"Tale of Two Sisters" is a Timeline documentary available at YouTube. It chronicles the life of the so-called Mitford sisters, who were notorious British celebrities and socialites during the 1930´s. The documentary concentrates on three of the sisters: Diana, Unity and Jessica. Diana and Unity were outspoken fascists and frequently traveled to Nazi Germany to meet Hitler and other National Socialist leaders. Diana married Oswald Mosley, the British fascist leader, at the home of Goebbels, with Hitler as a guest of honor! Unity suffered a nervous breakdown when World War II broke out and became a mental cripple after trying to shoot herself. Diana was interned in a British prison facility together with Mosley. She never repented of her Nazi-fascist views, and is said to have joked during the 1990´s that the European Union achieved peacefully what the Nazis had tried to accomplish through war: all of Europe united with Germany on top!
The most interesting sister was Jessica Mitford, who actually became a Communist, and eloped to Spain during the Civil War together with Esmond Romilly, a relative of Winston Churchill (sic) who had joined the International Brigades. Later, Jessica moved to the United States and joined the Communist Party USA, but later resigned from it. She was active in the civil rights movement and became a succesful writer, her most well known book being an exposé of abuses in the US funeral home industry, "The American Way of Death".
While this is (of course) interesting, the documentary itself is somewhat problematic, concentrating heavily on the (real or percieved) personal psychology of Diana and Jessica. Their weird upbringing in an aristocratic (or perhaps quasi-aristocratic) family is also prominently featured. The historians interviewed clearly don´t like the Mitford sisters, in sharp contrast to Jessica´s son, who wonder why the British are still so obsessed with his mother! (But sure, I suppose it could be difficult to like Diana Mitford, who was a life-long fascist.) I get the feeling that "Tale of Two Sisters" tries to portray the Mitford sisters as privileged girls LARP-ing political extremism for the hell of it, as if their convictions couldn´t have been genuine. Since both Diana (who spent jail time with Mosley) and Jessica (who moved to a working class neighborhood) suffered for their political ideas, my guess is that they really believed the lot (for good or for worse). According to Wikipedia, almost the entire Mitford family was conservative, anti-Semitic or fascist, which explains why Jessica refused to meet them after becoming a Communist, a fact not sufficiently emphasized in the documentary.
With that, I end this little review.
I think neither politics or their uppbringning is what is relevant if you want to understand The Mittford sisters oddesdys. Its much simpler than that and very common with young women, be it proles, upper class or even royalty. Women really have The hots for Bad boy Alpha males that are viewed as a serious threat to The establishment.
ReplyDeleteHad The Mittfords been young women today, they Probably would have run of with some ISIS-warrior or such.
But The class background Will to some externt judge The exact nature of what kind of Alpha male The woman is content with. A young prole woman might be ok with some dope slinging gangleader that barley can read and always have a pustol tucked in his waistline. A girl with an upper class background would want a more sophisticated but still dangerous Aloha.
No one ever gets sexually attracted to anyone because of their political ideas, even if a lot of nerdy political sperg boys sure think they do. Without The alphaness your ideas mean nothing to women, without the looks they mean nothing to men.
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