I think the only real debate is why everyone is pretending to be shocked that an unnamed member of the royal family* goes around saying racist shit. Has Phillip even ever met a person of color that he didn't immediately assume was a servant?
Also, I watched the interview and was surprised by how unattractive Harry is. I always thought he was fairly handsome in photos, but he is definitely best served by still and silent media, because when he moves and talks he's repulsive. Granted, he was sitting across from one of the most charismatic women alive, and next to his wife, who even for a Hollywood actress is unusually poised and telegenic, but even so. He's like a damp sock with teeth.
*Charles
Other slights/aggressions: not making their kid a prince at birth, apparently meaning no security (it would have required special intervention from Elizabeth but she did that for all three of William's); offering no support when she asked for mental health care; not working to avert bad media coverage in ways they did for Kate.
It was later denied that the skin-color comment was Elizabeth or Philip, and I think it was clear it wasn't Philip at the outset when she refused to say because "that would be very damaging to them". So maybe Charles or William.
My money is on Camilla. She would be bread pelted to tatters. I suspect they have it on video and not outing her, but reminding Charles they have it, was the main point of the interview.
No, actually I have no idea, I just think that would be dramatic.
Funny thing is I haven't watched any of the video and I was struck by how surprisingly handsome Harry looks in the stills. "That sunny suit and tieless shirt really suits him."
2: That article from the Irish Times really deserves excerpting. Here's how it starts:
"Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who's really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it's like having a neighbour who's really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown.
"Beyond this, it's the stuff of children's stories. Having a queen as head of state is like having a pirate or a mermaid or Ewok as head of state. What's the logic? Bees have queens, but the queen bee lays all of the eggs in the hive. The queen of the Britons has laid just four British eggs, and one of those is the sweatless creep Prince Andrew, so it's hardly deserving of applause."
I have no axe to grind for the royal family. I'd have the UK as a republic in a heartbeat, and it's no surprise that like a lot of upper class English people, some/many of them might be racist snobs, and decades of media coverage has apparently shown some of them to be just shitty people as individuals, as well.
But the pile-on takes by Americans are hilarious. To the point where I've had to keep biting my tongue to avoid replying with some fairly harsh stuff on comment threads by people I otherwise respect and am friendly with.
What happened to Meghan Markle is the worst attack on America since 9/11.
mixed-race people sharing stories of the racism
The thing that makes me despair is how many of those stories involve white people trying to express sincere affection. (The dolls ... wow.)
I need a primer.
heebie doesn't even own a royal family.
It's easy to be dismissive of this sort of thing, but it's really a key function of journalism that is underappreciated by the snobs.* There is a lot of value in just telling stories about people being people, and in instigating these widely shared conversations.
*I'm just kidding around about heebie and wouldn't dream of suggesting snobbery in the OP.
How many generations of inbreeding does it take to create the sweatless mutation?
I don't think this is earth-shaking, but there's a difference between knowing something abstractly and multiple examples it being all over the headlines worldwide. And isn't a good chunk of the royal mystique these days closely connected to their global celebrity status? So this episode could be in a league with police brutality in transmitting the concept "Yes, this goes all the way to the top" with more of the general public. Maybe not as much in the UK, I don't know, I'm too steeped in the US reaction.
(Also Philip's habitual racist comments don't osmose over here so much.)
Something that seems not to be preserved in all the explainers, including the one I linked, is that "the Firm" is apparently used to mean the royal institution as a quasi-agency, the full-time employees from the Private Secretary on down, but doesn't include the royal family members.
I'm honestly surprised that it wasn't Philip, that's the most surprising thing here. I'm not sure I believe that Philip hasn't said something along those lines. (Of course there's nothing that's stopping them from referring to one instance that wasn't Philip and not mentioning another instance that was.)
Reddit Map Porn had a map recently about opinions on monarchy vs. republic, and it was really striking how it changes dramatically at the England/Scotland border. It's sort of interesting that for some issues the Scottish Borders looks similar to the English Borders, and on some issues there's a dramatic phase change.
It's been clear since I first noticed them that this whole show should be wrapped up when the Queen dies. Especially so as Diana passed from the scene. I thought around the time of her death that maybe her kid could save the thing, assuming it was worth saving, but no that apple isn't so far from the tree after all.
The main job of a constitutional monarch is to be widely respected. Are the current heirs capable of doing this?
I suppose, though, that people were saying this as well when Victoria was nearing the end of her reign . . .
It's hard to see how that transition happens on a royal's death without being preplanned. Otherwise it's all respect and well wishes and ceremony.
I think the general opinion of Charles is "mostly harmless", and he will do no better and no worse than his mother if he's allowed to get on with it. He probably won't be, although if Rupert Murdoch,who is 90, drops of his perch soon it'll make his life easier.
I favour a republic in principle, but my commitment to Parliamentary sovereignty over executive power is stronger than my opposition to constitutional monarchy. I would welcome a republic on the Irish or German model, but Heaven preserve us from presidentialism on either the French or American pattern..The monarchy, rubbish as it is, protects us from that.
I recently learned about the Isles of Scilly, and that the "Duchy of Cornwall" (i.e. whoever is next in line for the throne) owns all the land there. What a truly bizarre situation. If you live there you're basically stuck renting from the crown like we're still in feudal times.
I'd argue the ranking is Dutch/Danish constitutional monarchy > German/Irish presidential system > British constitutional monarchy > French/American presidential system. The problem with the German/Irish system is that the president is just legitimate enough (or thinks themself so) to occasionally actually intervene actively in government formation. The problem with the British system is that the monarchy is too large, too rich, and too prominent in the public square. It may well be impossible to have a low-key monarchy in a large culturally powerful country like the UK, or maybe it could be reformed and shrunk.
I wondered at some point whether the solution for a soft Megxit was going to be to make Meghan Markle Governor General of Canada. Presumably this is a terrible idea for some reason, but it seemed like a neat solution.
We'll see who gets sent to Bermuda.
The problem with the German/Irish system is that the president is just legitimate enough (or thinks themself so) to occasionally actually intervene actively in government formation.
