Harry and Meghan
Episode 27 • 22nd December 2022 • Academic Aunties • Ethel Tungohan
A special holiday bonus episode for you! Harry and Meghan on Netflix is THE documentary event of this year. And of course we binged it and and of course we needed to talk about it. Joining us on this episode is Dr. Safia Aidid, an Assistant Professor of History and African Studies at the University of Toronto.
Ethel Tungohan: 00:03
I'm Dr. Ethel Tungohan, an associate professor of politics at York University. This is Academic Aunties. I know we said that the last episode was going to be our final episode for 2022, but listeners, I. I just binged Harry and Megan, volumes one and two, on Netflix and I really wanted to talk to someone about this. So with us today is Dr. Sophia aided an assistant professor of History and African studies at the University of Toronto whose tweets about Harry and Megan. I've thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you, Sophia, for joining us today.
Safia Aidid: 00:42
Thank you for having me.
I am so excited to be talking about Harry and Meghan because quite frankly, I binged both volumes, and when I was doing that, I was a little bit mad at myself, right?
I was like, why am I sitting here when I have a lot of other deadlines to fulfill, but I couldn't stop watching. So I guess that's my first question. Why did we watch this show? What made it so compulsively, watchable?
Yeah. I, you know, I think we all love gossip, right? I think it comes down to, you know, this curiosity about famous people and royalty is kind of at really the peak of that. You kind of have this, the sense of, you know, this elitism, kind of this whole, you know, upper cast of people who have been really fascinating to us in different ways.
You know, the Crown is super popular for those reasons. And then, you know, you have the additional element of just the dramatic exit. And so I think all of us were just kind of watching to just kind of see what's what will come out in this exclusive Netflix documentary, because so many of us knew what happened.
But you know, I think we were all kind of hoping for more information and just to kind of see, you know, see their perspective on things.
A hundred percent. So for listeners who don't quite know what the documentary is about, do you want to, well, maybe we can kind of fill in the details. So what would you say volumes one and two for this documentary was about? Like, what do they add beyond the infamous Oprah interview?
Yeah. So I mean, it's really their narrative from the beginning to the present. I mean, they, they talk about their childhoods, they talk about their meeting, their courtship. They go, you know, continue onto, you know, Meghan being part of the royal family, her experiences and then of course the falling out and their treatment in the press as well as, you know, some kind of interesting tidbits about, you know, how the family treated her, treated them as well.
And then onwards to kind of where they are now, their lives in Los Angeles. And, you know, the hope kind of looking for. Forward of what they'll be doing with, with their foundation. But you know, what was really interesting about this was, you know, a lot of archival footage of their own, you know, they were pretty much recording and, and documenting everything as it was happening.
Sometimes, you know, kind of through kind of vlog like videos, you know, them recording themselves. In other cases it seems like they had a full camera crew, kinda following them around. And then, you know, some also, you know, scenes that we haven't seen. So in, for instance, you know, we, a lot of us watched the royal wedding, but you know, they showed us kind of the party back at, you know, I don't remember Windsor Castle, I think it was.
But you know, we, we hadn't seen a lot of those things. You know, Idris Elba kind of as a DJ, like a lot of, a lot of things we hadn't seen before. But, you know, this was really kind of packaged as them telling their story and they repeated that, you know, this is our story. No one hears our story. But overall, I mean, For those who've been kind of familiar with, with their story and had watched the Oprah interview, I, I would say not a whole lot of new information was revealed.
And I think that's probably the biggest critique and, and part of why I was also a bit mad at myself, I spent, you know, six hours watching this, you know, trying to , trying to, trying to get something new. But you know, it really just reinforced, I think a lot of what we've already heard from them.
Presumably also what's in Harry's book, which I, I don't know...
Spare, it's coming out in January. I have pre-ordered it on
you have, yeah, I just, I hope for your sake, there's something new in there. Cause , it seems pretty exhausted at this point, but what did, I mean, what did you think?
You know what? I think one thing that I noted was the documentary felt like a slow buildup, right? First episode comes out and listeners, there are spoilers, right? Light spoilers I would say, but not really spoilers because if you know the Meghan and Harry story, none of what gets revealed is anything new, but okay, so.
Episode one comes on and I'm like, okay well love story. I kind of knew that, right? And then, you know, volume like episodes two and three in volume one, again, it kind of builds up, uh, their courtship, uh, Meghan's entry into the family, some of the difficulties they face in the press, right? So all of that stuff was a little bit redundant to me.
