Monday, March 22, 2021

From Lad to T**at

 It’s been said that if you like getting perks that one of the best jobs in the world is to be the Vice-President of the USA. You get the similar perks to being President (the car, the house and the plane) but you don’t get the responsibilities of the office (it’s “The President’s Administration”). Unless the President makes you head of some task force or other, your job is pretty much to sit there to fill the main seat in the event that the president dies in office (as happened to LBJ after JFK got shot).

You could say that being the American Vice-President is like being the second son a monarch. You get the perks of being royalty but sine you’re unlikely to be king, nobody really cares about what you do. Like the Vice-President, the second son has a certain amount of freedom to shape his destiny that the guy in the top spot does not have.

The record of second sons in the British monarchy has been patchy. There was Albert Windsor, who was a happy and shy man with a stutter until his brother chose to marry an “unsuitable” woman, thus making him become George VI (his reign involved World War II and the dissolution of Empire). Then there’s a current Duke of York who for want of a better description forgot that defending your regular attendances at the parties of a convicted sex offender wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

Prince Harry, the second son of Prince Charles, the current heir to the throne seemed to have gotten the right formula of being the second son. Whereas his brother, or the “King-in-Waiting” did all the serious stuff, he took the path of being a royal who was open about his emotions. He served his nation by fighting in Afghanistan and championed good causes, including the ones that his mother once championed (landmines and mental health) and was not afraid of being seen to be having a good time with his Grandmother (who isn’t known for having fun)

 

Having Fun with Grandma – Copyright Vanity Fair

William may have been the “modern” face of royalty but it was Harry that the rest of the common folk could relate to. It was he, rather than his brother who seemed to represent Britain as it actually is rather than what it would like to be.

Harry’s proverbial crowning glory came when he married American Actress Meghan Markle, whose main claim to fame was being the attractive love interest in a legal drama called Suites. Much was made about the fact that Ms. Markle is “bi-racial” (dad is white and mum is black) and this was a wonderful “first-ever” for the royals ruling an increasingly multi-racial Britain.

 





 

Everyone seemed happy until one day, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided that they were going to step back from royal duties and then they’d move off to America where they could “earn their own money.”

Well, the infamous “Megxit” as that event was known has become even more infamous with an interview that the couple gave to American talk show host, Oprah Winfrey. This was an interview that showed the genius of someone’s PR spin. In that interview, it was insinuated that the Royals were a group of racist because someone in the family had “expressed concerns” about baby Archie’s skin colour and that Ms. Markle like her late mother-in-law, Princes Diana, felt suicidal about locked up in a castle. To add to the insinuation of being cruel racist, it was also insinuated that they were cheap – too cheap to pay for their security.


The interview has created a predictable amount of news ink. It was, perhaps what you’d call the transformation of Prince Harry from proverbial lad to actual Twat. How did it happen and why did they do it? What’s interesting is that the Prince and Ms. Markle seemed to have pretty much what they wanted.  They had signed lucrative TV deals with the likes of Netflix and once “Megxit” was announced, the British Press only really covered them when it came to “Megxit” news, which was something both had cited as reasons for wanting to step back. So, what was the point of doing the interview and dropping so many bombshells?


One can only assume that either Ms. Markle felt aggrieved by the treatment the royal family gave her or this was the perfect opportunity to enhance the “Sussex” (Prince Harry is the Duke of Sussex and part of the sticking points of Megxit was the branding of the couple as “Sussex Royals”) brand. What better way to get people talking about you than by picking a fight with the very reason why you’re famous in the first place.

Let’s note that no specifics were given as to the “racist” incident where a senior royal expressed the concern about the little Archie’s skin tone. All we know is that the Prince went out of his way to call Oprah Winfrey to say that it wasn’t the Queen or Prince Philip. We are left with the question of which member of the family “expressed concern,” over the baby’s skin tone and we should also ask ourselves what exactly was said. There is a difference between “Oh, this is the first baby with bi-racial blood, I wonder if he’ll be slightly tan,” and “Oh God, hope it doesn’t turn out looking like it’s N***grandmother, it would be embarrassing if he came out looking tan.”

Then there’s the reaction of the Duchess to the former host of Good Morning Britain, Mr. Piers Morgan, who said he did not believe her and called her Princess Pinocchio.  For disagreeing with the Duchess’s take on things, Mr. Morgan lost his job because Ms. Markle made a personal complaint to Offcom, the official regulator. It’s clear that Ms. Markle has her pulse on what the media is saying about her and her husband:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/meghan-markles-oprah-interview-discrepancy-23742234

To make matters even worse, private conversations between the Prince and his brother and father was leaked to the media and described as being “unproductive.” One might suggest that the “Sussexes” don’t really intend to patch things up with the rest of the family unless it suites them.

As a former Royal Photographer said, Prince Harry was a happy and friendly fellow, who suddenly became withdrawn. What was the main factor?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCRy5aaNkus

Nobody doubts that being a “royal” can be brutal and members of the House of Windsor are not known for being emotionally available. However, these are facts that are well known and given the amount of “dirt” that her late mother-in-law dished onto the family, there is no way that Ms. Markle can claim she didn’t know what she was getting into

As for Prince Harry, he has the option of walking away from it all. Unlike his older brother, he does not have a destiny and nobody would have begrudged him if he had walked away from “royal life.” However, leaving the problems brought about by being royal would also mean giving up the perks of being royal.

The House of Windsor is by no means perfect but they didn’t deserve to be hurt by cheap tricks from a couple they had given so much to.

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Maira Gall