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A battle royal between the BBC and Her MajestyQueen Elizabeth II is unhappy. No, Helen Mirren hasn't snubbed her again: Annie Leibovitz and the BBC have. Rather, they've revealed her real-ness, and that just won't do.
Yesterday, the BBC released a promotional trailer for the upcoming documentary A Year With the Queen. In it, the queen is seen disagreeing with Annie Leibovitz at a photo shoot (the preceding photo is one of the results of the shoot, but it isn't the offending bit of media). Specifically, the queen took issue with Leibovitz's suggestion that she remove her crown:
The BBC today issued an apology, admitting that what looked like a stomping-off-the-set afterward was actually out of sequence; it was footage of the queen arriving at the shoot. I don't know where to begin, really. Well, yes, I do; I'm going to ignore all the out-of-sequence nonsense and focus on the queen's discomfort with Leibovitz's request. On the one hand, it's a photo shoot: No matter who you are, you can expect to be poked, prodded and posed. And if you have even a passing familiarity with Leibovitz's work, you know that you can expect her to get very close to you in some way. So, on that score, I'm tempted to say "duh" to Her Unsuspecting Majesty.
On the other hand, even a photographer should have some respect for personal space — and an inkling that a member of the royal family might have a different definition of personal space. It's the Queen, not Elton John in a tiara at one of his fabulous fetes. (And it was indeed a tiara, not a crown, but never mind.) I'm just saying I might think twice before futzing with the head of a head of state. I know: It's not like Leibovitz walked up to her and yanked off her headgear, but the very question was quite an affront. Imagine asking Dolly Parton to take off her wig or entreating Ron Howard to doff his omnipresent baseball cap. Horrors! (Here's what Leibovitz really did with Parton in 1977, with the help of Arnold Schwarzenegger:)
All that aside, it's hard not to giggle at this story. If there's something funnier than a royal temper tantrum, I'd like to know what it is — there's a reason shows like My Super Sweet 16 are so popular, and those aren't even about real royalty. Moreover, a miffed monarch is just the sort of thing I'd hope to see in a Leibovitz photo. For now, I'll settle for these:
Submitted by on July 12, 2007 - 1:46pm. |
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This is sort of tangential
This is sort of tangential to the post, but that top picture of the Queen is absolutely horrible. I haven't seen a lot of Leibovitz's work, but honestly, if I was the Queen, I wouldn't exactly be happy about the fact that my photo shoot for Vanity Fair consisted of me being dressed in a long, shapeless, depressing black cloak, set against a grimy background. It's also just a stupid picture... it's the Queen looking exactly like the Queen always does, only with an arty pretentious setting. You could cut out her head and graft it onto a picture of her in one of her normal suits, at a state function, and it wouldn't look at all out of place. Isn't the point of this sort of photo shoot supposed to be to find some sort of window into the person's soul? Or at the very least a bit of a different angle on them.
Leave The Crown on, Lose the Clothes
I admittedly know nothing
I admittedly know nothing about the portrayals of the previous monarchs, but I sort of like the take which is apparently dubbed 'traditional' here. The first picture's background is dark, with the details far off in the back, except for the big desolate 'horror novel cover' tree on the left - which seems to me to be safely tucked away, from the POV of the Queen. The queen in that gown reminds me of a mountain with grey snow on the top! The buttons are the brightest things we see. I like that symbolicism: the queen is an 'ancient' institution standing out in dark times (which times, though, aren't dark), impenetrable and secretive. We see only the starting points to understanding that life. And she's far removed from the people who don't particularly revere her (the tree on the left).
The second picture is to my liking too. The queen seems to be stuck in a dark place from where she sees the world through but an open door which fails to illuminate her 'natural surroundings'. Yet her light clothing suggests she's of that place of light, and her looking vaguely in the direction of it suggests trying to balance a separated, privacy-seeking existence with an understanding of what goes on outside it.
But then again I've always had a vivid imagination.
Those are actually some
I think she looks like...
George Washington
GMTA
Holy shit, I was gonna say the exact same thing! (and add that if there were a boat behind her, she’d look ready to cross the Delaware)!
Ace is my new hero
Aw Shucks
It is interesting a number of us had the exact same reaction to this photo.
I like the irony that a photograph of the Queen evokes an image of the General and inaugural president of the first nation to declare independence from Great Britain. I don't know that it means anything in particular -- and it's not like it's a photograph of King George -- but still....
Re: Annie Liebowitz, if her exhibit, "A Photographer's Life: 1990 - 2005" is still traveling around, see it if you can. It's amazing. The book version of it is pretty cool, too.
oh. just. amazing.
