I’m still struggling with the fact Meghan paused during Harry’s marriage proposal to grab her phone and take a picture of him down on one knee.
Who does that? Just about everyone under the age of 50 who has an Instagram account. Everything is Instagrammable in this day and age and thanks to Harry and Meghan’s selfie devotion their life behind the scenes was perfectly illustrated and gave us a sense of being let into a very private world. That’s brilliant entertainment, right there.
This documentary would also go down in history as the most reviewed, dismantled and studied six hours of television, ever.
Even the trailers were torn apart and dismissed by the UK press. On one day I counted no less than five opinion pieces across the Times and the Guardian, just about a one-minute trailer.
Paparazzi footage used in the trailer was not their paparazzi! They were using false footage! For the media to criticise the use of standard generic footage to illustrate a point is a bit rich. One only has to bring up the much-used stock image of “woman eating salad” to illustrate an article on healthy eating. The salad isn’t actually the salad mentioned in the article but it illustrated the general point. Get over it.
But at its core is a fascinating dissection of the British media and their relationship with the royal family. The fact that the institution is funded by the British taxpayers and the deals that are done to ensure that the royal family delivers column inches. In the words of Harry: “Public funds equal public interest.”
How did we not know about the rota system where the family must deliver the media a certain number of stories to justify their publicly funded existence, meaning that William and Harry throughout their lives have had to give interviews to the very press who demonised their dead mother.
William and Harry were adamant they would not be treated the same way, and not so long ago united in their stand against them in a documentary they did together about how her death affected them. William took the press to court on several occasions, most notably when they published photos of Kate topless on a beach. But then William became King in waiting and he could no longer join Harry on his crusades. In fact, according to Harry, he was reduced to screaming at him, in front of the Queen no less.
It is obvious that Harry has been seriously traumatised by the media. The footage of Harry and Meghan being pursued by paparazzi in their car with him anxiously looking out the windows and looking like a little boy in terror showed a deeply damaged man.
“We’ll be with friends in 10 minutes,” he whispers, sounding very much like someone who is in therapy.
Listening to him describe how he felt as a 12-year-old who had to appear in public, unable to show emotion while people wailed and howled at him days after the death of his mother was heartbreaking. Who was parenting this child and why were they abusing him?
And then there’s Meghan. A woman chosen by Harry because she reminded him of his mother. And it is true in many ways, which was fascinating to observe.
Equally at home in designer gowns or jean shorts and a T-shirt camping in Botswana. A woman who before she even met Harry was an activist and determined to empower women and people of colour.
A woman who is prone to depression and suicidal thoughts. A woman who would not go quietly into the night.
Just as Diana was ripped apart bit by bit and stalked relentlessly by the media, so too was Meghan. Only this time there was racism added to the mix.
Both women were made to feel unsafe by a bunch of men in large cars who sat outside their homes, followed them everywhere and hassled them. They were stalked and harassed by male media representatives.
Now, in the #MeToo era, women are allowed to talk about feeling unsafe because of men. In fact, women need to talk about it and talk about it over and over until it stops happening. No one willingly stands up to abusers because the abuse tends to just get worse. But brave women do it for the rest of us.
This documentary was definitely one side of the story and that is okay. The other side of the story will never be told by anyone other than “palace sources” because that is how that institution works. Never complain, never explain.
By the end of the six hours we knew that Meghan and Harry, Archie and Lilibet were now safe and working on being sound in California where Harry says his mother would most likely have ended up living.
It’s always about Diana with this guy.
We know that the couple had no option but to leave the UK and that they will be making a life for themselves that doesn’t involve the royal family.
Good on them. Diana would have been proud.
- Wendyl Nissen is a journalist, broadcaster and author and the former editor of Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
