Words by Rosalind Thacker
The long-anticipated Harry and Meghan documentary has finally landed. And the internet (and us) has a lot to say.
It’s no secret, I’m a fan of Harry and Meghan. And if you ever catch me more than two pints deep at the pub, I’d be more than happy to explain why (in great detail). But for now, I’m brushing off the prejudices, kicking off my biases, and leaving it all at the front door. This won’t, you’ll be glad to hear (or not glad to hear), me gushing over Meghan and Harry for 1,000 or so words. They have their haters, that much is true. And it didn’t take long to get them riled up.
The announcement of their Netflix docu-series was barely a day old, and the folks at the Daily Mail had already managed to send their readers mad with rage. The headlines were pure fiction, the facts made up, and the sentiment ridiculously callous and vile. It doesn’t take a lot to get mail readers angry – it takes even less to get them spitting mad at Meghan Markle. So much of the anger at the Duchess (and as result, her husband) derives from nothing else but pure hate. Her race, they’ll tell you, has nothing to do with it. It just so happens, by pure coincidence, that headlines claiming she was “(almost) straight outta Compton” were printed (Meghan, for the avoidance of doubt, does not come from Compton), that a journalist “mistakenly” compared her new-born son to a chimp, or that her DNA was described as *checks notes* ‘exotic.’
Such trivial, racist, and targeted attacks from the media – combined with what they say was a lack of protection from the Royal Household – led to their departure from their Royal duties. Then came the punishment: no more were they to use their HRH titles (it’s 2022, btw), and Harry – who served two tours in Afghanistan – was to be stripped of all his military associations (Prince Edward, who was in the Royal Marines for a few months, gets to keep all the shiny medals he never actually earned).
And with that came the Ophrah Winfrey interview, an explosive, tell-all chat with America’s – and the world’s – most trusted Agony Aunt. The big takeaways? Turns out royals are capable of making each other cry, Harry’s father wasn’t showing him the money, and Tyler Perry is a very nice (and rich) man. A year or so later, a bullying investigation by the Palace and the Daily Fail were found out and we have this Netflix documentary worth, apparently, $100 million.
So much of the same ol’ stick used to beat the couple (or, as they like to call each other, H and M *yes, I’ll admit, I cringed) comes from the misconception that they left their royal lives to live a life of complete isolation and privacy, existing for the rest of eternity like some sort of cavemen. Nowhere did the couple make this claim. Indeed, their activities following their exit from The Royal Family prove us much. They’ve already given us the Holy Trinity of content – a podcast (Archetypes, a book (Spare), and a documentary – proving that much of the couple’s issue with the media comes from a lack of basic privacy and the age-old issue of the media and consent.
They have every right, Meghan and Harry will tell you, to control what they put out there and how they choose to do so. And they’re right. The absurdity of the opposite position – that to want privacy is to take a vow of silence – would mean you and I could and should also be subject to any and everything being posted online and in print against our wishes because we posted on Instagram once. Or, as the Duchess of Sussex put it: “I think everyone has a basic right to privacy. Basic. We’re not talking about anything that anybody else wouldn’t expect…If you’re at work and you have a photograph of your child on your desk, and your coworker says, ‘Oh, my gosh, your kid’s so cute. That’s fantastic! Can I see your phone so I can see all the pictures of your child?’ You go, ‘No. This is the picture I’m comfortable sharing with you.” Right on, “M”, right on.
And what she’s comfortable sharing is a lot of intimate moments behind the scenes. The pictures are intimate, the shots of Archie and Lily, stunning – and there’s even a vivid description of the couple’s first dance. “When the stakes are this high”, Meghan says, “doesn’t it make sense to hear our story from us?” That story, according to Duke and Duchess, is one of love, family tensions, and the need for drastic, speedy, and institutional change.
You’d have to have a heart of stone to not smile at the couple’s sweet prince meets girl love story in the first three episodes – and you’d be equally ignorant not to acknowledge the broken state of the Duchess’ relationship with her dad’s side of the family. Sat in our sofas (in our millions), we saw it all play out from the couple’s perspective. We re-read the headlines, listened to the talk shows, and we watched the wedding. The music was slick, the story was riveting, and both Harry and Meghan came across as less stuffy royals, and more like your favorite celebrity couple (that’s a good thing, btw).
But however much I like them – and however you feel about the couple – it’s hard not to acknowledge we were being fed a narrative. In three episodes of love, cute kids, and a royal drama, the undisputed highlight came courtesy of Mandana Dayani, who, after hearing Harry describe his family’s odd relationship with the press, replied: “someone call just call themselves a royal expert?”
It’s that, Harry’s obvious (and very justified) dislike of media takes center stage in the remaining three episodes. The relationship between the palace and the press is a toxic one – and Harry holds little back in describing it. Briefings against each other, unethical practices, and plain abuses of power all get a mention, with occasional heartwrenching throwbacks of what happened to Princess Diana – at the hands of the press – from her son.
The British press comes out of this looking pretty damn bad, and a global audience of young people are likely to see the couple as victims of a horrid, abusive system, propped up the Royal Family’s almost obsessive need for good publicity in a world where the very idea of royalty increasingly divides opinion. It’s “a dirty game”, Harry says, and he wants no part in it. He saw it happen when he was younger and vowed – along with his brother, William – to never take part in it. It was heartbreaking, he says, to see his brother’s office do the same thing. I know not whether that’s true or not – but it hardly shows the heir to the throne in a good light.
Then came the issue of racism, and the brilliant commentary of historian David Olusoga and author Afua Hirsch. The legacy of the commonwealth gets a closer look, the racism faced by the Duchess is exposed, and the need for the British Royal Family to face its past is told in no uncertain terms. The documentary is not without its fault – but this, I can say, it did well.
The impact of Princess Diana’s death is evident throughout the documentary. It is, in a way, the underlying thread in this story of love, woe, and familial disputes. Harry’s intent, he says, on ensuring what happened to his mother does not happen to his wife. And he recalls, with heartbreaking detail, the obvious parallels between his mother’s experience and that of his wife. In those moments, he’s at his most vulnerable, and it’s hard not to sympathise and agree with his side of the story. Truth is, Harry has never really been a typical royal. The ‘rebel’, ginger-haired prince is more prone to feeling that formality, and he’s much more in tune with younger people than the rest of his family. In the docu-series, his own dark past is examined – and to his credit, he faces it head-on.
However you feel about Harry and Meghan, you’d be a fool to underestimate their global reach. They are simply more popular globally than any of the royals. Deny that till you’re blue in the face – it’s true. For younger, change-hungry gen-zers is whole never complain, never explain business won’t work, and the British Royal Family will soon find they have a lot of explaining to do – both when it comes to the treatment of Meghan and its history of colonialism. Don’t believe me? Just look at the increasing number of countries yearning for independence – and the dissenting voices in the commonwealth about ‘valuable’ it really is given its history.
For Harry and Meghan, this documentary in a sense doesn’t change much. It’s likely to have little effect on both camps (lovers and haters), and it remains to be seen how this young, glamorous couple chart their own path. Their story, whatever your opinion, is theirs to tell.
And I, for the record, thought it was damn cute.