Then volume two comes out, and this is where I think you also tweeted this, where tea was finally being spilled, right when Harry starts talking about their exit from the royal family and the lack of support they've received. And what I found actually new, well, not really new, but I finally understood was the extent to which press Incursion really affected their lives.
Right. And I knew that, but kind of seeing. Video evidence of paparazzi swarming their house, their rented house in Victoria, BC on boats. That was really frightening to me as well. And I thought in terms of kind of highlighting the racism of the press, how, you know, the narrative is, you know, what's happening to Meghan was what happened to Diana.
I kind of got that and I bought that. Right. Um, and what I also liked, and maybe we have a debate on this. What I liked were the talking heads.
And uh, Tyler Perry comes in, right?
He was, he rescued them. He gave them a place to stay. And I think on Twitter you were like, whoa, this is finally getting interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I agree with you. I think the second half was far more compelling. I mean, the, the first was just, you know, kind of rehearsing, you know, the, the love story that we all knew their childhoods, you know, and many of us already kind of know Harry's story in particular. But really it gets interesting in that second half where we learn more about kind of the, the inner details of, of kind of their exit, but at the same time, you know, not revealing too much. I mean, we kind of get, yeah, it's, it's like a teaser. Like he'll say, you know, it hurt when my brother was yelling at me when my dad was saying things that weren't true.
You know, but he's not really kind of giving us the meat of that, which I, I don't know if that's deliberate. Whether, you know, maybe those details are reserved for kind of the exclusive rights of, of the book that's going to be coming out. Or, you know, whether they don't want to completely, you know, burn bridges, cuz ultimately this is his family.
But you know, I, I, I think it was really compelling. Especially, I mean, for me, the big, the really interesting part was, you know, this relationship between the British press and kind of the, the, the firm essentially kind of these communications teams and how they work. And I thought that was super insightful, how we talked about how, you know, he had his own office, him and his brother the Queen, Prince Charles, and how essentially these, these offices are in competition with one another to surpress different media stories and you know, the way to do that is to offer information about. The others. And of course they're not going to, if it's, you know, you know, Prince Charles's office, he's not going to offer information about, you know, his mother in that case or, you know, the heir, right. His, his son. But, you know, in this case, that's where Meghan pretty much became, you know, the sacrificial lamb for the British media.
You know, I mean, I don't know what you think Ethel, but I wasn't entirely convinced that the royals did not have a hand in this. I mean, the implication here where Harry's kind of talking about this is these sort of independent agencies that are kind of controlling things, you know, on the part of the Queen.
But you know, he's kind of separating his family from that. He's blaming the institution without thinking of his family as part of the institution.
I do agree with you. I don't think that you know, Prince Charles and Prince William were completely innocent in all of this. And in fact, Meghan, in one of the scenes in the documentary, you know, when they talked about how one of Prince Williams, you know, he still works for Prince William, Jason, Jason Knoff, I, I'm probably mispronouncing his name, you know, provided a testimony against Meghan in her court case, and Meghan turns to Harry and he's your brother. Right? I think that that was a hint that, you know, there wasn't that big of a separation between their offices and Prince Charles and Prince William and, and Princess Catherine, right?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's clear that, you know, Harry's either not telling us everything or a bit, I dunno, maybe disingenuous about his, his family members and their complicity in kind of the workings of this institution. But, you know, going back to what you were saying about the talking heads, I mean, I, I found them really interesting, particularly the.
Kind of historians slash public intellectuals who are speaking and you know, I wonder then, you know, they're making this really great. An informative and analytical, you know, assessment of the history of Empire, the commonwealth, the monarchy, at the same time, kind of not really critiquing Harry's family.
Right? And then of course, this, this documentary is produced by Harry and Meghan, right? It's Arch Well Productions, which they own. So I mean, in a way it's like that disconnect between you, the palace as an institution and the palace as a family kind of, kind of replays itself in that very critique. You know, how do you critique the British Empire without critiquing the family that literally symbolizes, you know, kind of imperial power.
So I found that to be a really huge disconnect. Just as I was watching, I'm like, okay, you know, fantastic. We're learning about the British Empire, you know, colonial violence, how the Commonwealth is. I think it was, Hirsch who mentioned, you know, that she calls the Commonwealth Empire 2.0.
