Hazzer & Megs - Some Opinions

Once Upon a Time… I was resting while recovering from wisdom tooth extraction surgery, and decided to succumb to the temptation to watch Harry & Meghan, the Netflix documentary that had been quite the controversial thing to watch a few months ago. Late to the party as always… I did have a number of thoughts that I’ve wanted to share on Instagram when the Queen passed away, and again when this documentary was released, but I kept quiet. However, I decided to share that I was watching this series and inevitably got a lot of questions asking my thoughts on it from a few perspectives - as a Brit in America, what I thought about Harry and Meghan specifically, what I thought about the monarchy in general. It’s this deep fascination and almost obsession, especially in the US, that is quite bizarre to me. Even more interesting was I asked in a poll whether I should share those thoughts in stories for all to read, or just reply to DMs individually - and overwhelmingly, the response was to share publicly. However, upon closer inspection, those responses were primarily our American followers - the ones who said to reply in DMs privately were primarily British. That says a lot to start with, the very nature of even discussing the monarchy should be kept stum. Private opinions are not something we British people should share, and certainly stirring controversy when it comes to a British institution is rather frowned upon too. But that is where I think many of our problems lie as a culture, and why we can’t address so many of the underlying issues in the country. However, that’s a much bigger and messier topic for another day... I digress.

So for the moment, I preface this little review of Harry & Meghan (the show and the couple) with my personal views on the people in the monarchy. We Brits are odd in that we all have our affinities to certain people in the institution, and I suppose it is those we relate to, grow up with, have had personal experiences with, or probably what we’ve also been fed by the media, which is the point really of the documentary really - our opinions are formed as much by what we’re told as what we think we know. As evidence of these strong affinities, I’ll share a personal anecdote which speaks to how serious those opinions are even generations before me… I have a very vivid memory of buying a biography of the Queen Mother (pictured and linked above) for my grandmother one year for Christmas (probably around 1995?). As a teenager, I was so proud that I’d bought something personal out of my own pocket money that I was sure would be loved. Luckily, I showed it to my mum before wrapping it up, as upon seeing it said, “Oh good God, that’s a terrible present!! She HATES the Queen Mother. You need to go and get something else immediately.” And so I gave it to my other Grannie instead who apparently loved it. These two women are only 1 year apart in age, both grew up on farms during war-torn Britain with husbands off fighting in the war. To this day, I still have no idea why my grandmother apparently hated the Queen Mother so much, but yet there was a visceral hate for her!

For me personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for Harry - he’s always been my “favourite” royal. We’re the same age, have a petulant older brother that gets all the good graces, and are both rebellious second children who had traumatic experiences happen in our youth. He has a clear fun personality and joy for life that always resonated with me. On the other hand, I’ve never particularly been fond of Charles nor Camilla - I find them dull, removed from reality and unrelatable even in their charitable endeavours. And my opinion on William doesn’t really sway one way or another. He is there, but I don’t find him very interesting, he’s the blank slate I suppose he’s been trained all his life to be. Along with Harry, I really like Princess Anne for her love of sports, clear determination and have always admired her daughter Zara as well for carving out her own path. Though the latter may also be a bit of jealousy since she married the captain of the England rugby team and I hail from a very rugby loving family, cauliflower ears and all.

As for the Queen, I have always had a deep respect for her in the same way I did for my grandmothers - their sense of service, duty, loyalty, and constant steadfastness in the face of a serious amount of change and civil unrest was admirable. They are many qualities that I think defined that whole generation and are somewhat lost in society today and as such I did feel sadness that she was no longer present to herald those qualities at helm of the country. Her set of qualities at times felt like the glue that kept our country together. That said, I still believe she represented an outdated, elitist and over-privileged institution that has done little to modernise. And I believe that, while she rode the waves of changing times well, she didn’t take the opportunity personally, or as the head of the monarchy, to change with those times as was desperately needed. I’ll come back to that and my overarching monarchy thoughts later on.

Review of Harry & Meghan

Back to the point. In general, I liked the documentary. While I try not to consume mindless content about the royals, because it’s just celebrity chasing at an elite level really - I thought it was a well-produced and directed show. It balanced educational informative facts about the inner workings of the system alongside their pointed narrative, providing a candid authentic look at their lives without being over-intrusive. I thought the imagery the director used of putting all of the interviewees in spacious rooms with massive banks of windows was quite interesting, a metaphor I suppose for perhaps either Harry & Meghan providing a window into their life, or conversely how they feel they’re constantly on display for the world to see and judge.

The show highlights the depths of their invasion of privacy, how far the press will go to capture images and just how much division the press can cause. The Meghan vs Kate treatment in the tabloids I have always thought to be ridiculous in how Kate is lauded while Meghan was dragged through the mud. But I had never seen that through the lens of the press office and the Institution viewing it as a popularity contest, keeping the heir’s wife on the front page. I’ve always found the British tabloids to be gross in any form, regardless of who’s on the front cover, but I had never fully understood the influence that the press offices had on the publications and vice versa. I did feel for both Harry & Meghan from a parental perspective, having your life intruded upon to that degree certainly must be pretty scary. But at the same time, their excessive privilege was also on display being able to move into a friend’s $5million mansion and just move from Canada on a whim because they were scared - not a reality for most. At times in the show the displays of wealth felt a little egregious.

