“We must not let daylight in upon the magic.”
A new series of The Crown is about to begin broadcasting. The series has been very popular so far and won a number of awards. It has, however, come in for criticism from ardent royal supporters for peddling apparently peddling a “republican message.”
In truth, while The Crown re-tells a number of episodes in the Royal family’s recent history with some embellishment and stretching of the truth, the real objection is to the way the Royals are present: as normal people. Normal people who have a lot of wealth and privilege, but normal in the sense that like everyone else there are family squabbles and disagreements.
The daylight The Crown puts on the British Royals turns them into little more than characters in historical events, not the primary movers. And, as expected, there’s scant mention of the “role” the British Royals play in New Zealand or Australia, in fact the Commonwealth takes a back seat in the whole series. Again, putting daylight on the “magic” - this is not a shared monarchy, it’s the British monarchy.