Given how the parliamentary system can cock itself up when the parties have dysfunctional relationships (Belgium, Northern Ireland), isn't it useful to have someone "above the fray" who can do that? In theory, of course. I don't know if the Belgian crown helped a whit through their late unpleasantness.
The problem is that the king is seen as helping the Flems and not the Whits.
You need someone in that role, that's why republics end up with some kind of "president." I'm arguing that in practice monarchs function better in that role than "elder statesmen" former politicians do.
Here's the long form of that argument.
It feels like they might be better in that function on average, but more variability. Maybe we should enhance the popularity contest aspect, let parliament or people choose a new monarch from the family every 20 years.
25: Can you imagine what a shit show it would be if Charles, William, Kate, Harry, Meghan, George, Charlotte, Louis, and Archie were all competing in an election over who gets to be monarch?
23: most of the time that job is (importantly ) ceremonial and, I would argue, weirdly split, in America, between different politicians and, at the Presidential/Gubernatorial level, their spouses. (Wivea, really. Let's see how Emhoff does.) Apparently the only actual person capable of doing it at a truly national level is Dolly Parton. But of course in the parliamentary Republics it's always more political than it seems too.
Constitutional monarchies do seem way more functional, and way less exploitative, in Scandinavia/The Netherlands.
26: My apologies to any members of the Royal Family that I left out.
Did you leave out Andrew or exclude him?
I continue to fondly think of the alternate history in the Thursday Next novels where the Nazis had briefly occupied Britain during World War II, apparently killed the whole royal family, so it became perforce a republic with the presidency going to George Formby for decades.
That's why the English are so fond of wearing Nazi uniforms for parties and sex.
That would be great television. It would be American Idol-style, except instead of singing, there would be a different skills challenge every week (ribbon cutting, addressing common people with kind condescension, dressage, biathlon). The challenges would be interspersed with background clips about each royal's personal triumphs and hardships. There could also be wildcard contestants (Stormzy, Mary Berry) to liven things up.
30. Andrew needs to be excluded with extreme prejudice. Anne wouldn't touch it, but Edward and his family should be allowed a shot at it if they want. They probably don't.
Every state has its own King or Queen, and the monarch for the country is chosen from among them.
Scottish and Irish kings used to be chosen that way, more or less.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanistry
re: 31
I didn't know that those stories existed. Formby as president is a great conceit. He was quite an interesting man: refused to play segregated venues in South Africa, and army shows in which officers were privileged over enlisted men.
34: I didn't intend to exclude him. I'm not an expert, but my sense is that historically there hasn't been any morals requirement for the monarch.
You can't be divorced, but you can kill your spouse.
34 and 40 show the path to the transition. When the Queen passes on, Parliament says to Charles, Anne, and Andrew -- sorry, you've divorced, and you were told that wasn't going to fly. It has to be Edward. He, surprised, says no, that chalice contains only poison -- let's have a Republic.
34 and 40 show the path to the transition. When the Queen passes on, Parliament says to Charles, Anne, and Andrew -- sorry, you've divorced, and you were told that wasn't going to fly. It has to be Edward. He, surprised, says no, that chalice contains only poison -- let's have a Republic.
Charles isn't divorced now by the old standards. He's a widower. Camilla is a problem, but her ex is over 80 and probably doesn't even have a food taster.
I didn't realize death of the person you divorced removed the blot.
43 is only a little more convincing than a watery tart distributing swords as a system.
As long as neither the king nor the tart has living spouse, regardless of divorce.
re: brf in particular, their ultimate survival strategy is cringeing, paralyzing embarrassment at their continued existence as an ineradicable barrier to a large number of uk people organizing to do anything about getting rid of them. amazingly perfect illustration of this in the new statesman podcast from earlier this week in which you can hear s bush's toes going into painful spasms curling back on themselves as he is forced to utter anything out loud about the entire sitch. personally, this grants me a magic advantage over the better half as all i have to do is make the most subtle, oblique reference to the gruesome lot and i can rely on a spectacular reaction (mainly the speed with which better half completely shuts down - he is english, after all).
the ns podcast was also great as it articulated why hereditary monarchy in general and the brf in particular are problematic for progressives in democratic societies - hereditary monarchies (including the apparatus that supports and runs them) are inherently conservative and anti progressive. brf a particularly nasty one given the enormous amount of familial wealth they've amassed and that there was not a sufficient 18-19c revolution in land tenure, inheritance & other elite forming and maintaining legal structures to undercut their structural social sources of support (aristocracy, county, etc.).
on a personal level, hereditary monarchy is ethically unsupportable. consider your own parenting and/or how you were parented. it is not possible to make choices in the best interests of the particular child being parented within the structure of that child being heir to a throne - or even heir to the second-, third-, fourth-, and out to all of rabbit's-friends-and-relations bit part players.
by all means come up with a better solution to the head of state role than the us or fr presidency model, but junk the hereditary bit.
I assume they got married because Samuel Johnson said sex was better with a duchess.
I was on a train once with someone who was at prep school with Harry, and he said Harry was an ass even by standards of upper class rich people and royals.
Do Princess Anne's children have titles? I don't think they do. What about the children of the Duke of Wessex?
The children of the Duke of Denver did.
One of the students in a summer camp session I helped teach 20-some years ago was on the school water polo team with William (whom all the tabloids still called Wills at the time). He said Wills was ok, but I didn't believe him.
We'd probably have a movement to convert the Senate into something like the Bundesrat, if Americans were capable of understanding the Bundesrat.
IMO, the flaws in our presidential system are mostly flaws in us as a people, and so tinkering with the system isn't going to make them much better. No matter what is done, we'll still be the people who conquered the continent with violence and fraud, and held humans in bondage for centuries. And continue the various injustices that flow from this, and other aspects of toxic masculinity, on into the future. I'm not a nihilist, and think that substantive improvements are possible. I just don't think one weird trick is going to get it done.
but Heaven preserve us from presidentialism on either the French or American pattern..
Yeah, this. I don't even favour a republic in principle: I'm fine with a constitutional monarchy -- but if we could have a constitutional monarchy without an actual monarch/Royal Family, I would support that...
the similarities btwn us and fr presidencies here are just the inclusion in one office of ceremonial head of state functions and head of executive political functions in one office. what would change in the us system is that some other office would be in charge of handing out medals, awards, etc. there are many many many other big differences between the us and fr presidencies! (completely supine toothless fr legislature for one.)
