"How did we end up here?" The first sentence pronounced by Prince Harry in the first episode of a Netflix documentary series under the title Harry & Meghan says it all.
The series, the first three episodes of which were made available on the streaming platform on Thursday, December 8 is co-produced by the couple and starts with their flight from Heathrow in March 2020, to the United States, after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to break with their obligations as royals.
These first three episodes did not deliver any earth-shattering revelations about the British royal family. But they have further exasperated those (numerous in the United Kingdom) who believe that the couple is constantly rehashing the past and making disparaging but unproven accusations about the monarchy.
Archives edited with interviews of the couple's friends, have, on the other hand, vindicated those who believe that the former American actress and the prince – fifth in line to the throne – are right to speak up against what they see as an outdated institution that, from their point of view, is still subject to conscious or unconscious racist biases.
Netflix chose a dramatic tone for the start of its account of the love story: black and white images and headlines from the Anglo-Saxon press such as "Queen's fury" (Daily Mail), "Leaving a trail of destruction" (Daily Express) and "Hard Exit" (New York Times). It switches to color when the young couple arrives in Vancouver, Canada, where Charles III's youngest son and his American wife first settled.
Harry repeats that he must "protect [his] family." He and his spouse play the role they assigned themselves: misunderstood souls, if not victims, of the oppressive British royal family they broke away from. The press is also fiercely criticized. Harry, the younger brother of the new Prince of Wales (and future king) William, says it was his "duty to uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media." In reference to his mother, Lady Diana, he says: "I am my mother’s son!"
That sums it up. The couple will not be bossed around by the monarchy, and by the constraints and obligations that go with it. This is the key message the couple has decided to convey.
A young bachelor looking a little lost when he met Meghan Markle, the second son of Prince Charles (now King Charles III) and Lady Diana has been struggling to overcome the trauma of his mother's death in an accident almost 20 years earlier and was having a hard time coping with the harassment from the tabloids. He had to cut short his military career (his base in Afghanistan having been made public in the press) and his girlfriends were also chased by the paparazzi.
The first two episodes are mainly devoted to the love story between Meghan, an ambitious, openly feminist Californian actress who rose to prominence in the American series Suits, and her prince charming. No detail is spared. Sitting side by side on a sofa, they talk about how they met, in 2016, at Wimbledon near London, their text messages, and their first date in a restaurant in Soho, a trendy district of Britain's capital: "I was panicking, I was freaking out, I was sweating," remembers "Haz" (Harry's nickname), who had arrived late to this date. "We were like children," his wife adds, smiling, as she looks at him.
Was it love at first sight? "You could tell right away that those were the eyes of someone that had fallen in love," Harry's friend Ignacio "Nacho" Figueras, a former Argentinean polo player, says. Everything in the program aims at triggering emotion with pictures and movie excerpts of Elizabeth II, Diana, Harry presenting his baby, the couple walking hand in hand, and soft music in the background.
Vulnerable
The third episode aims at going to the core: the reasons behind the couple's decision to cut ties with the rest of the royal family and to move to the US in early 2020. They bought a multi-million dollar villa in Montecino, California, a millionaire's enclave in Santa Barbara, and signed a deal with Netflix worth almost $100 million (€94.84 million) for a podcast series and this documentary series with Netflix.
The series covers the way - deemed racist by the couple - the British press treated Meghan and her relationship with the prince. Harry heavily criticizes the work of "royal correspondents," the journalists who cover the monarchy, and the "rota," a highly choreographed but consensual system, which gives the correspondents privileged access to the royal family.
According to the couple, the royal family did not understand that Meghan needed more protection than any other or future member of the royal family, because of her origins (Meghan is mixed race, her mother being black and her father white). There is, Harry explains, an "unconscious [racist] bias" in the Windsor family, which prevents them from understanding why his fiancee, and later his wife, is in a particularly vulnerable position, especially with regard to the media.
Meghan says she was surprised by this alleged racism in the British media, while Harry states that he is "really proud" that his children are mixed race (they have a son, Archie, 3, and a daughter, Lilibet, 1). The couple does not single anyone out, but the allegations are difficult for the monarchy, as they come just days after a scandal in Britain.
A royal aide to Queen Elizabeth II, Lady Susan Hussey, was forced to resign last month after the head of a charity, Ngozi Fulani, a British national with black skin, accused her of racist behavior at a Buckingham Palace reception.
The palace did not comment on the Netflix series released on Thursday. A year ago, however, after the broadcast of Harry and Meghan's much-commented-on interview with US television journalist Oprah Winfrey, in which they accused the Windsors of "racism" for the first time, the royal family issued a brief statement, stressing that "[their] recollections may vary" (a way of questioning the couple's version of the events) and that there would be an investigation into alleged racism in the Royal Family. The results of this investigation have not been made public.