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  3. "She was America’s princess as much as she was Britain’s princess, "wrote the foreign editor of the normally sharp Chicago Tribu

"She was America’s princess as much as she was Britain’s princess, "wrote the foreign editor of the normally sharp Chicago Tribu

admin2009-06-24  98
问题     "She was America’s princess as much as she was Britain’s princess, "wrote the foreign editor of the normally sharp Chicago Tribune a week after the death in Paris of Diana, Princess of Wales. He was not far off the mark. For Americans have indeed taken posthumous possession of Britain’s "People’s Princess".
    What was happening? How was it that a nation whose school children are taught in history class to look down on the "tyranny" of the English monarchy, suddenly appeared so supportive of a member of the British royal family? Why was it that numerous American commentators sought to expand into touch the rumour that Diana had planned to move to the United States to live?
    Part of the answer lies in America’s status as the celebrity culture par excellence. It is from their celebrities that many Americans derive their sense of nationhood. Their presidents must be celebrities in order to be elected. Writer and commentator Norman Mailer made the point after the last presidential election that Bill Clinton won because he projected the image of a Hollywood star, while Bob Dole lost because he came across as a supporting actor.
    What seems to have happened is that the inhabitants of the nation that produced Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley have found it almost impossible to accept that Princess Diana, the world’s biggest, classiest contemporary celebrity by far, should have come from another country. Even that, many seemed to say to themselves, was merely an accident of birth; because in many ways she was so American. Her New Age preferences—the astrologers, the psychics, the aromatherapy—were closer to the style of former U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan than the House of Windsor. Her dieting and her visits to the gym were lifestyle options that were typically American. Her famous TV confession of adultery and her (purportedly unauthorized) tell-all biography were also hallmarks of the American celebrity approach. Like another former First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, she auctioned her dress-not in London or Pads, but New York. She visited America frequently and felt right at home there, reveling in the generous attentions of the rich and famous and delighting in the unreserved responsiveness of the public to her charms. For she seemed to have adapted brilliantly to another American invention: image manipulation, which all aspirants to political office in the U.S. struggle to learn but which she appeared to have absorbed and refined naturally. She was, in short, a thoroughly modern woman and, like it or not, most of what is modern originates in the United States.
    But many Americans felt she also had more enduring qualities. Many viewed her as the incarnation of their country’s dominant myth. As an editorial in the Miami Herald put it…"She was an American dream, a superstar Cinderella with the polish of a natural-born socialite...In a way she fulfilled the American dream to emerge from insignificance and overcome hardship and make something of herself". Elaine Showalter, a student of American popular culture who teaches English at Princeton University, noted the difference between the dullness of Prince Charles and Diana’s "very American sensibility". "We have a sense here in America that anything is possible, that you are not a predetermined person; that if you are a woman from whom nothing is expected but you want to make your life count, you can do it. She shared that spirit and that’s why she appealed so much to Americans".
选项 A、political ambition
B、fame and charm
C、political achievements
D、family influence
答案B
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