Top Academic Brands Kate Middleton ‘Culturally Lacking’, But Caitlyn Jenner Begs To Differ

To Caitlyn Jenner and millions of other adoring females, Kate Middleton may be a cultural style icon beyond reproach, but that cuts no mustard in the world of academia, where a top professor has branded Middleton “culturally lacking.”

Kate Middleton’s wardrobe may be hailed as inspirational and a cut above by hordes of regal eagles who are obsessed with the stylish pedigree of the Duchess of Cambridge, but according to an Oxford academic, Kate is a mere clothes horse galloping frivolously around in a cultural vacuum.

The Duchess may have been hailed as the great moderniser of the British Royal Family but Professor Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, Emeritus Fellow of Exeter College, believes Kate is little more than a 16th century throwback, lacking even the limited cultural influence of her predecessors, whose foremost duty was to provide an heir and a spare.

“It fascinates me that the Duchess of Cambridge is doing exactly the same kind of things that a queen consort would have done at any time from 1500 on.

“The role has not changed at all, even though the Duchess is middle-class and British.”

The remarks of the Professor of German literature echo similar disparaging remarks about the Duchess made by Wolf Hall author Hilary Mantel, who described Kate as a “shop window mannequin, with no personality of her own”, whose only purpose is “to give birth.”

The picky Professor, who is immersed in a in-depth study of the cultural role of foreign consorts, goes on to find Kate lacking when compared with the historic ladies in whose shoes the Duchess now treads.

“When a king married, up to World War II, he took a foreign bride and she left home to join him, never to return. But this is where these foreign princesses played an important role in their new kingdoms by introducing foreign cultural elements.

“They often brought with them personnel such as a chaplain or musicians, objects such as books, jewels, fashions and furniture, and often less tangible things such as theatrical genres, ideas or a different religion.

“In this way a foreign princess often played an active role in changing the culture of the territory she went to. Look at the contribution made in Britain by Anne of Denmark, Henrietta Maria of France and Catherine of Braganza.

“All three of them were major patrons of the arts.The Queen’s House at Greenwich by Inigo Jones was begun for Anne in 1616 and completed by Henrietta Maria in 1635. Anne and Henrietta Maria promoted the masque — a form of court theatre combining music, dance and drama. Catherine brought Bombay and Tangiers to Britain in her dowry and patronised Italian painters and composers.”

Although as the Daily Mail points out Kate has introduced to society her socially ambitious siblings James and Pippa, the Duchess is not known for her love of Proust, Nietzche, or sublime appreciation of Picasso.

But then again, you might ask “So what?” Kate Middleton lives in a vastly different era and culture to the likes of Anne Boleyn. Surface is now depth, style is dictated and attention spans are non-existent. In such a plastic fantastic age, are the comments of the professor little more than first class snobbery?

In a cultural void, could Kate Middleton ever be expected to be anything else than a famous clothes horse with a pleasant smile?

As these pictures of Caitlyn Jenner show, the transgender star is just one of many figureheads in popular culture heavily indebted to Kate Middleton’s “cultural worth.”

[Image via Getty Images.]