26: We're going to see something like this in the US if, after Trump croaks, his offspring can't agree on which one gets to be the Republican nominee.
Put them in a room with Biden's dog. Last one standing gets the nomination.
53: As always, the problem with America is Americans.
Although the experience of many parts of Latin America does suggest that presidential democracy has structural problems in general.
They're the only Americans we have.
I haven't watched the interview and don't want to. But I suspect that Meghan was just used to a different style of flunkying and deference than she got in England. I am always shocked by how much shit Americans take from those richer than they are -- and by how much shit the rich hand out. I don't think a country where tipping is entirely accepted as normal can lecture others on inequality, snobbishness, etc.
Part of this is ttaM-style atavism, but there is also a serious point. The English friends I have who watched the thing were horrified by what they saw as Meghan's level of entitlement. She doesn't seem to have done any research into what the job of being the next King's daughter-in-law actually was.
And it is a job, just as much as being a star in LA is a full-time job. But it's a rather different style of celebrity and she expected to be treated like a film/TV star and came just as much of a cropper as Harry will if he expects to be treated like a Prince in LA.
I'm sure that the really old money English aristocracy are racist, just as they tend to anti-semitism. But I've never moved in those circles so I don't really know. Much more shocking was the attitude of the tabloid press and its readers. The racism of Mail comments was really something.
IMO, the flaws in our presidential system are mostly flaws in us as a people, and so tinkering with the system isn't going to make them much better.
I don't agree with this at all. IMO, Canada has a better, or better-functioning, system of governance than does the US, but no way are Canadians better than (or less shitty than) Americans as a people. It really is the system/structure of government that makes the difference.
Wow, a whole bunch of posts just fell off the front page. You'd better speak to the management about this dump.
no way are Canadians better than (or less shitty than) Americans as a people
I realize you're the Canadian here, but is there really a large "cruelty is the point" constituency up there? I know there's some...
I don't think a country where tipping is entirely accepted as normal can lecture others on inequality, snobbishness, etc.
Fine, but at least our leader isn't a complete asshole. We can lecture you on that ... now.
54: Something like the Irish presidential model?
62 The legacy of fighting a civil war to maintain plantation slavery is ours, and, on this continent, ours alone.
I'm also not convinced, even a little, in the superiority of your systems, that is readily severable from the less awful nature of your culture.
but is there really a large "cruelty is the point" constituency up there? I know there's some...
Okay, fair point. Yes, there certainly are some "cruelty is the point" people in Canuckistan, but maybe not enough (thankfully? hopefully?) to achieve critical mass... In Canada, the socio-religious influences have historically been Anglican, Catholic, or mainstream Presbyterian (there are some outlier Presbyterian sects that more into fire and brimstone and cruelty, but that's not the mainstream...), and American Evangelicalism is just not that much of a thing.
I still think it's about the system of governance, though, and not about the moral properties of its citizens.
The t-shirt says that a Canadian is like an unarmed American with health care. The gun thing and the health care thing here aren't, at bottom, products of our having a Senate or a President, but of being afraid and yet resentful of the descendants of enslaved peoples.
In Canada, the socio-religious influences have historically been Anglican, Catholic, or mainstream Presbyterian (there are some outlier Presbyterian sects that more into fire and brimstone and cruelty, but that's not the mainstream...), and American Evangelicalism is just not that much of a thing.
Don't forget the French. That's an important part of Canadian history/society that doesn't really have an equivalent in the US.
I was friends with someone whose divorced mother was dating a man who was royalty in some European country (Hungary?) because he had impregnated a member of the royalty and so they had to confer some title on him for the sake of the child.
I've been reading a lot about Brazil lately, and it's fascinating. Lots of parallels to the US experience (much more than either has with Spanish America, in fact), but in a sort of funhouse-mirror/alt-history way. Several oscillations between various sorts of both autocracy and democracy. Strong presidential systems during the democratic periods.
Meghan was just used to a different style of flunkying and deference than she got in England....she expected to be treated like a film/TV star
I confess that other than watching the Oprah interview I hadn't been following this story closely, but what are you referring to? From the interview and the other coverage I've read, I get that she was a little clueless and underprepared, but I haven't seen anything that makes me think that she was upset because her expectations of celebrity treatment were unmet.
The t-shirt says that a Canadian is like an unarmed American with health care.
So: a happier (less fearful) and healthier (less anxious) North American who is probably going to live longer?
Btw, a lot of my male cousins/relations up in Canada actually own guns, and go deer-hunting every fall. But they don't fetishize guns, it's just like having a lawnmower to cut the grass, or something, and not a primary source of identity, much less anti-govt identity.
(And, okay, I guess that doesn't quite support my main point about govt structure over citizenry ...)
Further to 76, I don't know how much flunkying she would have been accustomed to anyway -- she was kind of a B-list celebrity* and there are lots and lots of those in LA. We have only so much flunkying to go around!
*Maybe I'm the wrong person to gauge, but I had never heard of her before she started dating Harry.
Don't forget the French.
The Catholics, along with the Irish immigrants.
I realize you're the Canadian here, but is there really a large "cruelty is the point" constituency up there? I know there's some...
Isn't one of them in charge of the largest province?
Btw, a lot of my male cousins/relations up in Canada actually own guns, and go deer-hunting every fall. But they don't fetishize guns, it's just like having a lawnmower to cut the grass, or something, and not a primary source of identity, much less anti-govt identity.
I.e., much as it was in the US 40-50 years ago. The current US gun culture is a recent creation. Thank you, NRA.
(Which is not to say that US culture around violence is the same as Canadian. But gun ownership didn't used to be fundamentally about being prepared to shoot other human beings.)
The descendants of my grandmother's early ancestors have a house from the early 17th century and they hold an annual reunion. There was some guy who went to Brazil and India and then settled in Brazil. One year, a 20 year-old guy named Felipe made the trip from Brazil. He said that growing up there were a lot of Germans, but he was usually the only one around with an English last name. He was planning to make a trip to Alaska too as part of his USA tour. I kind of wonder what the experience of a 19th century person of English descent with vaguely Congregationalist leanings would have been in Brazil. (The known records said that they were not a churchy family but did become members when they moved to the town.)
