Abstract
In Diana and Beyond: White Femininity, National Identity, and Contemporary Media Culture, scholar Raka Shome provides an impressive and thorough read of Diana, Princess of Wales, as a mediated assemblage critical to articulating public images of White national femininity to geopolitical and global belief systems and structures of power. As she argues, the Diana phenomenon ‘manifested not just the nationalization of white femininity but also the ways in which the nation often stages its modernity through a transnationalization (and a geopoliticization) of itself through the body of the white woman’ (p. 18). Ambitious in both its scope and its interdisciplinarity, Shome deftly weaves in and out of Diana’s lasting legacies as a mother, lover, healer and fashionista to demonstrate how these parts of her identity created an unattainable whole that mirrored Britain’s often hollow initiatives of equality and multiculturalism.
Shome’s chapters cover an impressive amount of ground that, in the hands of a less seasoned scholar, could easily feel disjointed. However, in relating each chapter to White femininity and the nation, and mobilizing Diana as a figure through which to tie them together, she skillfully folds these seemingly disparate areas into her larger argument. Chapter 1 sets the foundation for the rest of the manuscript, grounded in celebrity culture, gender and Whiteness studies, as well as a brief historical primer on Diana and the sociopolitical climate of the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 1990s. Chapters 2 and 4 unpack the ways in which motherhood is both racialized and globalized, as well as how an idealized depiction of motherhood, such as that which Diana represents, functions as a marker for nationalized modernity. Chapter 3 engages fashion as a ‘citizenly discourse’ and an expression of national belonging, as Shome implores readers to interrogate the conditions of neoliberal globalization under which non-Western fashion crosses and creates borders. Chapter 5 unpacks representations of Muslim masculinity through the lens of Diana’s lovers, Hasnat Khan and Dodi Al Fayed, as she argues that ‘white femininity constitutes one of the main assemblages through which Muslim men are given problematic meanings in globally dominant regimes of representation’ (p. 176). And finally, her sixth chapter asserts that upper-class White women’s engagement with popularized practices of non-Anglo spiritual healing practices such as acupuncture and energy crystals create a false sense of intimacy with the Global South while masking the violences of nationalized and racialized neoliberalisms.
The titular ‘Beyond’ is perhaps even more important than the ‘Diana’, as Shome works in rich contextualization and a number of more contemporary examples as she navigates within and between the borders of nation and identity. Shome often investigates specific questions regarding Diana’s personal brand of White femininity. But, inspired by a 2007 lecture by Stuart Hall, she often steps back to ask a bigger question – ‘What does this have to do with everything else?’ (p. 46). While Diana is the dominant archetype of White femininity in the book, Shome draws in other popular culture examples, from Cherie Blair to Angelina Jolie, to illustrate her arguments and add depth to her analysis. Looking beyond the coveted representation of White femininity embodied by Diana, the project is just as interested in the reasons why non-White, non-Western and non-upper-class women are not similarly idealized. While, at times, the sheer number of examples prevent elaborate depth for each of them, they effectively drive home her argument about the significant representation between White femininity and nationhood. For example, in her chapter on ‘cosmopolitan healing’, she includes other notable British women from Camilla Parker and Cherie Blair to American celebrities like Goldie Hawn and Julia Roberts to show how healing trends from the Global South have been publicized through the lives of other notable Western women.
One of the greatest strengths of the book is Shome’s ability to set the scene and richly contextualize her analysis. For those less familiar with the politics of New Labour’s modernized multicultural Britain, the book provides a primer in politics through which Shome smoothly connects Diana’s worldly, people-driven brand. Tethering her analysis to a ‘given time and context’, she is able to integrate a variety of texts that construct an idealized assemblage of White femininity and still maintain coherence and specificity. Shome resists a reductive ‘direct one-to-one correspondence’ between governmental policy shifts and representations of Diana, but rather uses signs and images of Diana as ways through which Blairite policies and Britain’s national makeover in the global arena ‘can be signified and “the people” can reimagine themselves’ (p. 116). In lieu of causal linkages, she explores the relationship between dimensions of nationhood and representation, citizenship and idealization, Whiteness and non-Whiteness. The form of her analysis mirrors her assertion that ‘white femininity is a dependent formation’ (p. 42) that relies on the negation of non-Whiteness, as she continuously builds connections to what is rendered less visible or acceptable in relation to Diana’s revered body and public persona. Diana is thus read not in isolation, but against other women who have less desirable bodies or class status or the nameless women who are not granted visibility within popular culture discourses due to barriers of race, nation or class.
Diana and Beyond will easily find a home on the bookshelves of cultural studies, gender studies, rhetoric, media or critical race/Whiteness studies scholars. Shome’s expansive literature base demonstrates an impressive reach that builds upon theory in a wide array of areas. Knitting together these often disparate bodies of literature on race, feminism, (trans)nationality and representation, she thoughtfully pushes readers to investigate ‘the ways in which the national globalizes (and moralizes) its imaginations through the figure of the white woman’ (p. 117). The clarity of her writing and her engaging media examples would make this an excellent text for students and seasoned scholars alike. Packaging analytical rigor alongside an exciting array of examples, Diana and Beyond is as compelling as it is insightful.