Oh, I saw it. And it was amazing.
I don’t know about you, but the photos I liked the best were the ones from Sarajevo, and ones of her family (including her parents, and Susan and the kids. That one taken right after 9/11, shortly after her daughter was born, really stuck with me). I much preferred those to most of her celeb shots, which I also love, but have seen a million times before.
And seriously, for anyone who’s a fan, it’s a must-see exhibit.
I agree
I was most struck by the Sarajevo shots (particularly the bicycle one), the family shots (particularly the one of Susan laid out after her death), and the poltical shots (particularly the one of the Bush Administration.)
Of celebrity shots, the ones the stuck with me most were the Gwyneth Paltrow/Blythe Danner shot and the photos of Johnny and June Carter Cash.
I have the book, too, and spend periodically just marvel at some of the photos.
The Queen..
...is of my waste of my money!
of course the bbc are gonna twist things to make it more interesting, thats what reality documents do, stupid hag!
The Royal Family makes a
The Royal Family makes a bucketload of money for Britain in the tourist industry....
and if i was the Queen i'd be miffed too, considering she dressed the way she was asked to only to be told it was too much. You can hear her bitching about having to dress up that way in the first place.
-to love another person is to see the face of god-
bex - HM costs each UK
mmm exactly!
great value, and a monarch keeps those jumped up politicians in their place. How many Americans would love a monarch rather than the wannabe-king politicians that damage the country?
By crikey, I'm glad that we have the royal family as our monarch, and we're commonwealth.... politicians know they are temporary elected servants and nothing more.
Smells like queen spirit
Yes, she DOES look like George Washington. More than that, every aspect of the image seems designed to evoke that very 19th-century style of painting and, along with it, a very 19th-century attitude about "heads of state" and "power" and "the queen" and the relationship between the crown and its people. It's quite a political photograph, in that way. With or without the "crown," both of these photos say quite a lot about the "crown," i.e., British monarchy---without, you know, actually saying anything. In other words, what Stephen Frears's film said in two hours, these two photos say in a flash.
I love Annie Liebovitz. And I love art, which allows you to say things with images that you couldn't get away with otherwise. :)
Tidbit
Annie was actually quoted explaining that she *wanted* to shoot a traditional set of the Queen because there is such a tradition with royalty portraits. Though she still agreed to being the photographer that pushes and breaks molds, she said she took a different approach with the Queen because she respects that tradition so much.
Sidenote, Ace: you're my hero.
God, Ace...
I see
The Queen is as pretentious as ever. And I mean that in the most kindest regal way I can muster for the old broad. As you can see, I am not a fan of the monarch. However, I am truly grateful she is not at least my mother-in-law. LOL
I love photography and would find it a challenge and a pleasure to shot a royal figure in most cases. But in this one, I think Annie has it wrong. Forget the head piece and all the self esteem that goes with it. If it were me, I would have taken a lovely picture of her silhouette, crown included, which would have been very realistic of her, and quite revealing --- you get out of it what you see in it......her image only.
Forget the Queen...
How about that A** on Angelina! Okay...I'm finished now...tee hee hee...
By the way, with all these good shows on cable, etc., I'm getting a little overwhelmed. Could we get a daily TV lineup...or a weekly one? Just a thought...
"we are not amused"
I got a wicked case of the giggles after reading this one, poor queenie, she looks like Darth Vader, loved the Angelina pic...for obvious reasons..
~Strike while the Muse is hot~
My Super Sweet Sixteen
I've actually watched that, was a whole marathon on MTV a while ago. The only episode I liked was where the girls asked people to pay to get in their party and the money went to charity.
The rest... amusing, annoying, but that's what most sixteen year olds are... the ones we DO hear about anyway. I am sure there's a ton of 16 year olds who's brain actually DOES go beyond the whole 'brat' part. and actually know how to think.
The Way The Cookie Crumbles - http://blog.alrightstill.net
Because Visibility Matters - The AfterEllen.com Fanlisting - http://aefan.alrightstill.net
Mesmerizing - The Lauren Blitzer Fanlisting - http://lbfan.alr
A-hem.
One has no comment.
Not Only But Also
Yankee Beans
My Super Sweet Sixteen
stoopid BBC!!
No matter what actually happened at the shoot the BBC should have had more sense than to air footage which te Palace will have regarded as embarassing and affrontive.
I dont think they'll be getting another Royal exclusive anytime soon!
And by the by, that photo of Meryl Streep is AMAZING!!!
~I've been watching your world from afar, I've been trying to be where you are, I've been secretly falling apart...~
I'm no royalist...
Perhaps the Palace should
And she does look like Washington!
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