Despite the criticism received, to me, it wasn’t too heavily focused on airing dirty laundry so to speak - there was certainly an opportunity to do far more damage and yet it felt like enough was said to convey the point without delving into the specifics. A key example of that was when Harry receives a text message from William - the text’s contents are not divulged, but Meghan’s reaction speaks volumes. That said, I have only watched this documentary - I did not watch the Oprah interview, or see the Apple documentary, watch any of the other interview, nor do I intend to read the book. So, I haven’t delved deeply into it and perhaps he didn’t always maintain that level of decorum.

I do agree with them using their platform to try to take on the media for the sake of integrity, and also highlight tough, taboo topics such as depression and miscarriage as well. As they succinctly put it in the show (re: the media) “if we can’t take them down for their lies and manipulation with all the resources, support, and insider knowledge, then who can?”. I like that they are at least trying to use their privilege in a meaningful way. That said, it didn’t feel very impactful or successful, with the media then doubling down on the bad press about them, and all mentions of depression being cast aside as attention-seeking, desperate and self-centered. The depression part really hit home for me, as I viewed it from a post-partum depression and moving to another culture shell-shock view. But I was shocked to see people ignore that Meghan felt she couldn’t get help (because of the optics of the Institution), and rip her apart without knowing the facts about how she was suffering, while in the same breath, the same people were shocked and devastated by Twitch’s suicide a month later. Two people with similar backgrounds, who were in a similar setting, environment, always seemed happy, but both struggling desperately. One tried to highlight her plight through national television interviews, breaking the taboo, and demonstrating how she was silenced, was vilified and annihilated in the press causing further distress, while the other suffered in silence and took their life. If you felt for Twitch, then why hate on Meghan? Why? It rather baffles me. Their circumstances were so similar. For someone with depression to speak out in the first place is huge and takes a monumentally confident moment to do so, to then crucify them for trying to bring attention to a really important issue felt heinous and unkind.

Overall, they tried to make an impact, and it was produced authentically. My criticism would be that it didn’t need to be 6 episodes long, I see that as Netflix milking it for all it was worth. Each episode did have a narrative focus whether it was privacy, the institution, the press offices, miscarriage & family life, etc… but you they were teased out and made to be more beefy than necessary. And all in all, I personally don’t think they should have done multiple interviews, documentaries and released the book all at once. Repetition to land a point is one thing, but it felt like a hammer over the head and feels like it has done more to damage his narrative than make the impact it could have. He surely did not need to land finances that swiftly after leaving the family and had plenty of inheritance to get him through a rough spot.

That said, I hope that it brought them the peace that they needed to talk through / about their difficulties, but I also hope they now focus on what they are good at, and should use their privilege for - charitable causes and philanthropy. Their Archewell Foundation has enormous potential, their personalities are geared towards championing the underdog, and Meghan can certainly return to her activist past in a more meaningful way. Here’s hoping they use that as their target to focus their energy from now on, and leave the family drama to the needed private phone calls and letters instead. Perhaps they can just leave the press office behind them with the titles and move on.

The Monarchy

To wrap this up, I promised my thoughts on monarchy, but I’ll keep them brief. In my view, the monarchy is a double-edged sword. An outdated institution that is rooted in tradition, but also empiricism, colonialism, classist society and lots of other negative “isms”. To me, Meghan represented a real opportunity to progress the monarchy into a position where it at least represented a diverse populus a bit more and showed openness to correcting the ills of the past. Having a single bi-racial duchess / princess doesn’t change the sordid past and supremacist ways that are entrenched within the institution, but it was a doorway to a better conversation and addressing some of those country-wide issues. One which was promptly slammed shut by both the royal family and the press.

The monarch who once had power is now just a figure-head, who drums up social tourism and champions specific apolitical causes, which are dwindling because everything is increasingly becoming a political issue. And when that figure-head doesn’t command the popularity necessary to maintain the royal fascination needed around the world, the monarchy will suffer. I say that it is a double edged sword though, because as an instituion, family celebrity group and owners of some of the finest properties in the world, they generate a substantial contribution to the economy in the shape of tourism. Figures range from 70-400million GBP earnings per year from the Royal Collection, the Royal Estate, and more, and that doesn’t account for any of the special events or property earnings including agricultural lands and so on. The monies behind the gilded curtain are notoriously hard to capture and hard to learn about, probably on purpose. I think it’s high-time that the Commonwealth in its formal capacity is dissolved (there are plenty more political based country groups now), and we cut ties with the monarchy on a public-paying level.

My view would be to create a ring-fenced concept that allows them to continue earning and living based on their properties and tourism they specifically generate like to the palaces and for their events, but that the family and lands are no longer funded by the taxpayer. And on top of that, they contribute to taxes as they should as common citizens. I’m no economist, so who knows if this would even be feasible, but from my 1000 mile view back as an average commoner, this is my suggestion. Ha! In reality, it’s never going to happen. Until another renegade like King Edward VIII hits the throne again to really disrupt the status quo or there is a major protest (again unlikely), I feel like the monarchy will just continue on until it slowly fizzles out over the next 100 years…. we shall see, hey?

If you made it through that diatribe of random thoughts, well done. Sound off in the comments or back on Instagram @brooksandstone. While I try not to spend hours discussing arbitrary subjects that create needless division, this one is a bit fun sometimes isn’t it!

And they lived happily ever after… or let’s hope they do. Otherwise we’ll have another 6 documentaries to watch this summer.

Love & Cuddles,

Lex

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