I don’t usually devote any of my bandwidth to something as trivial as the royals, but the Harry and Meghan interview is roiling the world, so here are my thoughts:
- As anyone who watches “The Crown” knows, members of the royal family enjoy privileged lives, but do not possess freedoms that the rest of us take for granted. As a result, all of them rebel at some point in time. In the end, some of them embrace the terms of the deal (it’s easier if you’re the monarch); some struggle against it, but are ultimately crushed by the machine and surrender; and some of them cross the line by demanding too much freedom, and are cast into darkness. Harry is now in the last category, along with his mother and the Duke of Windsor.
- There are obvious similarities between Harry and the Duke. The differences are: Harry is not the heir to the throne; the Duke’s mother didn’t die under controversial circumstances when he was young; and Harry never hung out with Nazis. On the whole, the differences are more compelling than the similarities.
- “The Crown” tells us both that the Duke was treated harshly by the rest of the family, and that he was a bit of a grifter. Since Harry has celebrity, but no obvious talents, he may wind up resorting to a similar kind of lifestyle as the Duke–only with the opportunities provided in the internet age.
- Potential conflicts between the American actress and the royals should have been obvious to everyone from the beginning. This situation was a disaster waiting to happen. One wonders if Harry saw that from the beginning and used his wife to make a point that he had been dying to make for years, given his bitterness about his mother’s fate.
- My advice to both sides would be to just shut up and move on. Nobody wins by continuing the conflict.