But gun ownership didn't used to be fundamentally about being prepared to shoot other human beings.
Right. The NRA used to be a relatively harmless and benign Kiwanis-Club-type organization for sportsmen and hobbyists.
(Back in the day when someone could say 'sportsman' without a trace of irony, of course!...).
75: In 1910 Argentina was richer than the US, but the US was better at soccer.
The English friends I have who watched the thing were horrified by what they saw as Meghan's level of entitlement. She doesn't seem to have done any research into what the job of being the next King's daughter-in-law actually was.
I think this is exactly right -- except I find it kind of endearing that Meghan didn't take the monarchy seriously.
What did she do that was horrifyingly entitled? Was she not showing up for her scheduled public appearances or something?
She refused to go out on a second date with Piers Morgan.
no way are Canadians better than (or less shitty than) Americans as a people
Cue Bill Burr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hZ5gTYMk8Y
What did she do that was horrifyingly entitled?
She's worth about $50 million dollars, but has successfully cast herself as some kind of world-historical victim. That's...impressive! She's totally going to win her media war against the royals, of course.
I'm not about to watch any of the interview, but white dudes with far more money than that have been playing the victim card with huge success lately.
What did she do that was horrifyingly entitled?
From what I've read/seen, she walked into this thing thinking that she was marrying a good-looking rich, famous guy, and ignored the fact that she was marrying into a a revered institution with its own hallowed customs and protocols. She acknowledged, for example, not having done any research into the monarchy. She didn't know how to curtsy in front of the queen, or even that she was supposed to do it.
If you want to be, say, an archbishop in the Catholic Church, you need to take a moment to learn how the transubstantiation differs from other Christian viewpoints on the Eucharist. If you want to be Imperial Kludd in the KKK, you had best understand why Catholics aren't really Christians. It's a matter of basic respect for the institution.
People who honor the traditions of the Catholic Church, the KKK or the monarchy are going to have expectations of the folks who enter those organizations at a high level. Anyone who assumes such a role without doing the necessary work is going to be rightly regarded as exhibiting privilege.
91: It's only the first 60 seconds that's on Canada and if you'd bothered you could have avoided making some wildly off the mark guess about the clip.
60 seconds? I may as well read "War and Peace" with my attention span.
92: Was she screwing things up in public a lot? I don't follow news about the royal family, but I can see if she was all over the place not curtsying when she should or whatever they're supposed to do it would make people angry. But I hadn't realized that was the issue.
i have not & am not going to watch the interview *but* so long as we are litigating this via purely third hand knowledge - which after all does seem the appropriate way to do it for sure lol - the curtseying contrtemps as related by la markle occurred thus -
she was hanging with the family of the dude who was all into epstein & also as i recall specialized in skeevy overseas influence peddling shakedowny activities before he was just toooooo embatassing for even them. this detail tends to make the anecdote credible to me as my god can you imagine admitting to oprah & god you'd voluntarily hung with him???
lo! the queen cometh! droppin in on the fam!
panic ensues. la markle, thou must curtsey! here's a how to.
???? whaaaat???? you do that shit in private? like there is only you types and you're all bumping around bowing n scraping just ... to each other?? awkward!
why yes! bc it's an essential part of ... "marrying into a a revered institution with its own hallowed customs and protocols." see 92.
i mean - you guys reading yourselves???
This came up in the interview. She said that she hadn't known in advance that she was supposed to curtsy, so just before she met the queen, she practiced curtsying, outside. There's no allegation that she refused to curtsy, or that she curtsied especially poorly, that I know of. She was just somewhat slow to catch up with royal protocols.
Yeah, the British accusation of her being so entitled REALLY feels like "she didn't know her place" which was to smile and endure ridiculous racism, I get a feeling that her race and Americanness drives the reaction. She is "entitled" to not suffer racism with a smile and to stand up for herself! I'm honestly surprised they don't just go full racist and call her "uppity"
Also, your spouse is supposed to prep you to meet their family. He could and should have said, "here's your cheat sheet or talk to this person" and she'd have been fine.
99 is true, the curtsying thing is totally on Harry. Personal story: on the new year, Korean people traditionally do this thing called sebae, which is where you do a deep and very specific ritual bow to older people in your family. The first new year's day after our marriage, M and I went to my parents' house and...I had totally forgotten to tell him about the bow! I also didn't know how to do the boy version, so it's not like we could quickly practice outside. My brother had to help him. Anyway, that was my fault, just like this whole fiasco is Harry's fault.
95: Markle was the subject of massive public abuse that I would argue has been persuasively demonstrated to have been based on something other than objective reality.
But NW isn't talking about that. He says that, in the view of his friends, the interview evinced entitlement. On the terms I describe in 92 and NW describes in 61, that seems plainly correct.
I really don't think "entitled" is the word you're looking for. I can see some criticism along those lines, but isn't the word you're looking for "clueless" or "naive" or something? But entitled doesn't feel right at all, if anything it's the rest of the royals feeling entitled to controlling her life just because she married one of their relatives.
Yeah, the British accusation of her being so entitled REALLY feels like "she didn't know her place" which was to smile and endure ridiculous racism
I'm guessing you don't have a lot of respect for the traditions of the Klan, either.
99 and 100 are right. It's not crazy to assume that people aren't like that in private. I bet the royal family in the Netherlands or Denmark or whatever don't do that nonsense in private within their family.
101 - this is hilarious bs! a steadily middling successful cable actress (earning her $50m in a more socially productive manner tgan many an arriviste!) who stumbles on int'l fame & who knows also true love by marrying into an established repertory light entertainment company plagued by generational decline & she shows unforgivable entitlement by ... giving an interview to oprah???
"here's your cheat sheet or talk to this person"
I didn't know I had to start adultery so soon.
From what I've read/seen, she walked into this thing thinking that she was marrying a good-looking rich, famous guy, and ignored the fact that she was marrying into a a revered institution with its own hallowed customs and protocols. [....]