Fantastic. And then we have Harry talking about kind of how great it would be if we can renew the Commonwealth, kind of through his brown , his beige wife
A hundred percent. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about as well, right? So there was that, that disconnect. I think it was like one of the first episodes in Volume one where they have these graphics and they're like, let's talk about the history of empire. Let's talk, let's give, let's give, watch her a history lesson.
So there's that part of the documentary. And then there's all of these images of Meghan, you know Meghan, who looks, I mean, I'm, I'm using quota. Here, right, who Harry describes as looking as people, the majority of people in the Commonwealth being depicted as, as the savior of the commonwealth, as someone who will modernize the monarchy as someone who will add legitimacy to this super problematic institution.
So like you, I was like, wait, hold up. So you were providing a very trench and critique of Empire on the one hand, but on the other hand, it kind of just stops there and we're not critiquing, you know, the current present day institution of the monarchy itself. What do you make of that? And also this depiction of Meghan as being, you know, the modern princess as the person who, by virtue of her background, as, as someone who members of the Commonwealth will be able to relate to.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I found it pretty absurd and, and I was surprised that, you know, these public intellectuals who I respect, you know, black British historians, You know, we're essentially, you know, using, you know, what you, you were describing what you were quoting, you know, that she was the face of the Commonwealth and that this was, and it presented itself as a real opportunity for the monarchy to become relevant in the modern world.
I mean, it's clear that, you know, Harry and Meghan are not, you know, kind of the anti-racist radicals that the, the documentary frames them as, I mean, they're engaged in a very kind of conservative project or were engaged in a conservative project of preserving, you know, kind of this imperial history.
And you know, very much interested then in kind of inclusion, but, you know, what does inclusion look like? And including her and talking about her experience of exclusion in the context of, you know, this really hierarchical structure. You know, this imperial family that literally, I mean, literally only exists because of this belief that, you know, God or whatever chose them to rule over the world.
Right? And so kind of within this, also this, this class structure of, you know, the Britain, essentially the British Empire, but also, you know, within that longer imperial history. So what, what is inclusion in that sense? Right. Are we, I mean, I, I think the documentary was really useful as a lens for understanding the British media for understanding anti-blackness in the British media, because certainly regardless of whether Meghan, you know, thinks of herself as a Black woman, , you know, she was being mistreated because of anti-blackness.
And so, you know, it was interesting in that sense that I think she, I mean, there's no doubt that she experienced really horrible and traumatic things, but you know, that narrow experience of exclusion, trying to frame that as kind of this broader. Thing, right? This anti-racist struggle that we are all supposed to identify with.
I mean, I was a little less convinced. It's really hard to, to relate to, someone who's, whose biggest problem in this context is, you know, inclusion into what we already know is a deeply racist institution.
I would agree with you. I think what was a bit bizarre to me were the leaps being made with respect to Harry and Meghan as being social justice heroes. I'm like, wait, what? And I had to kind of think about their role in the royal family when they were still part of it. And I was like, absolutely they were advocates for, you know, mental health. Meghan produced this cookbook as well. I'm not negating that. But then I was like, wait, but they're not, if they're not, I don't see them as being social justice warriors the way I would kind of construe what activism would look like. Right. So I thought, that was a little bit bizarre. But to your point, with respect to institutions and the possibilities for institutional change, is it ever possible to shift institutions to put in more equitable structures, whether it's in the monarchy or in the academy?
Is it futile to try to change something that's so fundamentally flawed to begin with?
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a great question. I think, you know, when it comes to the monarchy, I think it's very structure for the reasons that I mentioned. The fact that it is, it relies on kind of this, this hereditary supremacy. And then of course, you know, it's rooted in this longer history of colonialism, of classes, of kind of within the British context.
I think an institution like that, it's irredeemable. I mean, regardless of what, what face you put on it, you know, even if it's a little browner than, you know, it's been historically, you know, an institution like that I think cannot be repaired, you know? But when we're talking about academia, you know, I've been following a lot of.
these discussions, and there are many who would argue, again, kind of universities themselves are imperial structures that, you know, cannot be rehabilitated. You know, maybe through kind of narrow sort of e d i, you know, initiatives, things like that are again, kind of very much a band-aid type of solution.
