THE ROYAL BINGE
SAYING IT LIKE WE MEAN IT
T he invites are out for the royal wedding of Prince Harry and former commoner (such a terrible word) Meghan Markle. I was asked the other day whether I will be watching the royal wedding on TV. I’m not sure. I remember watching the wedding of Prince William and Kate with a group of friends and we sat there dissecting the scene, the clothes, the guests, the unintentional attention stealer (Pippa), unaware that like our parents who watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, we were following a long tradition of royal watching. Recently I started to really think about what that meant – watching the royals, observing them, dissecting them.
Since the invitations have been released many people have started to speculate on blogs and other media platforms on how many of those invitees are for Meghan’s friends from her “old life”. The story then becomes about those undisclosed sources telling media outlets that Meghan is missing her old life. Then there are the predictions of her lasting a year as a royal and a reminder (and sort of a warning) that in fact, she is three years older than Prince Harry, that she is a divorcee, that she was an actress, that there are topless photos of her out there on the Internet that are a Google search away – it’s a circus of regurgitated semi-hateful rhetoric connected to a wedding.
It’s interesting how the media controls Meghan’s image from what she’s wearing, how she walks, how messy she looks or how put together she appears - that this continuous photo shopping and tearing down of her image is simultaneously happening as she walks through the aisle of the public eye turning into a tabloid work of art.
Do I think that how the media and general public handle, write and speak about Meghan Markle is problematic? Of course. Do I feel sorry for her? Not particularly. It sucks for her I’m sure, but I’m also sure that she’s a clever person and she knew what she was getting into. I hope she was prepared for it because I doubt that it will end after the wedding. This isn’t really about Meghan Markle, just like it never really was about her future sister-in-law, her deceased mother-in-law or any other royal, before her from Queen Elizabeth the first or Anne Boleyn. This is about how the media and public consume them as icons, as entertainment, as villains, as people we have a right to dissect. We might not publically behead royals these days, because you know, that would be barbaric – but somehow, it’s OK to vilify them and participate in a culture of schadenfreude – meaning the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of others. As much as I don’t want to watch the royal wedding because of the greater implications that it has on how we interact with these people and celebrities in general, I can’t help but want to watch it as well. What does that say about me? Without sounding too pessimistic, I think it proves that it’s unlikely for the human race to intrinsically become better anytime soon.
Pop culture enthusiast, Willy Wonka Golden Ticket hunter and Hogwarts Graduate Class of 2001
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