Her Majesty

As I write this this news media in the United States of America is undergoing a massive change: The once-assured audience and readership is rapidly eroding away. Over the past six years, for example, "The CBS Evening News" has seen its viewership drop more than sixty percent. If that trend continues, within the next three years its entire audienceship will be gone.

CBS is not alone: Both "ABC World News" and "NBC Nightly News" have experienced comparative losses.

This, in and of itself, is concerning enough. But what makes it even concerning, at least for those who worry about such things, is the other part of the equation. Over the past decade the mainstream news media has increasingly become closer and closer, relationship-wise, to the entertainment industry. As this has occured the entertainment industry has also seen its audience erode. Not as dramatically as the news media, but enough that investors and supporters of both have expressed loud concern over the future of each and both.

Understandably.

Yet all the while failing to see, understand, and comprehend why.

The story.

As regular readers of this effort for at least the past two years know my basic interest in films and movies stems from a single thing: The story. Tell Me A Story. Tell me a good story. That's all I ask. It is a simple enough request. Yet, with few exceptions, those responsible for the making of films and movies have almost consistently ignored this request.

Why?

I think, in part, it owes to a simple fact and truth: If the entertainment industry, if the news media were to actually give readers and audiences what they want they might feel obliged to surrender some of the control they believe they wield.

And in doing so they might have to accept another certain fact and truth: People are smarter than experts and authorities think, and want to be free to make their own choices. Especially when the choices are not what the ruling class wants.

Consider as proof of this assertion the film "Her Majesty". The story of an English royal (Queen Elizabeth?) who visited New Zealand in 1953, the hamlet of Middleton, and while there called upon an old Maori lady in order to return to her a spear stolen from her grandfather, and what ensues as a result.

In order to understand this one must first know relevant facts regarding the story at hand: A fresh-faced, 12-year-old girl named Elizabeth Wakefield (Sally Andrews), who is all but obsessed with the young Queen Elizabeth of England, learns that the Queen has plans to visit her subjects in New Zealand. In order to make the most of this Elizabeth, the young girl, writes Elizabeth, the queen, more than fifty letters, suggesting Middleton as her point of destination. Apparently the onslaught works: The Queen makes it known she will visit Middleton.

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