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I would not have foreseen that headline above a column bearing my name. When it was released on Netflix last month, the six-part documentary Harry & Meghan struck me as something I would have paid money to avoid. My opinions on the duo had firmly set—above all my belief that their self-absorption was not only personally repellent, but an objectively repugnant rebuke of both family and British tradition.
The concepts of historical and family fidelity in that bubble have been at the front of my mind lately. While I have never been a big royal-watching aficionado, I was deeply moved by the reverence afforded the death of Queen Elizabeth in September, and I have consumed with great admiration every season of The Crown, also on Netflix. That program admittedly takes significant dramatic license, but it imbues any viewer with a sense of the values that make the royal family a praiseworthy civilizing and uniting influence in fractious times.
Those impressions led to my profound disinterest in a TV series with the obvious goal of rehabilitating Elizabeth's grandson and his American show-business bride, who have been roundly skewered by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. But over the holidays, I landed in consecutive conversations with friends and family members who said it deserved consideration, especially by decided detractors.
Well, that certainly described me, so, blessed by a delicious glut of year-end free time, I binged all six episodes in two days. And I'm glad I did. First, because I've always preached openness to differing opinions; and second, because that openness leads me to consider some things I had not weighed before.
Make no mistake: Harry & Meghan is a sublime artifact of modern propaganda, but not in the sinister sense of the word. It is a project with the sole intent of instilling sympathy, if not approval, for the distance the royal couple has created between themselves and the nation where their obligations reside. It may not leave every viewer rapt in fervent support, but it has the power to raise eyebrows as to what the couple has been through, and to spark questions as to what we would do in the same situation.
We all like to think we can spot phonies. There may be areas where Harry and Meghan are laying it on thickly, and even fudging certain factoids along their controversial path. But the first disarming thing I encountered was their clear devotion to each other, eroding the concept of Meghan as a Hollywood diva looking to heighten her brand by snagging a prince.
The second thing that opens eyes and minds is the savagery of the British press. Harry & Meghan recalls the jackals who hounded Harry's mother, Princess Diana, and then adds the social media culture we have all come to recognize, an outlet for the worst instincts of cowardly tormentors. It is always wise to ignore trolls and troublemakers in the online world, but that becomes harder when an entire nation—and perhaps its royal family—is being swayed by the worst bottom-feeders trafficking in brutal personal attacks, often exacerbated by racism.
Exaggerated or even outright false claims of racism are common practice in today's environment of dishonest discourse, but there is no un-seeing the viciousness obviously directed at Meghan based on her mixed-race background. The series takes political liberties, implying that millions of Brexit voters were racially motivated, but the bigotry heaped on the Duchess of Sussex by vocal fringes of British society is beyond question.
So we recognize that this is the modern world, which stinks in many ways. People are mean and they have huge Twitter megaphones. Didn't Meghan know precisely what she was getting herself into? Didn't her husband have a responsibility to warn her that this was likely?
Those were my views, and I believe they still have merit. But even in a TV show so transparently designed to boost the Sussex side, viewers will start to wonder how much of this ordeal the pair was supposed to take, especially with no definitive rebuke from the family of the firestorms of negativity. I found myself imagining Elizabeth herself, perhaps joined by Harry's father Charles (who is now King) and brother William (who will be the next King), staring in the direction of the tabloids and the tweeters, and saying, in effect, "This woman is part of our family now, and we will hear no further condemnation of her. Shame on all of you who have treated her so poorly."
Such a scene would, of course, violate the tradition of avoiding incendiary exchanges, especially with the newspapers who hold the royal reputation in their hands. But not only did such an exchange not happen—there is ample evidence of Buckingham Palace sabotage in the form of leaks and whispers, which only served to alienate Harry and Meghan even further.
After a correspondent flatly asked, "Are you okay?" and Meghan's reply was essentially "no," the duchess was instantly skewered as a privileged snowflake unwilling to weather the rough times of the life she had plotted for herself. But in these six hours, she claims repeatedly that she wanted to fit in, honor the family, earn their respect and love.
Is she lying? I can't read minds, but when American filmmaker Tyler Perry sends his jet to rescue the couple and their children from paparazzi hell, their relief is palpable even as they continue to express their willingness to serve the royal family and its causes—but at a distance.
Previous additions to the royal family tree have hung in there under the pressures of their respective eras. This is surely a deviation. But if Harry, who watched his mother hounded to her death by carnivorous media, seeks to draw a line to protect his wife in an even more malicious environment, I am inclined to empathize.
And if this couple seeks to offer for our consideration the testimony that they are not the deplorable caricatures they are made out to be, they deserve at least that opportunity.
Mark Davis is a talk show host for the Salem Media Group on 660AM The Answer in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and a columnist for the Dallas Morning News and Townhall.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
