Although over at the Daily Show John Oliver has been mocking the 24/7 press coverage of the birth of the next royal nightly, saying that
"Finally, we have a member of the royal family that actually has an excuse for being a toothless, petulant, useless human being,”
most people in the US and the UK seem genuinely excited and yes, even moved, by the birth of His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge.
Our excitement tells us a lot about ourselves as a culture. The obsession with Prince William and Kate Middleton began years ago, with their engagement and then most perfect of weddings. The two were able to capture not just what we want our weddings to look like, but our relationships as well: modern partnerships between equals. William and Kate's ability to encapsulate that which we desire is what makes them so important to popular culture. They are celebrities. Or as a young American in the crowds at the Royal Wedding told me "The Royals are just like our celebrates except not douche-bags."
We Americans invented popular culture and we invented it as a religion. We hold our celebrities sacred, pay homage to them, try to be like them, and occasionally destroy them in a fire of disgust and shame. Think Michael Jackson or, actually, Prince Charles when it was revealed that he wasn't Princess Diana's prince charming but a cold and calculating royal trying to keep the family business going.
When Charles and Diana failed to be the gods we created, the popularity of the monarchy fell, but it has held fairly steady since then with 70% of the British population opposed to a republic. Yet the Royals held onto their pop culture status despite the monarchy. In fact, a recent poll showed that even among those who support the monarchy, Brits would like to see the royals earn their own keep, focus on charity and tourism and stop trying to represent the UK abroad. Furthermore, the vast majority of Brits want to see the Royals make public all their financial information through a "register of royal interests," something the Queen vehemently opposes.
So although the new generation of British princes and princesses might be successful at celebrity, at being that which we wish to be, even they cannot convince the citizens of the UK to continue footing the bill indefinitely for their incredibly lavish lifestyles. Despite all the claims that Kate Middleton is just like any other woman giving birth to her first child, we are actually talking about people who own castles and palaces in a variety of locales.
Nor can the birth of this beautiful and bouncing prince erase how that wealth was accumulated. It's not like the House of Windsor just lucked into their fortune. They didn’t win the lottery, but rather built an Empire over centuries that extracted huge amounts of wealth from people all over the world as well as its own citizens at home.
Will the Royals survive? Perhaps as a sort of tourist attraction. As a young man told me in the Royal Wedding crowd, the Royal Family is a bit like having a baby panda at the zoo. People will flock to see it. And so, the young man argued, the cost of the Royals,a bit over $300 Million per year, is worth it as long as you can get people to pay that much to come and have a look.
But our willingness to come and have a look depends on the ability of the Royals to be what we want them to be. So far William and Kate have done a spectacular job of representing an ideal romance, wedding, marriage and now family. They are the perfect celebrities and we are more than willing to throw the Empire out with the bathwater, pretend they are just like us, and pay to consume every moment of their lives. At least for now.