But, you know, I I, what I like about, and, and, and try to remember also is universities themselves have radical histories. I mean, they've been places where a lot of really great radical. Histories have been, you know, enacted research, um, movements. These, they've been the sites historically. You know, I, I'm, I belong to African Studies as a field, and these are, you know, departments, programs that have come through, you know, struggle, you know, particularly in the United.
States where you had, you know, within the civil rights movements kind of demands for, um, African American studies, black studies, African studies, africanas studies programs, even Canada. I mean, you know, we have histories also of, you know, black student movements that have lead to, you know, have led to the establishment of these programs.
And so I try and think of that. Radical history and, and be conscious of, you know, that history that I'm stepping into as a professor kind of in this space, in this field. Um, and then of course, you know, as, as, as an academic, we also make choices in terms of, you know, what we do with our, our, you know, very limited power.
You know, for me, I'm a junior faculty member, but you know, Folks with tenure, you know, certainly have bigger voices and, and can do a little bit more, you know, and speak out for junior colleagues. Um, certainly we can speak about things like the, you know, precarity of academic labor, you know, speak on behalf of, you know, our adjunct and the adjunctification of, of academia, you know, what our colleagues are experiencing, what our graduate student workers are experiencing.
So I think we have a lot of spaces for that. But, you know, monarchy, hopeless, I
No, I've never heard of an abolitionist monarchy, right? Like I.
But they called it Ethel. They called it an anti, he called him an anti-racist royal, which I just could not understand. But, you know, I actually wanna go, I wanna go back to your, your, your point about kind of their, their kind of volunteer work and. For me, you know, I thought, again, the presentation was very disingenuous because, you know, royals have always been engaged in humanitarian activities and arguably humanitarianism itself is rooted in colonialism.
I mean, you can, yeah. The British Empire in particular kind of saw itself as a very humanitarian. Moral empire, you know, in distinction to, you know, other colonial regimes. It saw itself as kind of the kinder empire, right? A lot of, you know, the colonies, you know, they established internationally in African particular where I study, you know, they call them Protectorates , which is idea of kind of, Protecting people.
Again, this idea of, of help, right? And then in many cases, colonial activities were shaped by humanitarian activism, you know, missionaries and other groups trying to call on the state to intervene on various causes, you know? As we know, kind of women children, kind of saving, saving them. In some cases, anti anti-slavery became an argument, you know, which is crazy because we know, of course, the British Empire's involvement in the slave trade.
But once, you know, they, they abolished the slave trade in the early 19th century kind of switched to this anti-slavery. State. And so stopping slavery, or at least pretending to stop slavery, became the rationale for actual imperial conquest and occupation. Um, so, you know, humanitarian activity is not inconsistent with empire.
And, and they mentioned even in the documentary kind of that the royals get involved in very apolitical humanitarian projects. You know, things that no one is going to kind of see as, you know, right wing, left wing, whatever. It's just everyone can agree, you know? Poor children. is a, it's a good thing. And so, you know, I again found that a little bit disingenuous.
It's not a radical departure from anything that Royals have ever done. In fact, it's, it's what they do, right? It's how they show face, how they appear in the public, how they seem to be kind of benevolent in that context.
So one of the things that, you know, your, your insights here sparked in me is that whole segment talking about Meghan and Harry going to Africa again with quotation marks,
She called it the bush. She called it the bush
Did she?
Oh, you're right. So what do you make out of this construct of, again, Africa quotation marks as the site for salvation?
Meghan and Harry?
Yeah, no, I think Africa, for Harry in particular, I mean, it's kind of been kind of the background for, at least for him, kind of self realization, self-improvement. Um, you know, we see Africa first appear, you know, in the context of, you know, his own kind of, Public scandal, you know, with the Nazi costume, you know, Halloween.
Um, and then he goes to Africa shortly after. As a way of kind of the implication here was that, you know, he was this privilege kind of young guy who knew nothing about the world. You know, he tried to learn from his racist experience. Well, of course he was the one who, you know, being racist, but, you know, he then goes to somewhere in southern Africa.
I don't remember exactly which country he went to, but Southern. And kind of learns about his privilege, you know, by spending this time, you know, doing volunteer work. Um, and so, you know, you see Africa kind of reappear as this place where, um, you know, they can improve themselves, understand themselves almost mystical.
