a statesman even. Countering this tendency are more comments about the independent Scotland, that in 2014 a referendum was held asking the question, “Should Scotland be an independent country?” The results of the said referendum had the “No” winning 55.3 percent over the “Yes,” which garnered 44.7 percent. In June 2022, Scotland’s first minister proposed that 2023 be set as the date for another referendum for independence.
In the many reports about the 2014 referendum, historians were quoted citing the importance of that date: It was in 1314 when the army of Robert the Bruce, the King of Scots, triumphed over King Edward of England in the Battle of Bannockburn. This was called the First War of Scottish Independence, as it did not really end the war yet but proved to the world what resistance could achieve.
At the center of all this is Queen Elizabeth II, who reigned for 70 decades and, as in that film bio, through 15 prime ministers. Whether you are a monarchist or not, Queen Elizabeth, the royal person and the individual, was one of the most influential personalities of the century.
But who was Elizabeth?
With most of us ordinary, non-roya, people not granted access to the personal spheres of the queen, we can only imagine who she was. The films made about her become our references, for they were many.
Most popular of these depictions is the one done by Helen Mirren in 2006. The film is, with great confidence, titled The Queen.
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian writes of a “cracking impersonation of the Queen by Helen Mirren who, though appreciably taller and younger than our head of state, achieves an eerie transformation….” It should be noted that the narrative follows the days following the death of Princess Diana, another royal figure whose impact on Queen Elizabeth a commoner can only assume either with malice or sympathy.
If the box-office gains are to be considered, then this film about Queen Elizabeth was a success. Icing on the cake were the many awards received by the film, including the Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Circle, among others, for Best Screenplay by Peter Morgan, and the Best Actress Awards for Helen Mirren from the Oscars, the BAFTA, the Golden Globe and other award-giving bodies. The film also made it to the Top Ten List of US Critics. Do these recognitions spell an admiration for the Queen or for Dame Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth?
Then there are the three Elizabeths in the Netflix series, The Crown: Claire Foy as the young Elizabeth, Olivia Colman in middle age, and Imelda Staunton in the Queen’s graceful old age.
Who played the Queen the best?
Ella Taylor, a noted film critic and academic, looks amused at how easy it must be to portray the Queen. On the CBS Sunday Morning Show, she is interviewed by Turner Classic host Ben Mankiewicz, where she says: “You know, she is such a great subject for film and television directors because what they’ve got is a blank slate waving to the public.” That in enduring those long decades and surviving the test of power, Elizabeth had to maintain a composure, almost an enigma, a placid personality upon which no one was allowed to predict a response or reaction, nor much of pain or joy.
Outside the grieving, online on Democracy Now, there is a headline calling to dismantle the commonwealth as the death of the Queen “prompts reckoning with the colonial past in Africa.”