There's a detail about Meghan Markle's new podcast that should be ringing alarm bells, writes Daniela Elser. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
It is not often that royal writing and the intricacies of American trademark law intersect but hey, it's 2022: we have long since moved beyond "strange times" to what I believe we could technically term, "simply bananas".
To wit: Prince Andrew, eternal scourge of monarchists and the world's most famous friend of a paedophile, briefly made it back to the fore of palace life.
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who was the most hated woman in the UK for decades, and who once purportedly had a bread roll thrown at her in the supermarket such was the public rancour towards her, will be Great Britain's next queen.
And Prince Harry, the man who not that long ago routinely vied with the Queen for the top spot as the UK's most adored royal? Well, he is busy cashing the cheques of billion-dollar corporations in California and learning about this thing called council rates.
This week it was his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who was making waves when it was revealed that she had sought to trademark the 476-year-old word "archetypes", which just happens to be the name of her recently announced debut podcast.
Fleet Street promptly worked itself into an indignant lather over the trademark move, taking it as proof of the Duchess' supposedly overly-inflated ego, all of which conveniently ignored the fact that words such as "apple" and "meta" are also similarly legally protected.
This particular commotion however, obscured the real issue with this podcast, for which the first details came mid-March: the show, hosted by the Duchess of Sussex, would be called Archetypes, and would investigate "the labels that hold women back".
In a statement via their production company Archewell Audio, a spokesperson said (who I'm sure was not Harry writing on a beaten up MacBook covered in stickers): "We are excited to announce that we are continuing production of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex's groundbreaking first podcast series."
A week later, a trailer dropped.
Introducing Archetypes, a new podcast from Archewell Audio hosted by Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex.
— Spotify Podcasts π (@spotifypodcasts) March 24, 2022
Join us for a thorough investigation into the labels that try to hold women back. Coming this summer. Listen to the teaser now, only on Spotify. πβ¨ https://t.co/qJ5b0dm5iR
Finally! After 15 months, here was our first real taste of what the Sussexes' would be cranking out as part of their reported $31 million deal with Spotify, having promised shows that would "uplift and entertain audiences around the world".
Get ready! Get excited! Let's all hit play!
"Groundbreaking"? At best we could term this trailer a tame rapping of said ground.
The teaser features various unnamed voices offering lines like "she's a sl*t!" before later we get to the good stuff: "I'm Meghan, and this is Archetypes: the podcast where we dissect, explore, and subvert the labels that try to hold women back.
"I'll have conversations with women who know all too well how these typecasts shape our narratives. And, I'll talk to historians to understand how we even got here in the first place."
Since then, none of the A-list female heavyweights such as Amal Clooney, Serena Williams or even Oprah Winfrey who are ostensibly Team Sussex have come out to express their excitement about this project.
If there is one word, still untrademarked as far as I know, that sums up the international reaction to Meghan's trailer it was simply β "yawn". The whole thing felt so predictable it was certifiably soporific.
While the trailer's release was dutifully reported on, the whole thing failed to make anything even resembling waves or generate any real noise at all.
Here's the point where I chuck in a big, fat caveat. Maybe Archetypes will turn out to be a truly groundbreaking, fascinating series that moves the needle on important conversations about gender, power and the press.
Maybe, given Meghan's media nous, connections and lifelong commitment to feminism, we are in for a genre-shaking treat.
However, at this stage, things don't augur quite so Gloria Steinem-worthy.
What is remarkable is that going into both this podcasting foray, and their reported $134 million Netflix deal, Harry and Meghan have been handed every journalist, writer, content creator, director, producer and opinionated-nobody's wet dream.
Here was the most thrilling of blank canvases for them to come up with whatever they fancy, along with all the money, resources and seasoned professionals they could ever want.
The only thing bounding what they could do was their imagination and how much filming they can squeeze in before their afternoon Qi Gong session. (Okay, I jest but you get the idea.)
My point is, the possibilities and the scope here feel nearly endless.
Having left the royal family, having a whole new nation and continent (indeed, a world) to make a mark on, poised to lead and break barriers and shake things up with truly thrilling verve and yet what we have seen so far of the Sussexes' creative efforts is ... all just so anaemic and flaccid.
Not a single one of the endeavours they have announced so far β not the books, the podcast, the streaming viewing or charitable undertakings β has moved the dial in any significant way. They are not emerging as the exciting new voices we all thought but two overpaid amateurs bereft of much by way of original thoughts.
None of the projects Harry and Meghan have rolled out in their now more than two years of freedom have produced much of a spark, let alone set the world on fire.
The Duchess' children's book The Bench received very mixed reviews (if eye-wincingly terrible in the UK). The announcement of Harry's first Netflix project, a documentary about his Invictus Games and of Meghan's, an animated children's TV series called Pearl, have been met with a disinterested shoulder shrug.
The only thing they have done which has really given the Zeitgeist a good, hard shake was to sit down with Oprah for two hours and offer a brutal assessment of the palace as an institutionally racist organisation staffed by a clutch of emotionally-repressed cold fish who think mental health is just 21st century bunkum.
(Feeling a bit blue? Go and muck out the stables or have a long walk on the drizzly moors, that's the ticket!)
In December 2020, hot on the heels of their Spotify contract being announced, Harry and Meghan (and notably, their toddler son Archie) released a one-off Spotify special which could be basically summed up as "Our Famous Mates Have A Chit Chat". Okay fine, maybe they had wanted to pump something out to keep their new paymasters happy.
But their first real podcast series was always going to be their chance to really stake their ground and show the world just what they are capable of. Instead we are here, facing down the barrel of hours of interminable discussion about what sounds suspiciously like course syllabus for a first-year gender studies programme.
(There is also the fact this podcast would seem to actually be about stereotypes about women, as opposed to archetypes, but let's not let a pesky thing like the English language get in the way of zippy marketing efforts huh?)
On the line here are not just the Sussexes' egos but their future earning potential.
While the myriad stories about them now happily repeat the stonking sums of money they are set to earn (cough, this one, cough) but the reality might not be so golden.
Industry insiders have previously told The Times that the duo are likely to be on a retainer, ranging from somewhere between $1.3m and $2.6m annually, with them then being paid more for the shows they actually produce.
Which is to say, they have to prove to the CEOs of Netflix and Spotify (and any other corporate behemoth eyeing them off as big-name hires) that they can make people sit up and take notice.
Whether it's critical acclaim, a wall of little gold statues or the sort of streaming figures that would put Bridgerton to shame, what Harry and Meghan will have to demonstrate is that they can make an impact if they want to keep the money rolling in.
Two years ago, a trailer for a podcast from Meghan would have been headline-dominating news, every word and pause parsed and interpreted and generally pawed over.
And yet now, the response to Archetypes is essentially "meh". And "meh" doesn't pay. "Meh" doesn't translate to invitations to the World's Most Powerful Women Forum or Davos or brunch with Jeff Bezos. "Meh" is, in fact, dangerous territory.
When the series is actually released, sometime over the northern summer, maybe it will be sensational and I will have to eat my words.
And you know what? I would be happy to β the world needs more powerful female voices speaking up and doing something to move the dial.
But what the world does not need, and more importantly want, is more self-involved podcast drivel hosted by someone with a minor in women's studies and a major in self-promotion.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
'I donβt score the images, I score the idea; the feeling, the heart'