Now Showing - "Elizabeth Is Queen"

The fawning, sycophantic tone of the above clip came as a shock even to me, a fawning sycophant if ever there was one; Pathé News - renowned for jingoistic transports of ecstasy that even Fox News would have trouble accomplishing (let alone in such a blithe manner) - really manages to outdo itself on this cheerful (and cheerfully heavy-handed) bit of mid-century propaganda in honour of the coronation of Elizabeth II.

Of course, given the threat to Britain and its way of life presented by the Second World War - whose physical and psychological scars were then still much in evidence throughout the country - it's only natural that, following the cessation of hostilities in May 1945, the British media would spend a few years in a tizzy of uber-Britishness. What better time to indulge such a mania, then, than a coronation, which is at its heart an affirmation of the uniqueness of English government?
*
share on: facebook