The unofficial motto of the Queen Mother was simple:
“Never complain, never explain.” It is a motto that Prince Harry and his wife,
Meghan Markle, have comprehensively rejected. They have come to symbolize a new
type of royal: unashamedly political, emotionally open, socially conscious.
Harry and
Meghan have departed from royal protocol by laying the blame for this
unhappiness squarely at the door of the media. The novelist Hilary Mantel once
compared the royal family to pandas. There is one big difference,
though: Zoos are nice to pandas.
In October, when Meghan launched a lawsuit against a
British newspaper for publishing a letter she wrote to her estranged father,
Harry supported the move. “I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is
commoditized to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real
person,” he said in a statement. “I lost my mother and now I watch my wife
falling victim to the same powerful forces.”
The couple has long complained of
intrusive media coverage and accused some British media commentators of racism.
They slammed the country's long-standing arrangements for royal media coverage
and insisted that from now on they prefer to communicate directly with the public
through social media. They launched a new website,
SussexRoyal.com, with a section dedicated to the media and will work with
“grassroots media organizations and young, up-and-coming journalists,” and
“provide access to credible media outlets focused on objective news reporting.”
In other words … Harry
and Meghan to Royal Correspondents: Drop Dead.
Previously, no royal had ever taken on the press quite
so directly, much though they might have wanted to. In 2005, Harry’s father,
Prince Charles, was caught on a microphone complaining about the
journalists at a photo-call on their family skiing trip. “I hate these people,”
he said. The photo-call was the price of the media leaving the prince and his
sons alone for the rest of their holiday. Similar quid pro quos are still in
operation: limited, controlled media access in exchange for some peace.
Harry is unwilling to accept this bargain. When Archie
was born, there was no announcement that Meghan had gone into labor, and no
photoshoot on the hospital steps. Harry
has now gone further. Harry and Meghan are pursuing a media strategy closer to
that of Hollywood A-listers than the grin-and-bear-it universalism associated
with the ruling family.
The most noteworthy part of the statement was the
couple’s wish to become “financially independent.” The rationale for press
scrutiny of the royal family has always been: We pay for them, so we own them.
The evolution of the royal family has always reflected
changes in British society, as every season of The Crown proves. In two generations, “The
Firm” has gone from forbidding Princess Margaret to marry a divorcé to
embracing one—Markle—into its fold without fuss. This latest move reveals
another generational shift. Like many other Millennials, Prince Harry is more
socially liberal than his elders and more willing to share his emotions on
social media. (Also like many other Millennials, he was only able to afford a
house thanks to money he got from his parents.) He represents the end of the
stiff upper lip as the royals’ default mode, forcing Britons to confront the
human cost of their obsession with the monarchy.
Harry has always been a royal rebel: smoking
cannabis, partying in Las Vegas, admitting how close he came to a breakdown.
With his wife by his side, he may now be making his most significant
contribution to the royal family—by walking away from it.
From The Atlantic (edited)
