I hate to admit it, but last night’s Oprah-Harry-Meghan backyard interview gave that old dinosaur, prime time live network TV, a new lease on life. It showed that in an on-demand world, waiting for something and being surprised by it still delivers a pretty unique punch. The world may have changed, but Oprah showed that she can still hold its attention in a pretty unique way. It’s another chapter in the volatile and mutually dependent relationship between the Windsors and the press.
All the algorithms in the world can’t compete with the sheer visceral thrill of royal drama played out with an American flair for showbiz. For those of us who were riveted by the Crown, this felt like a bonus episode broadcast in real time. Somewhere, Margaret Thatcher is narrowing her eyes and chuckling at this family. This. Family.
The easy thing is to write off the Windsor contretemps as so much foolishness and nonsense, the squabbles of unfathomably blessed people bickering over just what form they want their unimaginably gilded lives to take: Disney for adults. I don’t think that’s entirely wrong, but I also think it misses a lot.
We care because we care, but also because the question of how to balance the crown with our own freak flags is one every single one of us faces. What last night’s interview made clear is that Harry and Meghan’s decision to ‘step back’ from the duties (‘work’) of being royals was never going to be a peaceful parting of the ways. For their family as for many others, to walk away is something like a slap in the face.
The interview drove home just how stinging that slap was. Meghan admitted that life in the royal cloister was so miserable she contemplated ending her life. She revealed that there was concern at Buckingham Palace over the skin color of her son. Harry revealed that his relationship with his father has deteriorated dramatically, and that the rest of the royals who have not escaped to their Canadian oasis live a fearful, trapped life, in thrall to the tabloids to whom they have been pathologically attached for decades.
The portrait Meghan and Harry painted of the monarchy was of a kindly Queen but of a family tinged by racism and hobbled by the most parochial of perspectives, imprisoned behind golden bars of convention. It was a frontal assault on how tradition can freeze the warmth of human relations, and how loyalty to a larger sense of mission can curdle into a kind of petty cruelty: pulling Harry and Meaghan’s security, stripping their son’s titles, writing them out of the story.
There is no doubt that Meghan and Harry’s primetime pushback has put the monarchy on its back foot. Nearly a quarter century after Diana’s death, the Queen and her family stand accused of botching their relationship with a beautiful outsider, of giving her the cold shoulder rather than a warm embrace. Once again, Charles failed to unfurl the welcome mat and the Sovereign couldn’t manage to put her own house in order. Forget about lessons learned: they couldn’t even manage to avoid the same terrible mistakes. How the situation deteriorated to the point where Tyler Perry had to provide security for the Sussexes (what?) is truly beyond comprehension.
There were echoes of Diana everywhere last night. Harry said that the foundation of their financial independence is the money left from his mother. Meghan’s account of the cruelty of the royals, her sense of suffering and suffocation in the palace couldn’t help but remind of Diana’s trials. In declaring their independence from the crown, Harry and Meghan were following in her footsteps, leveling a critique that all was not well behind the changing of the guard.
Any sense of too facile comparison, however, will fall short, and largely to the credit of the Princess of Wales. Diana lived and died at a time when doing what she did was infinitely more difficult. She was a princess in an analogue world, not an actress in a thoroughly digital and modern one. She was a child when she married Charles, while Meghan was experienced in love and the spotlight. And yet, it is remarkable that once again they couldn’t get it right. And haunting that one Archie’s first words were “drive safe.”
The most charitable read of Meghan and Harry is that they wanted to do their own thing and be themselves: that is always ground that one should confident standing on. Harry bet on Meghan, and was willing to stand with her despite the pressure that ensued. I like that, and believe that to love a person is to fight for and with them with endless tenacity. They seemed authentic in their affection for each other. That is admirable.
But I do think that like so many of us, they want many things at once. They want the love of their family and the freedom to distance themselves from them. They want to be royals and commoners, to cash Netflix checks and feel the frigid warmth of Charles’s affection. They want to be rich but without the work, a prince and princess without the dull obligations to the realm. That is just to say they want it all. Don’t we all?
Have a great week,
A