There is a particular brand of British journalist whose job it is to be vomit-inducingly sycophantic to the royal family, and Allison Pearson of the Daily Telegraph is one of these.
Oh, don’t you know Pearson? She’s anti-transgender rights, pro-spreading COVID-19 to people, and a really big fan of Kate Middleton. Her love for the Duchess of WhateverKateIsDuchessOf reached truly inane levels over the weekend, when Middleton made a rare public appearance at Trooping the Colour (don’t worry, I don’t know what that is either) during her cancer treatment.
Obviously, that a person actively battling cancer felt well enough to go out in public is something to celebrate, but according to Pearson and the Telegraph, it’s the greatest thing to have happened in Britain in, like, ever. Never mind that many people with cancer get up and go about their working lives every day (plenty of them don’t have a choice), now a rich white princess has done it and must so be fawned over to an embarrassing degree. Pearson thanks Kate Middleton no less than seven times in her article, gets a dig in at Meghan Markle because of course she does, and calls other people with cancer “lesser mortals.”
Wait? She did what?
Yep, welcome to the absolute state of British media. Pearson wrote in her article, “When lesser mortals would have stayed at home, Catherine proved that the show goes on.” That one snide little remark has understandably caused people to erupt in justified anger and share their own stories about how they or their loved ones managed when they were “lesser mortals” suffering from cancer.
Other people pointed out one massive reason why Middleton is able to go out, look put-together, and smile while undergoing cancer treatment: She’s rich beyond most people’s wildest imaginings. She doesn’t have to worry about whether a job will be there for her once she’s done with chemo, she doesn’t have to worry about childcare, hell, she doesn’t even have to worry about whether her clothes fit her perfectly or not. And she had a whole team of people dedicated to helping her, in Pearson’s words, “put on that impeccable, elegant display” at Trooping the Color.
The ironic thing is that Middleton has been a fully justified “lesser mortal,” as Pearson would put it, for the past six months. After what we now know was a cancer diagnosis in January, Middleton stopped performing royal duties, leading the internet to go wild with conspiracy theories about where she was. And that’s fine! She shouldn’t have to work while battling cancer—and, crucially, neither should anybody else.
One has to wonder about how Pearson would feel if another journalist implied a loved one of hers was anything like a “lesser mortal” for not being able to, or not wanting to work while undergoing cancer treatment. Would she be appalled? Well … considering she once opened an article with, “My son has Covid-19. Good,” maybe not. Seemingly, in Pearson’s world, you’re only a worthy ill person if you’re Kate Middleton.
Published: Jun 17, 2024 03:02 pm