Disney has come under fire for all kinds of reasons over the last few years, but Joy Behar may have opened up a brand new debate on Friday. During a discussion on The View, Behar said that Disney has given American viewers in particular a skewed perception of royalty. She brought this up in a conversation about Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.
The royal family is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the queen taking the throne, so royal affairs are taking up even more space in the public consciousness than usual right now. The co-hosts of The View commented on this shift, wondering why Americans can get so fixated on the lives of British royals. Sara Haines said that she “loved Princess Diana as much as the next person,” but felt that the general perception of the royals from the U.S. was based on a false ideal.
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“I think we also project childhood ideas of what princesses and princes are because we saw them on TV and there were happy endings and there were beautiful stories and it didn’t have the real history of what you’re describing so I think there’s a bit of a confusion,” Haines said. This is where Behar turned the conversation towards Disney’s massive media legacy.
“Don’t you think Disney is responsible for some of that?” she said. The other panelists laughed, and Haines admitted that that’s what she was alluding to, although she may not have wanted to say it directly since Disney is the parent company of their network, ABC. Behard pulled no punches.
“I don’t think that they’ll ever get rid of the monarchy in London in England, because they need it for tourism,” she said. “Billions of dollars come in because of that, even though they spend a lot on the monarchy. I mean, it’s not like Italy and France where you have food and weather. England hasn’t got the weather and they don’t have the food. They have the history and they have the pomp and circumstance.”
The royal family has pulled out all the stops for the Platinum Jubilee, which peaked with many of its biggest events this weekend. However, various forms of celebration or at least recognition will continue through the end of this year. Queen Elizabeth is the longest-running monarch in British history, and she has not delegated any of her powers or duties to her heir.
