That Thing about Prince Harry and Meghan...
From Northwestern University to "Spare"... there's no escape. Why? And is any of it worth mentioning any longer?
Princess Diana escorted by then Northwestern President Henry Bienen on the way to a gala dinner for breast cancer research.
There she was, a full-page spread on both the front and back pages of the June 6, 1996, edition of our campus newspaper, The Daily Northwestern: Diana, Princess of Wales under the headline, “To Di For.” Perhaps, in retrospect, a tragic, prescient phrase, Diana had nonetheless come to Chicago and Northwestern University to tour the campus and speak at breast cancer research fundraising gala. She was, after all, not only “the People’s Princess,” but also the president of the London Royal Marsden Hospital’s Cancer Fund.
That summer marked two months before Diana’s divorce from Prince Charles was signed and just over a year before she died in a Paris car accident — the one for which her second son or her “Spare,” Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor would never forgive the press. He was not yet 12 and had two years to go at Ludgrove School in Berkshire before setting foot at Eton; Rachel Meghan Markle was a freshman at L.A.'s all-girls, Catholic Immaculate Heart High School. At Northwestern, Harry’s mother, then about to turn 35, did her thing, engaging in the royal “walkabout,” escorted by four or five students chosen from the top academic ranks of the school, tried to shake hands among those lining the mobbed streets of Evanston, and later that night, looked gleaming as her head bobbed among the asphyxiating socialites.
A shot of Princess Diana’s head as crawls through well-wishers during a June 1996 gala dinner at the Field Museum of Natural History.
Just over 25 years later, Diana is gone, but Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and “Meghan” Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex, a Northwestern Class of 2003 graduate, are in world headlines for, among other matters, their overarching and ongoing fight with the allegedly racist, misogynistic, homophobic and not woke media; the way the Royal Family (antagonist #1) treated Markle, a biracial woman; and the never-ending adversary between the couple, the British tabloids (antagonist #2) and the deal with the devil that antagonist #1 has with antagonist #2.
It’s a lot to tackle. And all this nonsense seems to be dragging Harry & Meghan away from their true callings: to serve the cause of the Royal Family (from abroad), in addition to taking care of their own pet issues. The worldwide press has also become wearisome of another “Harry & Meghan” headline: “I’m tired of Harry and Meghan. The media should be too,” by filmmaker Ahmed Twaij appeared in Al-Jazeera two days ago; “The More Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Say, the Less Americans Like Them,” says Newsweek; and “Prince Harry, Meghan Markle 'Spare' fallout threatens Hollywood future: experts,” Fox News gleefully chortled this week.
Rachel Meghan Markle and Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor in their first days of their romantic adventure in 2016.
That is all a bit harsh, especially since editors seemingly delight in a nearly daily deluge of “reveals” from the state of Harry’s “todger” to his drug (ab)use to his general narrative of despair (pre-Meghan) and bliss (post Meghan). But if UK journalists could stop rolling their eyes and rehashing all the stuff we knew before Spare was released — the Nazi uniform, the naked Vegas-billiard-playing parties, the meet-cute-turned-meet-dispute — they might actually see the point of the Oprah interviews, the Netflix special and the book: a young man’s tragic coming-of-age, its initial and rudderless direction and its ultimate outcome: a relatively positive, well-meaning man who learned a few things and may have something to say (despite the ermine thong he presented to Kate during his toast at their wedding).
Yes, eight times out of ten, the second-tier royals and their courtiers take up way too much ink and then too much space in our heads. And sitting in front of ITV's Tom Bradby interview before Spare hit shelves, I was ready for Oprah Part II, maybe some more documentary-like flashes of H&M’s life, some tears, some chickens. We got a few book voiceovers, and the surprisingly (!) Harry’s relatability in front of the cameras. He also displayed some media savvy, firmly sitting in his chair and unflinchingly saying this is my side of the story. I own it. I want it told. Like it or not. “Now the words will come from my lips rather than use the tabloid media,” Harry told Bradby “It never needed to be this way — to get to this point…. “But I’m thinking back to when I was 12 sitting in that sunken bed… only now (do I realise) that I never want to be in that position; I do not want history to repeat; I do not want to be a single dad; I don’t want my children to be without their parent.”
Princess Diana in that famous Northwestern sweatshirt gifted to her by the University in 1996.
Surprisingly, I liked many of the things Prince Harry had to say. He spoke at length about his and his family’s fight with “unconscious bias,” — prejudice or unsupported judgments in favor of or against one thing, person, or group as compared to another — as well as the way the Royal Family’s own position rests on “exploited workers and thuggery, annexation and enslaved people.” (An entire documentary series could be made on that.) Harry reflected about his use of a derogatory term for people of South Asian heritage, in reference to a fellow-soldier and emphasized that he wasn’t a royal outlier in the use of that word. He talked candidly about how it is to live in a multi-racial family. “You speak to any other mixed race couple around the world, and you will probably find that with the white side of the family there is some discussion about the color of the kids. To say that that doesn’t happen… is not true. For me, the difference is unconscious bias and racism, and if you are called out it and you don’t do something about it then it become something bigger.” Lastly, he stated that he still believed in the monarchy as a force for “uniting people… especially during as a culture war in the UK… Silence only allows the abuser to abuse. I don’t know how silence is going to make things better.
“I am open to wanting to help (the Monarchy) understand their part, especially when you are the monarchy you have a responsibility and quite rightly, people hold you to a higher standard, certainly the media should.”
Meghan Markle in her 2000-2001 Kappa Kappa Gamma portrait at Northwestern University.
Prince Harry is correct in all of these matters. The buggar in this: money and prestiege always gets in the way — even Harry and Meghan’s own slice of the pie is at stake. In Meghan Markle, Prince Harry found not a wealthy woman, but a woman with intelligence and influence (Markle is 2003 graduate of the Northwestern Communication School with a double major in Theatre and International Relations — she definitely knew how to curtsy) who would lend her shoulder for a cry, travel with him to see elephants in Africa and defend him no matter the circumstance or the screaming tabloid headline. Yet Harry is part of a family that will seemingly sacrifice him and his wife to lies and taunts and threats if it means that people closer to the throne will look better. Moreover, having Prince Harry and Meghan off in California living a hybrid life of public service, which they believe is “universal” costs less for King Charles and the other “minor royals” to do their charities and galas and walkabouts in the Commonwealth. As Harry has put in the book, “Pa wasn’t merely my father, he was my boss, my banker, my comptroller,” and Harry believes he has been fired “after a lifetime of rendering me otherwise unemployable.”
One can speculate about the love between Markle and Prince Harry and Markle’s agenda when she married into the family — she was granted the largest political stage in the world, a gigantic leap from her social issue and general interest blog the Tig. That the outcome didn’t exactly work out the way it was planned, at first, is the monarchy’s loss — a lot of Britons could still use some different perspective when it comes to globalisation, racism and sexism. But this “project” of H&M — Oprah, the Netflix deal, Spare — has reached its end. The sides have been somewhat levelled — the truth (every biologically and emotionally unpleasant detail) told. If Prince Harry and Meghan truly want to move on, it’s time, like Princess Diana did so many years ago, to take up the causes with which they left the UK — the Invictus Games, immigration reform, biracialism and maybe making a film on the plunders and spoils of the monarchy. If you want a speechless and conciliatory Royal Famiy, now that’s a project that could achieve the intended aim.
Meghan Markle in a brochure featuring her as a standout student at Northwestern University.