Harry & Meghan: A Love Story Gone Wrong

Harry and Meghan's documentary dropped on Netflix this week, and my goodness we Brits have a lot to say about it. For the past twenty-four hours, my Twitter feed has been filled with the biggest H&M fans of them all - their haters. The U.K. love to hate and to see a member of the royal family, the pinnacle of absolute of Britishness, marry a biracial American woman...good God how dare he! Scandalous!

The hate campaign against H&M has been going on since (I would say) 2018. It has absolutely shown the worst in people, Piers Morgan (a very vocal hater of Meghan) springs to mind, in addition to the toxicity that is the British tabloids. The way our media sees it, the first story that makes headlines is the truth. Even if everything about it is a lie, and even if the truth is floating around out there it doesn't matter because the lie has been told first, and people have already made up their minds. I can't imagine a world where I am told what to think and let people feed into my fears. I just can't.

Yet, tabloid readers regrutate all the hate they've been fed back onto social media and target it at the likes of Meghan Markle or Caroline Flack. Successful women who exist in the public eye are stripped and torn down, because (as far as the media is concerned) it's an absolute outrage that women are actively trying to make a difference. Especially one who talks openly about issues that don't directly affect them, instead of standing there with a pretty face, quiet while the white men do all the talking.

Meghan's poem about the Two Homes hit my inner child in a way I hate to feel. I think like many others it made me feel validated, and again seen. I lived in two homes too. Then there's Harry's time in the military and the way he speaks about his other 'family', discovering the world around him outside of the comforts of Eton clot-pollary. All I see are two people deeply in love, self-aware kindred spirits, trying to do what's best for everyone and everyone around them.

People hate H&M because they are exactly what our country needs. Two individuals who care about the world around them and aren't afraid to speak their truths, people who aren't afraid to stand up against a historical institution and say, no we've had enough and we are doing this our way.

I stand by them both. I know the pain they feel. Nothing is more heartbreaking than watching your own family turn against you for choosing your own path and then they tell everyone else their version of the truth before you get a chance to say yours. The horrible feeling when people think something of you is that isn't who you are at all, but now no one else can see anything other than that, and you have to force yourself not to believe it. A lie told enough times is a dangerous thing.

Remember folks, truth is an illusion based on perception. I can only think about how it must feel to have what seems like an entire nation against you, for simply being you.

The mention of a historical family made me giggle slightly. I mean don't we all have historical families Meghan? The difference between Harry's family and yours is that H's is well documented. Otherwise, how did we get here? And that's it. That's the point, the royal family aren't different from the rest of us they are people who have been forced to live a life of duty and obligation because the British taxpayers have paid for it. How does this benefit anyone other than the media?

I would much rather see schools prosper, and the NHS stable than have a family I barely know waving at us now and then in pretty jewels that don't belong to them. How hard it must be for the children? Born into a world like that? God, poor kids. It must feel like living in a zoo like you are someone's property. How awful, I pity all of them if I'm honest. I don't blame Harry for wanting to protect his own family, I don't blame him at all.

Meghan mentions the formalities, curtseys and whatnot, and has been a focal point for most haters. I just don't get it, it's archaic; who cares? When M mentions the 'formalities that exist on the inside' I started to think maybe QAnon is right, maybe they are lizards? I jest of course - yet it is worth asking whether it's healthy or any good for your emotional well-being to be continuously posied like a statue, reserved and stiff. What effect does this repression have on the psyche? What effect does this pressure have on someone's health? Stress is a killer.

[Anyone who has read Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, engaged with psychoanalysis or anything by Nietzche - Apollonian forces holding back Dionysus... ah, yes we all know it doesn't end well].

I see H&M as a potential future. They are willing to make a change for the better and will walk and live among the people because you wouldn't believe it, but they too are people! Huzzah! Jokes aside, Britain is in an identity crisis and it's only getting worse with the recent 'where are you from' incident on This Morning a week prior. A state in an identity crisis is never a good thing, and with everything else pilling on top of Britain, something's got to give.

Harry and Meghan represent the diversity that makes Britain what it is, a global nation, whose presence on the international stage has slipped into the shadows of Brexit, clinging onto an outdated identity that they think represents them. Plot twist it doesn't. History is in the past, let it go, man!

When Meghan commented that everything was like an 'orchestrated reality show' my mind began to tick. If the monarchy is considered the staple of British identity, but it's as Meghan claims, then what does that make us? Are we fake people who say things we don't mean? Oh, wait...

British culture is holding the door open for someone and when they don't say "thank you," you then in loudly respond with "you're welcome!" Britsh culture is getting into a taxi late at night asking the driver whether it has been a busy one, and telling him "oh here will do mate" as they drop you off. Britishness is someone dropping a pint glass in a pub full of drunkards and everyone in synchronicity shouts "waaaaayyyyyyy."

The monarchy is just a fancy family portrait of a Britain that doesn't actually exist. A romanticised narrow view of a clouded history that buries its colonial past, instead of just holding its hands up to say - sorry? I mean that is a very British thing to do, no?

The tabloids hate H&M for a few reasons and from where I am standing it is this: 1)Meghan is a biracial woman [an easy target as far as our media is concerned] 2) H&M are an image of visible change and as such the media is threatened by this said change, and 3) H&M are lifting the curtain on what goes on behind close doors, which of course, no one wants because change and truths do not benefit them. Lies are easier as is the status quo.

We need to find a cure for our historic amnesia and not select the parts we choose to tell. We must face the consequences of our past actions to put the past to bed. We must accept that history is just that - history, and it's time to move on and create a new united identity, that we can all identify with. When Black British communities mentioned how they had felt seen and now, well...ah. God, I'm so sorry, but don't lose hope! It's vital that we keep that despair at bay.

Ok, I think that's everything - well, don't forget to leave a like and subscribe and as always; stay safe, stay hopeful and stay blessed!

References:

Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Reflect on Meghan’s First Meetings with Royal Family: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a42185461/prince-harry-meghan-markle-first-meet-royal-family-netflix/

What’s wrong with Britain? Let’s start with the monarchy: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.opendemocracy.net%2Fen%2Fopendemocracyuk%2Fwhats-wrong-with-britain-lets-start-with-the-monarchy%2F&psig=AOvVaw0NnwTznfXHRpdEP4aw6p5l&ust=1670785558946000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCJiM3a_f7_sCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Meghan and Harry Shared a Sweet Moment With Blind Children Who Wanted to Touch Their Faces: https://www.popsugar.co.uk/celebrity/Meghan-Markle-Prince-Harry-Let-Blind-Kids-Touch-Faces-45681695?utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=US:GB&utm_source=www.google.com

Fredrich Nietzche: https://thegreatthinkers.org/nietzsche/biography/

Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary will pull no punches: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/10/08/harry-meghans-netflix-documentary-will-pull-no-punches/

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Relationship Timeline: https://www.brides.com/story/meghan-markle-prince-harry-relationship-timeline

After the queen’s death, Twitter is suddenly a battlefield over Harry and Meghan: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-09-08/prince-harry-and-meghan-are-blame-for-queen-elizabeths-death-but-should-they