In their new Netflix series, the ex-royal couple know exactly who their audience is.
\n London
\nFame at last! Two minutes into Netflix\u2019s Harry & Meghan documentary, the headline of an article I wrote in January 2020 flashed on the screen. \u201cHarry and Meghan Won\u2019t Play the Game,\u201d it said. Observing the departure of the duke and duchess of Sussex from the Royal Family\u2014and from Britain itself\u2014the story declared that \u201cno royal has ever taken on the press quite so directly, much though they might have wanted to.\u201d
\nBy that, I meant that Harry and Meghan had rejected the traditional bargain between the British royals and the media: The press follows you around, and you have to put up with it, because it\u2019s part of the job. Now, three years later, we can see the new rules by which Harry and Meghan are playing.
\nThis six-part documentary is the tentpole of their reported $100 million multiyear production deal with Netflix. The director, Liz Garbus, is notionally independent, but the show makes frequent references to the couple telling \u201cour story.\u201d
\nThe interviewees in the first three episodes, which were released today, are mostly personal friends.
\nAbove all, Harry & Meghan is a story about the media, and about the modern belief that everyone has their own truth, derived from their lived experience. Harry brings up the idea of consent, and that is what separates this documentary from the standard tabloid treatment of his mother and his wife.
\nThe couple are not averse to giving up their privacy\u2014this documentary includes a blurry photograph of the moment Harry proposed, and video diaries of their departure from Britain\u2014but they want to be in control of what they reveal.
\nBeing part of the Royal Family meant submitting to a media machine that was not run solely for their benefit. (In the trailer for this series, Harry complains that his family is a \u201chierarchy,\u201d which suggests that the whole concept of a monarchy might have eluded him.)
\nEverything here is about rejecting the royal narrative of their lives and building a new American fairy tale. The couple\u2019s softball engagement interview in 2017 on the BBC was an \u201corchestrated reality show,\u201d Meghan says in the third episode\u2014a complete contrast to the casual, authentic chat she is now having in full hair and makeup with a documentary filmmaker.
\n\u201cWe were never allowed to tell our story,\u201d she adds, as if her sit-down with Oprah Winfrey last year were a collective hallucination. Later on, Harry recounts in amazement that some people will accept huge amounts of money \u201cto hand over photographs to create a story.\u201d So true. How about $100 million?
\nHarry and Meghan have a rare talent\u2014pointing out things that reasonable people would agree with, but doing so in the most annoying way possible. Racism is real. The tabloids were out of control during Harry\u2019s childhood. Women marrying into the Royal Family undergo an extended misogynistic hazing.
\nThe trouble is that the couple\u2019s complaints are by now very well aerated, and Harry\u2019s memoir, Spare, hasn\u2019t even arrived yet. I could have predicted before watching this documentary which cherry-picked headlines and quotations would make an appearance. At least one of them\u2014the reference to Meghan\u2019s \u201cexotic DNA\u201d\u2014was a ham-handed attempt to contrast her favorably with the pale and stale Windsors.
\nThe first three episodes focus on the couple\u2019s childhoods and courtship, along with the press coverage of Meghan before the wedding. If you watched the Oprah interview\u2014if it even happened, because after all, Meghan has never told her story before\u2014you learn very little new information here, except that Meghan is friends with her half sister Samantha\u2019s daughter Ashleigh.
\nThis is relevant to fans of the Markle Cinematic Universe, because Samantha nicknamed her half sister \u201cPrincess Pushy\u201d and wrote a tell-all book in which she dramatically overstated their closeness. Ashleigh is here to back up Meghan\u2019s version of events.
\nThe documentary contains a lot of this stuff\u2014evidence for the defense, you might call it. We get five minutes on how smart Meghan was at school, and how she wasn\u2019t lying when she said she\u2019d had no idea who Harry was before they met (she didn\u2019t Google him, duh\u2014she looked at his Instagram feed, which was full of pictures of elephants, and that is what made her agree to go on a date with him).
\nUnless you have a gaping void where your soul should be, you will notice that the couple do seem to be genuinely smitten with each other. Yet\u2014and this is where it gets tricky\u2014they also appear to be in love with the idea of being \u201cHarry and Meghan\u201d (or, as they might put it, \u201cH and M\u201d). There\u2019s an uncomfortable Bonnie-and-Clyde, John-and-Yoko, folie-\u00e0-deux undercurrent throughout, as if taking on the Royal Family\u2019s racism and the British press\u2019s lack of scruples has become their mission.
\nUs against the world. That is a noble intention, but it has the side effect of centering their entire lives on two institutions that they despise.
\nDo they really want to spend the next 40 years as small, angry planets trapped in the gravitational pull of the Windsors? And have they not heard of diminishing returns? This plotline might sustain Harry\u2019s book sales and one or two forgettable Netflix projects after that, but it ends with them delivering $150 birthday messages on Cameo by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In their new Netflix series, the ex-royal couple know exactly who their audience is. London Fame at last! Two minutes into Netflix\u2019s Harry & Meghan documentary, the headline of an article I wrote in January 2020 flashed on the screen. \u201cHarry and Meghan Won\u2019t Play the Game,\u201d it said. Observing the departure of the duke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-300314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n