Opinion Harry and Meghan on Netflix: Curated images that brush patriarchy under the carpet

Harry’s life as a royal growing up in the years following the death of his mother, as the new obsession of the UK’s tabloids, is shown to be a difficult one, and rightfully so. Regardless of the context, a child deserves privacy. However, in what is portrayed as an extension of Diana’s long-lost fight, with footage from the former princess’s tussle with photographers during a private ski trip with her children, Harry and Meghan seeks to subvert its own content, but fails. On the one hand, is Markle’s struggle to live up to a choreographed life — case in point when the two are engaged and she is told not to talk to the photographers anymore the way she used to because she is no longer just an actor. On the other hand is the carefully curated docuseries itself, which does not acknowledge its own privilege of including and excluding events to tell a certain kind of story.

The episodes are tedious at best, with an overarching tone that seeks protection from the world, but the tools deployed for this protection currently are counter-productive. Harry and Markle were both public figures in their own right before they dated. We are shown screengrabs of their very public Instagram posts to aid the narration of the documentary — a window into the kind of people they are. However, it bypasses the fact that social media, or privacy itself, are both curated. While trying to get to know Harry at the beginning of their relationship, Markle says, “But that’s your homework. Let me see what they’re about in their feed. Not what someone else says about them. What they are putting out themselves,” she said. Harry’s feed, as it turns out, is full of pictures from the numerous trips he takes around the world as a dutiful royal, much like his mother’s, except that Diana did not curate her “feed”.

For the most part, the focus remains on Markle’s biraciality and how she is forced to give up a certain personhood before taking on her new role as a royal. But what it does not address is the patriarchy, often Harry’s own, that harnesses it. The docuseries uses a certain global history of racism outside of the Royal Family to lay the groundwork to explain the couple’s exit. Harry’s own patriarchy, however, is brushed under the carpet as a learning curve, which is miraculously fixed because he is now marrying somewhat of an activist. He carries a list to find the woman who best fulfils the role. He expects the world to curtsy before his grandmother, the late Queen, and aids Markle’s baptism into the Royal Family through a series of performative actions.

Markle’s friends, time and again, say that she had a life before “all of this blew up” – a single actor living in an upscale residential area with her dogs. The change she undergoes, a deeply uncomfortable one, is owed to the most eligible bachelor from the time, but who is also the black sheep. Markle is shown to be a successful partner who has managed to turn around her boyfriend’s toxic traits. To the liberal viewer living in 2022, having witnessed most of this unfold in real-time, the stances taken are quite hard to digest, especially with the information available in this day and age. It almost betrays its viewer with its aspirations. Markle is the princess in shining armour who rescues the black sheep. In essence, the docuseries so far is a long-drawn battle that tells the story of how Harry gets his act together.