If you want to be, say, an archbishop in the Catholic Church, you need to take a moment to learn how the transubstantiation differs from other Christian viewpoints on the Eucharist. If you want to be Imperial Kludd in the KKK, you had best understand why Catholics aren't really Christians
I agree with your first statement, but doesn't it make the second extraneous? As far as I know, she did just want to marry a guy. She wasn't particularly interested in being a princess or a duchess. So how does the fact that she failed to research the princessy/duchessy protocols bespeak entitlement?
I think there's like a some coursework you need to be a bishop.
Entitled to decide for herself who has and who has not earned her respect. This is among the inalienable rights endowed by the creator. Royalists don't agree, but they're just plain wrong about this. Just as the white supremacists coming out of the woodwork to find dumb excuses to dump on her are wrong about it.
The palace response I overheard on the BBC last night was the only acceptable line to take: this is some serious shit, we're sorry it happened, and we're going to try to deal with it privately.
An equally common assumption about how royal families behave in private is incestuous orgies, right? Good thing she didn't act on that one.
Bishops are super racist, sticking with only one color their entire lives.
Anyway on my first foreign trip ever (Canada doesn't count) I went to London with a high school organization and one of the cultural experiences was having high tea at one of the fancy places. During the conversation at tea I said, "So when are they going to get rid of the queen?" (Meaning the institution, not Elizabeth in particular.) My chaperones were shocked I would say such a thing out loud in such a setting, but I'm going to win that argument.
107: Well, somebody probably ought to ban analogies. And yeah, my comment was redundant, though I'd prefer to think of the latter paragraph as elaboration rather than repetition.
But an accusation of entitlement necessarily fails to take into account the viewpoint of the person who is allegedly entitled. If you called me entitled old white man, it would not matter a bit that I believe that I have worked hard for everything I've got, that I think I have honorable reasons for everything I do, and that and I regard myself as appropriately sensitive to your feelings. It wouldn't even matter if my view had considerable justification. The fact that I can easily go through the world thinking this way is, in fact, a bit of evidence of my entitlement.
As you say, Markle "just want[ed] to marry a guy" -- and she did it without regard to the purportedly sacred traditions she was trampling in the process.
Now you might not regard those traditions as sacred. You might, in fact, think that Markle was entitled to act the way she did. I wouldn't disagree, but other people get really serious about this monarchy stuff, and their views are comprehensible, ordinary, consistent and predictable.
Charley's an actual roundhead, of the good sort. But I think the royalist response to his point is that you're not entitled to show your private disrespect -- and that indeed is common across all societies.
[It occurs to me that the closest I have got to royal circles is being thrown out of two of the schools where two of the Queen's grandchildren were educated; but I do know something about the workings of social hierarchy in England]
And I am suspicious of the idea that "Meghan just wanted to marry a guy" -- as if that decision could ever be made without reference to what he did and what his social place was.
If a woman is asked about the man she loves and talks only of how kind and considerate he is, and what a marvellous lover, and how good looking, but never says anything about what he does in the world or who his family are -- well then he's obviously a serial killer.
She obviously had no clear idea of the kind of celebrity she was marrying into. And, to clarify my earlier point, her model of celebrity was not what she herself enjoyed as a B-List actress, but what an A-Lister in Hollywood has. And that is actually a whole lot more money and deference than the British Royal Family gets. Compare Jack Nicholson with Prince Andrew, for example.
Also, and this is a genuine cultural difference, stoicism about private suffering is not considered a virtue in LA, or any other part of Californian culture. It is rather admired (old chap) in this country.
And nothing I say should be taken in any way to defend the treatment of her (or Harry) by the British press. That has always been utterly disgusting, whether the papers have been at her feet or at her throat. But they are of course deliberately amplifying tendencies already present in their readers.
Kingsley Amis applies here:
The journal of some bunch of architects
Named this the worst town centre they could find.
But why disparage what so well reflects
Permanent tendencies of heart and mind?
116: So, I did not watch the Oprah interview, but I did watch a clip of Piers Morgan storming off, and the weather guy - who was biracial - go off on him. Piers was ridiculous and worthy of criticism. He's not exactly deferential or restrained.
I am super torn about the fitness of stoicism about private suffering as an East Coast person who grew up believing in a WASPY (though actually converted to Catholicism in Europe) worldview. I am no Californian, but over time I've come to think that the kind code of reticence my grandmother, for example, lived her life by was damaging. If Meghan was really suicidal and asked for mental health help - even a hospital - and that's what she needed, then she should get it. You're just as dead by suicide as cancer etc.
The press was pretty racist. I'm kind of oblivious, because it wasn't until I saw her mother that I realized she was biracial. I just thought she had an olive Mediterranean skin tone. In this case, it's true to say that I didn't even see race, which is it's own problem.
115: "Charley's an actual roundhead, of the good sort. But I think the royalist response to his point is that you're not entitled to show your private disrespect -- and that indeed is common across all societies."
But others were apparently entitled to show their private disrespect of her.
And I'm not seeing anyone saying that she did show private disrespect, unless all "not having researched your fiancé's sacred family traditions so you knew them all before he told you about them" is the sum total of the private disrespect. (And that's a super weird expectation. As a new royal family member, I'd expect to have access to and education from the insiders who really know how everything works. 'Doing my own research' and relying on it, I'd expect to screw things up dramatically by relying on the wrong sources.)
I'm also not getting the basis of NW's theory that the problem was that she expected to be treated like a movie star. Can you make that a little more concrete? What did she do that was acting like Jack Nicholson in a way that wouldn't make sense in her actual role?
More usefully, I think she may have expected the public relations team (i.e. the court) to represent *her*, rather than their own sick cartel with the royal correspondents. I am working on a blog post about the institution as a celebrity content-marketing system, the Buckingham Palace influencer house, and it's worth understanding that beyond its limited constitutional role, much of its role comes down to a deal where the court undertakes to feed a self-selected group of media with...
*Content*
on a rota basis where a different royal is main character every day, and the media deliver them a basically apolitical celebrity-consumer audience. This relationship was explicitly and avowedly worked out as such in the late 60s (this is where the "the firm" stuff started) as a way of responding to TV. There's a key instability in that the constitutional role and the institution's long term survival relies on it being inoffensive to the majority in society, while the content-marketing mission always has a bias towards the spicy and engagement-optimized, and a need to fit into the story arc conventions and commissioning processes of its customers.
