There's Always the Queen

In the realm of privilege, emotions are impossible. They’re in fact menacing to status and power since they imply change. And change is the demise of the status quo.

An ironically moving portrait of this stagnancy is painted in Stephen Frear’s The Queen, moving because of the isolation, disconnect, and loneliness that maintaining this coldness entails.

There is a part of me that admires the queen’s discretion, not her stubbornness, but her restraint. It is dignified. I cannot help but feel myself that emotions are indeed humiliating. But in order to avoid that humiliation, you have to build a fortress around yourself. The queen has that possibility, and actually has no other choice, because somehow there needs to be a public figure who is a pillar. It soothes the pangs of change her subjects undergo. They just want their queen to be there as she always is.

And she is. Look at her garb!