It’s the news media, specifically the American news media, that is keeping her in our headlines.
The American news media calls Megan Markle a “feminist” and a world leader. Google her name and “feminist” and a lot of results appear. But in reality, who is she? She’s the wife of the brother of the future king of England. She and her children are nowhere near the line of succession. She is a supporting character of a supporting character.
Now I know I must acknowledge a few facts before I continue my argument. Obviously I am self-aware of the implications of calling the half-black, American wife to a British royal a “nobody.” Of course she is not a nobody. She’s a real person. She’s entitled to privacy. And it is terrible for a white male blogger to call a black woman a generation younger than him a “nobody.” That’s bullying. I know better. I should Be Best.
Come to think of it, Melania Trump is also a nobody, but I covered a part of that in a separate post.
It also needs to be acknowledged that Meghan Markle was and is treated terribly by the sleazy London tabloids. She was smeared for both her skin color and the fact that she is an American-born woman with no royal family ties. No woman deserves to be trashed before she can make a first impression on her terms. The British tabloids never gave Markle a fair chance. At least I am weighing in years later, after a lot of evidence has become available in the public sphere.
I call Meghan Markle a nobody because, in the grand scheme of things, the media attention she has received far outweighs her contributions to society and her significance in world history. She’s a positive footnote in an otherwise long and terrible history of British royalty. That is, until she made herself even more of a footnote by effectively leaving the royal family and giving up her titles and official royal duties.
Know what she is? Yes, she’s a feminist, but so is Lady Sterling. No, Megan Markle is simply privileged. The Duchess of Sussex did no more for women before she married Harry Windsor than millions of other American women who call themselves feminists. She worked hard to crack into show business (her major credits are game show model and supporting character on Suits), but she never did the hard work of activism and resisting the patriarchy. But once she married the Duke of Sussex, she became a sought-after celebrity who could help promote philanthropists, non-profits, GMOs and other wealthy do-gooders who want to boost their exposure and reputations. This leapt her to the top of the celebrity feminist hierarchy. It must have helped to have the weight of the royals behind her to remind media outlets to keep calling her a feminist and humanitarian. She’s not alone. Just look at Jay-Z.
Which brings me to my next and final point. The American media loves her for many reasons. Sadly one of them is a ghost named Diana. As I wrote in my master’s thesis, the news media loves to give history lessons to its viewers if there’s an interesting story to tell, and the news organization also finds the story interesting. Call it a form of navel gazing. A story of a new British Royal bride being trashed by tabloids and then fleeing the family is a familiar tale. The tale is even more gripping when the woman marries one of the late Princes Diana’s sons. It’s even more gripping still when that son irrationally tells the media that he fears the media is going to kill his wife like they killed his mom. But these comparisons fall short. Markle is leaving the family on her terms, to make loads of cash. No affair or divorce forced her ouster. And, in a development that is worthy of a separate blog post or book, the golden age of paparazzi is over. From roughly the 1950s to the late 2000s, it was the paparazzi who got us candid photos of celebrities out in the wild. Today, the celebrities have taken back control of their images, and directly share photos and videos of themselves through social media platforms. The death of Diana should have popped the paparazzi bubble in 1997. But by 2013, Instagram did.
So no, the Duchess of Sussex is not in mortal danger. She’s free to be sit on the boards of non-profits and buy and sell stakes in companies for the rest of her life (again, look at Jay-Z). Leave her alone. But please also keep her out of the news. She is a nobody.