And it's explicitly the rota that they resigned from, not the titles or Harry's place in the succession.
further explanatory notes: there are two groups of people in size here, the consumers of monarchy who ooh over royal weddings and generally hook down the content, and the genuinely indifferent, who don't. I estimate these two groups as about 75% of the population, and they map to the celebrity audience that needs its Content and the indifferent who need to be left alone to get on with life. Then there's the 20% who are really angry about it, and somewhere below 5% who actually believe in monarchy or have a genuine personal relationship of loyalty with the family or some institution that enjoys patronage.
This 25% is, well, 25%, and it's a weird 25% of people with weird priorities, like the (invariably) Oxonians who pretty much tell you they HATE THE QUEEN right after they tell you which college they went to and follow the content so they know what to be outraged about, or the really rare and incredibly weird true believers who pray for King Charles I's soul. Obviously there's neither much political or commercial juice in these groups compared to the other 75%.
Doug, I'm not saying anyone else was entitled to behave as they apparently did. The code works both ways. And I am certainly not defending the public hostility to her in the press, and perhaps from Piers Morgan. But when you move into a new society it is as unrealistic to expect that everyone there will like you as it is to expect that you will like everyone else.
BG: Piers Morgan is an asshole who makes a good living by acting as one. As editor of the Mirror he was a participant in the worst excesses of the phone hacking era. Very occasionally his belief that he is entitled to bully anyone he wants has a payoff in benefit to the public, as when he attacks a politician. But mostly it just gratifies his public, which is a very different thing.
LB: I don't know, and I don't suppose anyone is talking who really does know, whether she did show private disrespect to anyone beyond assuming that the royal family was all and only showbiz.
The comparison was between Jack Nicholson and Prince Andrew, in terms of the public blowback or shaming for being serial shaggers of anything that moved.
I think "being treated like a movie star" is mostly, nowadays, a matter of how the press treats you. I don't believe anything could have prepared her for the obsessive hostility of the tabloid press as it developed, and there is no one in Hollywood subject to that sort of treatment.
[If you want a glimpse of a really selfish, entitled, and ultimately pointless life, read Craig Brown on Princess Margaret. But the younger generations are less like that so far as we can tell.]
And Alex is very shrewd about the Kardashian aspects of the family business.
For the record, my iPad inserted the apostrophe in "it's". It should have been "its".
122: The Princess Royal seems to have managed fine and doesn't get a ton of hoistility. No longer significant to the succession and just boring enough.
right, she's successfully addressing the genuinely indifferent, rather like the queen herself. just kind of, there.
The Princess Royal got a lot of hostility if you go back 50 years because by all accounts she was a genuinely unpleasant young woman. At some point in the 70s the media got tired of her and looked for a new victim. This happens from time to time in the British press. For all I know she may have mellowed into a decent old woman, but the likes of Morgan have no interest in her any more because they took their pound of flesh while she was in her 20s.
The Princess Royal got a lot of hostility if you go back 50 years because by all accounts she was a genuinely unpleasant young woman. At some point in the 70s the media got tired of her and looked for a new victim. This happens from time to time in the British press. For all I know she may have mellowed into a decent old woman, but the likes of Morgan have no interest in her any more because they took their pound of flesh while she was in her 20s.
127-128: Back in the day definitely, but not do much now. Her daughter Zara was pretty prominent in the town-and-country fashion press before Kate Middleton came along. And I also stopped looking at those so I'm out of the loop now. I bet she still is among the truly horsey set. But mostly they're not that visible unless you're a charity wanting support.
I think she's aged better than Princess Margaret. When Princess Margaret died, she looked older/more haggard than the Queen Mother who died soon after.
Prince William says the royal family is not racist, but his brother used to dress up like a Nazi.
Nothing like a royal kerfluffle to wake up a sleepy blog!
Remember that Princess Di got a bunch of bad press for not really understanding what being a royal meant, and she was the wife of the heir apparent and supposedly got the training for that role. Both she and Charles took a lot of flak during their breakup, depending on who was leaking to whom and what paper was pointing fingers. Of course eventually she achieved public sainthood.
Meghan's hubby is more or less a spare of a spare of a spare, what with William and Kate being fecund and all. She probably got the abbreviated version of the course. There's a definitely a touch of racism going on, but it seems more about "you broke the unwritten law!" Tattling to Oprah w/o permission, and so on.
The only two aspects that struck me as remotely "entitled" were that Meghan expected the Palace PR to defend her to the degree they defended other royals during the same period, and she implied expecting some sort of "Princess school" or boot camp, which may sound silly, but I think any American woman around her age who watched or read any of the mounds of "I'm suddenly a princess!" movies or books that were hugely popular during her childhood or teen years would have expected.
I know expecting real life to be like the movies is ridiculous, but royalty is also ridiculous!
this is awesome - we are now getting down to the meat of things! slinging around gross national/state stereotypes and i-once-met-a-guy-who-knew-the-second-cousing-of-the-third-dormouse-from-the-left-who-said-he-was-a-real-bastard calls to authority! the subject matter and level of discourse have achieved perfect harmony.
speaking as a *lifelong californian* who -
1 once spent an extremely enjoyable night with a guy who'd been bitten by one of the queen's mum's corgis (a night is still remember with delight maaaany years later, wow late adolescent hormones are an awesome force yowza),
2 discussed princess anne with the daughter of a man who built anne a fancy pants horse truck/transporter and who reported she was lovely and down to earth and rejected all attempts to up-sell her to an actual toilet because per la principessa everyone (including presumably her) could just pee in a pile of straw in the back of the horse compartment like they always had, and
3 has gone back and reviewed the group chat from when the interview aired that i had largely ignored and is along with the headlines my source of knowledge re THE APPARENTLY OFFENSIVE REGICIDALESQUE INTERVIEW ...
look people - alex is right, except for in your i am sure going to be interesting and intelligent write up you should not neglect the embarassment factor. is it just the english people i happen to know? i really don't think so, witness the fabulous artefact that is the new statesman podcast which i cannot commend to you enough, magnificent cringe.
but the thing alex is most right about is the press feeding aspect, and the dispute between la markle & the queenside boils down to la markle's and her guy's unwillingness to sacrifice her and her child(ren) on the altar of unrelentingly hostile press coverage for the greater (highly dubious) good of the light entertainment repertory company that is the brf.
plus the casual racism cannoning at her from inside the house was also apparently a bit much for both her and her guy. i'm sorry - are we supposed to hate on new parents for saying nope, not going to raise my kid to be unrelentingly deferential in private to these twisted fuckers?
