Doug: "But our media are playing up the whole dynasty angle again - CNN was heavy with phrases like "noblesse oblige" yesterday - and the vox pop interviews show the masses ritually genuflecting to their betters. And here in NYC, people are dropping flowers on the sidewalk in front of 20 North Moore St. How depressing."
I wonder who really buys this stuff. It seems to me that the media plays up the "ennobling" public dimension of stories like John-John and Princess Die (ie, the mythic aspects) in order to legitimize its gavel-to-gavel coverage, when in fact a very large and unspoken degree of both media interest and public interest is purely prurient: the thrill of gawking as one drives by a bad accident coupled with the knowledge that a celebrity was involved in the wreck.