JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HARRY AND MEGHAN AND BEING ROYAL – EMPTY NOTIONS ABOUT BECOMING “FREE” OR “ORDINARY” REMIND ME OF THE PHRASE “FINDING YOURSELF” REPEATED WIDELY IN THE EARLY 1960s – THE TRUTH OF THE CONTROVERSY AROUND THE COUPLE IS IN FACT CLEAR FROM MANY ANECDOTES AND WITNESSES – BUT STILL MANY PEOPLE AND POPULAR NEWS SOURCES GET IT WRONG – HUMANS ARE SUBJECT TO WILLFUL MISINTERPRETATION, ESPECIALLY WHERE EMOTIONS AND FANTASIES ARE ENGAGED – IS IT ANY WONDER THEN THAT FAR MORE CONSEQUENTIAL MATTERS , ONES GUARDED BY EXTENSIVE SECRECY AND EFFORTS AT MANIPULATION, AS IN WORLD AFFAIRS, ARE NOT UNDERSTOOD BY A GREAT MANY? – A WORD ON PRINCESS DIANA AND THE REAL CAUSE OF HER DEATH

John Chuckman


COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SEAN O’GRADY IN THE INDEPENDENT


“The Meghan and Harry drama is just like Brexit – there’s no cherry picking and it’ll all end in tears"

"...in their own terms, they probably never will find freedom."


Indeed, but I don’t think they are genuinely seeking to find “freedom,” whatever that facile favorite American word actually means.

What Meghan appears to want is just what she has obtained, being a world celebrity, a kind of fairy-tale princess, without any genuine responsibilities or restraints or obligations and able to indulge the inclinations of half her lifetime, the “unroyal” half.

Poor Harry is just along for the ride. He’s given up about the only activity he was any good at, marching around in uniform, waving to Royal watchers at parades and events. He has also given up his traditional family relationships. There really can be no return to those. And a place like LA, one of America’s more grotesque cities, cannot be comfortable for terribly long. Those are big prices to be paid.

Meghan is in her element. The glitter and noise of LA, a place always ripe with possibilities for an acting gig or paid public relations task. Always being photographed. She obviously loves being photographed. One got a sense from her time in the UK of almost narcissism in the way she responds to cameras. The head turns almost as if guided by a special radar to the lens of each one with the dazzling smile turned on.

And she even has her Mum living with her now.

She is one of the most strikingly beautiful women of this generation, but all the evidence over the last few years points to an unpleasantly demanding and unbending personality. Anyone who could make the charming Kate cry or start a row over what some children’s wedding outfits represents a lifelong emotional burden for poor Harry, with it now becoming obvious that it is not royal family and press snobbery or bias at work.

She did it all while blaming the press and certain royal factions, with plenty of suggestions floated about by friends about bias and perhaps racism – in truth, no one even thinks of Meghan as black, not in the least. But I’m sure, despite the many careful private lessons she was undoubtedly given in royal deportment and tradition, they think of her as American, and as a rather pushy American.

As for the press, that’s the price of the job she assumed and especially the way she assumed it, in fairy-tale commoner-to-princess style. But she wasn’t willing to pay the price. She wanted the celebrity and cameras without any personal cost. A fact in itself which suggests a difficult personality.

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Response to a comment saying, “Why don’t they get some kind of virtuous jobs, and just get on with it? The fact they can’t says everything about how out of touch they are”

Absolutely, they don't know what “ordinary” means, and they really do not want to know.

It's all a preposterous mishmash, truly as confused – although different in style and without any associated politics – as the antics of Trump giving one of his press conferences. Information being conveyed to the public by someone with no information.

It's an embarrassing story, having no resemblance to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor of the 1930s, a story that had deep political roots, and little to Princess Diana, except in the fact that there are some genuinely unbalanced qualities at work under the surface.

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Response to a comment about strong racism in the press against Meghan

I'm sorry, I recognize none of what you write as being what I observed.

Meghan is truly beautiful, and she was flattered enormously by being photographed, with her pictures published, constantly.

The only references to racism have been in suggestions from devoted admirers trying to excuse her behavior. I regard such references as unfair and, in fact, a kind of reverse racism.

The simple fact is that Meghan generated tensions and made extravagant demands as soon as she took up residence.

She demanded all kinds of things she had no business demanding, as with the children’s wedding outfits or a certain size and quality of residence compared with that of William and Kate. Demanding things, in and of itself, is outside the expected behavior of British Royals. She just did not understand that, or she, perhaps more likely, refused to understand it, displaying the attitudes of California, not Buckingham Palace.

And making Kate cry was extremely revealing. Kate is one of the best-tempered and nicest people in the Royal Family. They are a pretty cool bunch on the whole. She treated Meghan generously in the beginning. Meghan’s behavior was cruel and unnecessary, and I think many people understand that instinctively. Certainly, her husband, William, thought so. It caused him to speak privately to his brother, and that was the beginning of the end for that long friendship, adding still more stress to the situation.

Even in ordinary middle-class life, it is unacceptable to make another family member cry at a gathering. How much less so in the Royal Family with the eyes of the nation upon them? There are reasons for all that formality and protocol and tradition and restraint. The public should never look at the behavior of the Royal Family and see something going on which resembles a soap-opera melodrama. Avoiding that is a central part of the job. Meghan refused to do it from the start.

She also showed a lack of respect for her seniors, as it were, in the Royal Family. Like it or not, Kate’s position, being married to a certain heir, is senior to hers.  And after all, what is royalty about but the line of succession? If you ignore that, you tear away at the institution’s foundation.

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Response to a comment:

Charles, in fact, will make a decent and well-spoken King.

William is a decent and sensible type too. Just his choice in the charming and lively Kate shows balance.

Harry has always had problems of rashness and, frankly, a lack of effective intelligence – e.g., as in attending a party in a Nazi uniform some years ago or in demanding to be sent to Afghanistan and later bragging about killing a man there.

See: https://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2013/01/harry-is-prince-mad-he-does-have.html

Of course, there is the larger question of whether there should be any royalty at all.

I can't think of many areas of 21st century society where we adhere to concepts dating to BCE. Kind of like expecting to travel to the moon by broomstick.

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Response to a comment saying with their looks Harry and Meghan should rule

Well, who would have thought that looks are what royalty is all about?

I guess by your standards, they should dump the entire Royal Family and replace them with fashion models?

Preferably from California?

No wonder our world is so dangerously confused.

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Response to a comment referring to the murder of Diana:

Diana was not important enough for anyone to plot killing her. What damage she could do, embarrassing the family, she had already done.

Diana was the victim of her own wild and rash temperament, the source of Harry’s inherited rashness.

Despite a sweet smile and glowing looks in public, she showed some dismaying qualities in private.

Roaring off into the night at high speed in the center of Paris? Just to avoid photographers?

She displayed her temperament in many ways. As with the literally thousands of obsessively-repeated phone calls she made to some people.

The numerous affairs, in some cases with completely inappropriate others, as with a security guard.

Reports of her almost hysterical behavior at times. Once, in the car, leaving behind the crowd who adored her and had presented her with flowers, she suddenly broke out into wild laughter about those very people.

The Spencer family is well known for having had some unbalanced behaviors here and there going back a couple of centuries.