This Chinese tourism video imagines that the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, only married Prince William for the money. The video was created by the Chengu Association for Cultural Exchange with Foreign Countries to promote Panda Cabs in the city of Chengu.
Kate, Prince William, and Queen Elizabeth II (played by Colette Mularkey, Simon Watkinson, and Amanda Bellamy) stand out in the rain in London. William and Queen Elizabeth are trying to hail a cab while gold digger Kate Middleton complains that she didn’t marry into the royal family to be taking taxi cabs.
The video is being taken down all over the internet, so if the video above doesn’t work you can check it out here at the Daily Mail.
Middleton: “I just don’t understand why we cannot take the royal limo. I didn’t marry into royalty to schlep around in a taxi.”
William: “But darling, granny is right. The commoners want to see us tightening our belts and all that.”
Middleton: “Rubbish, people want to see that they can be like us if they just work hard.”
Queen: ”Like you did?”
It is anyone’s guess as to what the city of Chengdu’s cab service has to do with the British Royal family. Normally this kind of thing would be done as just an off the wall comedy sketch for a commercial, but this one is not funny in the least. The lines are delivered so poorly, that it’s hard to even spot the jokes. The actors certainly look like their counterparts, but that is the extent of their usefulness.
The video has seen a lot of criticism in England. Writer Keith Harrison is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying “Hmm, the same nation that believes dried, ground tiger penis to be a medicine has the right to ridicule our monarchy?” If it had been done its job well, and made people laugh, perhaps Britons would have accepted the commercial as light hearted ribbing of their royal family. But it didn’t, and the commercial comes off as an over critical and tasteless jab against the monarchs.