I knew Harry's helicopter pilot instructor who was out here teaching the locals at the huge air force base here. He said he seemed nice enough but I don't remember any other details.
133 Actually, you'd want to think that the PR machine would go into overdrive when the tabloid nastiness is driven by racism, you know, as an example of how society needs to be in the coming age.
And now she's thrown down the gauntlet for everyone involved to show how tolerant of racism they want to be seen to be.
138: I agree that neither of those things is at all entitled, and if the Palace had put even a little effort into this, Meghan would have been huge asset to the monarchy. Of course, I don't support monarchy, so in the end I guess things work out for everyone but the Sussexes.
Also, I'm in line to my first jab right now!!!!!
Yeah, the combination of "we do stiff upper lips here, get used to it" with media being nastier to her than everyone else seems like a vicious cycle with race part of every step. She gets treated worse than any of the others, the family/staff don't give credence or the same level of support, then when she complains about it she's violated the all-important norms and why would she do that and we all experience this, toughen up. (Possibly a similar cycle with Diana, except the race part.)
For what it's worth, I knew someone who was thoroughly middle class who said she loved Diana. She said that people like her weren't supposed to care about the monarchy, but she thought Diana's warmth and clothing sense were the breath of fresh air the monarchy needed.
She was tremendously eccentric and representative of nobody, and particularly personally cheap about hot water.
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10789899.rebel-many-causes-oxfords-urban-guerilla/
But her point about how unfashionable it was for middle class people to care about the monarchy speaks to the 'indifferent' class in Alex's 75%.
Her son was the headmaster of a school, and at one point, there was talk that Harry might attend it, and they were all so relieved when he went to Eton instead.
i always appreciate dq's contributions here, but i'd like to call out 'brf' especially -- which is surely pronounced 'barf'
I guess the round haircut fits.
I'm pretty not-royal, but I always thought you were supposed to pee behind the horse trailer, not in it.
re: 128
We all have anecdotes. Heh.
My Dad, when he was a young squaddie, sometimes did duty at various royal establishments, including Buckingham Palace, and at Badminton. His unit helped out with comms or something at Badminton. He said that Anne was the only one of the family who'd give the time of day to the squaddies, and she'd say hello on her way to and from whatever horsey thing she was doing, or driving her Mini-Moke around the place, and was generally pleasant to the people that the rest of family would just ignore.
On the other hand, an ex of mine, once had to spend a few days filming her for a charity event -- Anne was present as a patron or something, at the annual conference or something of said charity -- and said she found her really hard work. Not because she was particularly unpleasant to anyone, but because she didn't want to be filmed, and deliberately made it hard for them to get any decent footage of her. Footage that was going to be used in the fundraising of the charity concerned.
I figure most the royals can be especially nice in certain, often-exclusive, circumstances - there a lovely second-hand anecdote from Nicole Cl*ffe, since deleted, where a horse-rider using their land was weeping over with a prized horse with a broken leg, Elizabeth approached her from behind and she sent her off profanely without looking, something like "unless you can get my vet David then fuck off", and some time later this exact vet magically appeared, her office having apparently called every vet in the area with that forename. And a lovely note in the post sometime later, since they could figure out who she was from the permissions originally required to use the land.
(Not the same as the Anne stuff ttaM just mentioned, which is more telling in its incidentality.)
c carp 💓!
super congrats & jubilation to all getting vaccinated! wooo hoooo!!!
I like that royalty respects people's choices in who shoots their horse.
Western kingship is based quite directly on an understanding of the relative value of horses and humans.
1 once spent an extremely enjoyable night with a guy who'd been bitten by one of the queen's mum's corgis
that's a superhero origin story. is that how you became dairy queen?
||
Oh, yippee! My 90 year old cousin rings to say that his 89 year old sister has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Too late to treat, apparently. I can't go and see them because I'm totally housebound. This year is shaping up to be as good as the last one.
|>
I'm so sorry to that, chris y, and I hope they're able to be aggressive with palliative care if she needs it.
136: Das haben wir uns auch gefragt!
157: Just across the border!!
The peak of my acting career was playing Herr Zeller, AIPMHOB.
I can't imagine any conversation between Markle and a member of the fucking British royal family where Markle is going to be the entitled one. How do you even act entitled when you're in the room with someone who has people waiting on you hand and foot? Show up in a dominatrix outfit, crack a whip, and demand people lick your boot? Or it is having the temerity to demand ordinary human kindness from the family you've married into?
No -- entitled in her attitude to the press.
There is a very good, deep take by Anthony Barnett, who can be silly but isn't being here, in the current New Yorker.
Barnett's article is good, but I think his citation of Bagehot is misleading. The other North European monarchies have been letting light in on the magic for a hundred years, and they seem far more secure and confident than the Windsors at the moment.
162:
No -- entitled in her attitude to the press.
I'm having trouble working this out, especially after reading the New Yorker piece. Surely you're not saying that Markle was insufficiently respectful of the concerns of the tabloids.
162: the article explains it as a different understanding of celebrity. Markle was famous for being an actress - and actresses hire people to manage the press. The royals are beholden to the press in a way that just isn't the same, as if your PR person worked for the other side.
Cala has grasped what I was trying to get from the Barnett article
163 I don't think the Swedish monarchy has been letting the light in for anything like 100 years. And their relationship with the tabloids and celebrity press looks quite a lot like mutual exploitation. Don't know about the other two.
You know more about the Swedish monarchy than I do, so I won't argue. I was thinking about Minnie the Moocher, who had a dream about the King of Sweden. He gave her things that she was needing. Admittedly 80 years ago rather than 100. Apparently the king at the time spent a lot of time playing tennis in America.
