Whether out of Anglophilia, nostalgia, masochism,
traditionalism or just a particular strain of fealty to the rich and famous,
America’s quixotic devotion to the British monarchy remains strong.
اضافة اعلان
What, then, explains America’s particular crush on the
semi-royal Sussexes? Harry and Meghan have not been especially kind to the
monarchy since fleeing Frogmore, their renovated royal “cottage,” in 2020. Nor
did they ever fully deliver on the prospect of an American infiltration of the
crown.
But their most recent multiplatform, multimillion-dollar
media blitz — which began with Meghan’s Spotify podcast, expanded into a
six-part Netflix documentary tribute to their love for each other and for
themselves, and culminates this week with a “60 Minutes” interview with Harry
that aired Sunday night and then the publication of his memoir, “Spare” —
offers several possible reasons why the Duke and Duchess have been spared the
ire they stirred up overseas.
It is because they chose America.
Apparently, it is better to be a celebrity in the US than
fifth in line for the throne in the UK. Though Harry and Meghan are now without
royal stipend, they have got a sizable inheritance in a country where the rich
grow richer and where royalty, without the baggage of being a tax burden, are
treated with less skepticism. Having initially decamped to Vancouver Island,
British Columbia, in a bid for privacy, they soon fled to Los Angeles in a bid
for — what is the opposite of privacy? As Harry says in the documentary, he had
“outgrown” his environment, and “this was the most obvious place to come.”
The fact that the Sussexes ditched a country they
characterize as anti-immigrant, overrun with racists, and burdened by the
legacy of colonialism makes Americans feel better about their own country,
which also (whoops) might be described as anti-immigrant, overrun with racists,
and burdened by the legacy of colonialism. But Harry and Meghan see the US as a
haven.
“They made it such an issue when I went to the UK,” Meghan
says of her mixed-race heritage in the documentary. “Before that, most people
didn’t treat me like a Black woman.” Perhaps Americans appreciate the notion
that nationalism and xenophobia are somehow “over there” and not here. It is
nice to be let off the hook for a change.
It is also because they are fighting for change.
Call them martyrs, call them revolutionaries, call them
anti-establishment, or simply changemakers. Now thoroughly enlightened re: the
old order’s ills, Harry and Meghan are taking a stand against colonialism,
racism, and oppression of all stripes, jetting around the world, occasionally
in a friend’s private plane, in their campaign against injustice. As the
website for their organization Archewell (“Leading the way with compassion”)
proclaims: “Each of us can change our communities. All of us can change the
world.”
Many people in Britain, across the Commonwealth, and in the
US did, in fact, see the interracial couple’s union as a sign of positive
change — but perhaps no one more so than the couple themselves. In a run-up
interview to promote her podcast last year, Meghan recalled a South African man
who compared the joy at her royal wedding with the celebrations when Nelson
Mandela was freed from prison. But, according to the Sussexes’ narrative, they
became too popular, threatening the monarchy. As Harry put it, they were
“stealing the limelight” or “doing the job better than someone who was born to
do this.”
The fact that the Sussexes ditched a country they characterize as anti-immigrant, overrun with racists and burdened by the legacy of colonialism makes Americans feel better about their own country, which also (whoops) might be described as anti-immigrant, overrun with racists and burdened by the legacy of colonialism. But Harry and Meghan see the US as a haven.
The series goes a step further in its anti-institutional
fervor, tying the couple’s personal travails to a reckoning with British
colonialism, the mistreatment of Princess Diana, and the Black Lives Matter
movement. One of the documentary’s sympathetic talking heads refers to the pair
as “symbols of social justice” and says the hate directed toward them was “a
way to signal to the rest of us to stand down.” According to this version of
events, the palace has pushed back against the couple because, as Harry
explains, “if you speak truth to power, that’s how they respond.”
It is because they are American-style celebrities.
Harry and Meghan have outdone Princess Diana’s
collaborations with the press by taking full control. They are our first
reality-TV royals. And in the US, while it is wrong for someone else to invade
your privacy, it is perfectly fine — even applauded — to exploit your own.
The Sussexes are accessible. They are fun! Meghan is just a
“working mom”. Harry is a romping millennial dad. These celebrities — they are
just like us! — can tell us all about themselves via their own artisanal media
empire.
You can find them on Instagram, where they initially found
each other and where they chose to announce their independence (as they would
say, “stepping back rather than stepping down”). They take selfies, they film
themselves incessantly, and at least one of them has firm views about portrait
versus landscape iPhone footage. The documentary spends a solid episode
offering a blow-by-blow — or, rather, a text-by-text — narrative of their
entire courtship. They give us so much private information, saturating us with
the minutiae of each glowing embrace, that they essentially deprive us of
wanting or needing to get anything more anywhere else.
Like many a TikToker or Substacker, Harry and Meghan relish
taking charge of the narrative. They made their documentary, they say, because,
as they put it, they have never been “asked” for their story and were not
“allowed” to tell it. That’s if you do not count fawning coverage from Oprah,
People, or The Cut. (Only very recently — was it mid-episode five? Or six? —
did some in the American media palpably flag in their adulation.)
But even the friendliest venues stopped short of the
couple’s preferred spin on “The Little Mermaid”. In Harry’s twitterpated eyes:
Meghan “sacrificed everything that she ever knew, the freedom that she had, to
join me in my world. And then, pretty soon after that, I ended up sacrificing
everything I know to join her in her world.” Prince Harry undeniably sacrificed
his family and his birthright. Most people, royal fans or not, would have liked
to see this all play out differently.
Despite the dents and holes in their well-honed and highly
lucrative story, the Sussexes have delivered an especially American take on
what the American Meghan calls a “modern fairy tale.” America loves a
melodrama, an against-all-odds story, an us versus them. America loves an
almost happily ever-after and any gossip that keeps on giving. As is now
abundantly clear, Harry and Meghan are giving their all to give America all of
that.
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