Realistically, Sweden and the like should just have a duke or duchess. Hardly big enough for a proper king.
And Luxembourg should only get like a baron.
Luxembourg is a Grand Duke, so Sweden must be at least a Prince.
Britain, an Emperor; Thailand, Emperor with Elephant.
I don't know that I totally got the point of the article in 162, but this made me laugh:
[Interviewer:] I am reminded of the Nietzsche quote, "Those you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster."
[Interviewee:] Well, by all means, if you want to put that into your question, do.
Yeah, I'm not finding anything there that supports the concept of "entitled" -- I mean, sure, life was different from what she thought it was going to be. She might have thought her father in law might exercise some leadership in the face of bad press -- if thinking that guy might not be an asshole after all is what you mean by 'entitled' then I guess the shoe fits.
He lets people snivel on his behalf that he's too weak to stand up for his grandson, or his daughter in law. Which, ok, fine: no one is asking *me* to respect the guy,
Is there maybe a sense that the weird (to an American) relationship between the press and the royals' staff is sort of an intrinsic part of what it means for there to be a British royal family at this point? That people who are reacting to her as entitled for not researching the sacred traditions of the monarchy aren't exactly thinking about curtsying and so on, they're thinking she was entitled for believing that the staff should be on her side against the press rather than the way they seem to actually behave, thinking of her and the rest of the royals as chum for the sharks without much concern for their well-being?
If that's it, it's kind of hard for an American to wrap our minds around. Not that it's surprising that the staff does act that way, exactly, but that it's weird that anyone thinks badly of her for not having fully understood and accepted that going in.
NW, I'm still trying to understand 61 and follow up comments thereto. The article describes H&M's relationship with the press thusly:
They would like to use publicity, but celebrities use publicity by trying to control it. What they found was that the tabloids were playing to the prurient, racist parts of their readership and publishing lies, and nobody was stopping them.
Surely your British friends aren't horrified by her belief that she's entitled to not have the press publish racist lies about her without pushback?
That was what I was trying to get at in 176, sort of. Horrified by her, um, culpable naïveté in believing that it was the staff's job to push back against that kind of thing rather than knowing, as any sensible person should, that it was the staff's job to keep the press happy by any means necessary?
177, 178: Yeah, we all have the same question. I suspect Markle wouldn't particularly object to Cala's description in 165.
I think entitlement here is that of the British public. Namely, an ordinary celebrity is allowed to decide how public they want to be, what image they want to project, etc. Now there are limits how private you can be due to paparazzi, and you might make mis-steps in cultivating your image, but the US public doesn't think we're entitled to control how private celebrities are or what their image is. But the British public believes they're entitled to decide these things for the royal family, because that's what it means for them to be the royal family. The royal family expressing agency is an affront to their constitutional role as a mere vessel for the decisions of the British public.
178 . . . including, apparently, putting it out that she's so mean they're conducting an investigation.
the secret sauce in the chotiner interview isn't the poisoned relationship btwn brf & tabloid press imo, markle's guy himself had been yammering on about it ever since the tabloids spewed out "straight outta compton" as the welcome mat. & while the brf have managed to maoeuvre themselves into a particularly disadvantageous position vis a vis the press, *all* celebrities are engaged in a ceaseless battle with the press, hollywood compris.
la markle's observation is, more or less implied i cannot judge as having made it this far into this frivolous debate on purely 2nd if not 3rd hand sources i'm not going to sully the fundamental unseriousness of my position by digging deeper, that the brf & their staff are *bad* at it.
the wonderfully awesome "deep" nugget contributed by chotiner's interviewee is the hand wavey puff of smoke invocation of the constitution. there is no function identified as critical to "being" the constitution that wouldn't be better carried out - lower cost, less pernicious meddling with e.g. tax policy, less unseemly grift, etc. - by subbing in a regularly refreshed cheese.
unless of course the function of the brf is the perpetuation of (imv) pernicious, social, political & economical harmful hierarchies. & if you're all for that, then la markle is unquestionably guilty of at best naïveté & at worst an attempt (perhaps still to succeed?) to insinuate the asp if revolution within the very bosom of the whole wretched structure.
my only? is whether chotiner was hornswoggled by the invocation of the curtain with the little men behind it or whether this was one of his "gee that's a lotta rope you've taken on their pal" numbers.
unless of course the function of the brf is the perpetuation of (imv) pernicious, social, political & economical harmful hierarchies.
Yup.
I think 180 is a good explanation. The only question is: Given that the UK people underwrite this thing, to what in return are they justly entitled? Markle's answer to that (like Diana's before her) seems reasonable to me.
It's interesting to me that Barnett goes to such trouble to contrast Diana and Markle. The more acquainted I become with the situation, the more alike they seem to me.
anyways, my only beef with anyone in this whole thing is with oprah as of course she should have delayed airing the interview once this glorious news broke: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/07/royal-commentators-hoaxed-into-critique-of-meghan-interview-before-seeing-it
alas, it briefly appeared as a harbinger of resurgent spring in the news firmament and then was promptly swamped by the juggernaut that is oprah. sad.
i mean:
The duo insisted that they weren't leading the commentators on or "feeding them lines", simply asking "broad stroke questions that you simply cannot answer if you have not seen the interview".
"We then decided that having done that we would push it a bit further and come up with the silliest things we could imagine, almost to give them a chance," Manners said. "We did say, 'in the interview Meghan says she wouldn't take the vaccine'. We would hope that a royal expert who would presumably know a lot about Meghan would at that point go, hang on, that seems somewhat unlikely.
"It also, I would argue, seems somewhat unlikely that Meghan Markle is going to discuss the Balham donkey sanctuary. We only ever brought up those facts when they were so far-flung that to comment on them would be ridiculous."
i adore this story not just because of my deep affection for donkeys and their enviable long eyelashes, but i won't deny that the donkey detail has my heart forever and ever.
also - whose ass of insufficient due diligence is showing here, hmmm??? lololololol
subbing in a regularly refreshed cheese.
Canadian debs tried curtseying to a fancy cake, yesno? Maybe still do? This would be a good decade to transfer press allegiance to a seasonally refreshed fancy cake, and tabloid fury to the personalities of the bakers.