It's like, you know, how celebrities go to India or something to just kind of, yeah, to just kind of achieve sort of spiritual awaken. . So Africa figures in very similarly and, and here also then it comes into their love story, right? It's this place of escape where, you know, they can go to the bush, right, and be away from , from the media and have absolutely nothing and be in this tent and just only, you know, have a chance to get to know one another.
And you know, South Africa was where. they've considered moving initially, again, part of the commonwealth, you know, this place that they can do more of their activities from, again, continuing in that sort of imperial humanitarian tradition and, you know, so it, Africa, you know, isn't really a place in this context.
It's sort of like a background to, to, to kind of what they're doing, whether that's these humanitarian projects or their own kind of self realiz.
Absolutely. And I noticed that too when I was watching it kind of this weird, almost mythical way they discussed, you know, Botswana, South Africa. It wasn't ever. Critiqued, right? There wasn't any, well of course there wasn't self reflexivity. What am I expecting? Right? But like, do you know what I mean? It was just kind of this, this place that they, they would, they would mention in their love story, right?
And as a place where they could potentially move to. So I thought that was a little bit perplexing as well.
Final question. Um, so, you know, we both spent six hours watching this documentary. Do you think that you will be watching future stories? If there are more stories to be had? from and Meghan.
Yeah. You know, one of my critiques of the documentary is, you know, it was very much kind of past facing, you know, they were essentially trying to explain and reexplain kind of their experience, their perspective on things. And yes, we got some interesting tid. , but very little. I think, at least for me, kind of as a viewer, very little left me feeling invested in their, in their futures.
I mean, I, I just could not see what else, you know, I, there wasn't future. Right? Yeah. I mean, I couldn't see what else, you know, that they could possibly bring to, you know, again, a conversation about their history, but also very little about what the future holds for them. I think it kind of left on a bit of a hopeful.
But you know, with this documentary, and again, the book, the Oprah interview, you know, various kind of repackaging of, of their story, you know, it just seems to me that, you know, this was kind of their big moment. Of course, a horrible experience, but also an opportunity to kind of milk it for, for, for money.
And, and clearly with the lifestyle that they're hoping to live in Los Angeles, you know, this multimillion dollar home. , you know, all of the costs of security, private, Jess, you know, all of these things require, you know, I'm sure a price tag in the tens of millions a year. And so how will they sustain the lifestyle that they want, is kind of the big question.
When they've offered us very little in terms of, you know, wanting to feel invested in their futures, I think that's something that they're gonna want to grapple with. I don't find them to be super compelling people. You know, I think , you know, the story was a bit interesting. again, you know? What else?
Right. Beyond your break with the royal family. What? What's next?
I will say that I'm probably a little bit opposed to you because as I said, I've subscribed to spare on Audible, so when it gets released in January, maybe I'll DM you and I'll say, actually there's more.
not so bad. Okay.
Thank you. I think I speak for a lot of our listeners when I say that, you know, when I watch Harry and Meghan, one thing, I mean, and this is completely superficial, but I appreciate it about it, was it was fun.
Like it allowed me to kind of escape from, you know, the ma the, the everyday work that we had to do. So it was, it was a fun bench. Right
Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.
And at that level I truly appreciated it. And, uh, for the holidays. Are you going to binge any more shows? Are you planning on other Netflix watching Marathons?
I, so I have been thinking about starting the Crown, which everyone tells me to watch. I have not watched it. It's just for me, it's just a lot of seasons, a lot to catch up on. But you know, I might just start the Crown now that I'm on a bit of a royal kick.
Please tell me what you think of it. I found the first season. it. Look, it's beautifully filmed, but I found kind of the depictions of the Commonwealth and the British Empire role in, in kind of subduing these countries in the Commonwealth. I found that a little bit gross, but again, super compelling viewing, right?
Like I think the fact that they were able to kind of film this very beautifully adds to the pleasure of watching it. So let me know. I mean, it's what, six seasons? Is it six? I mean, that's a lot of
Yeah, is. It is.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Any final words of insight on , the documentary and other things?
I mean, it's worth watching, especially if you don't know too much about them. I think this would be really great viewing for people who are maybe kind of kinda have a superficial maybe understanding of kind of, sort of what happened, a little bit of what happened. if you watch the Oprah interview and you had followed it a bit closer than that, I think not, not a whole lot is new there, but again, well, well done.
You know, great critique of kind of misogyny, anti-blackness in the media. Um, some really interesting insight in terms of how the royal institution kind of works with the media and also, you know, the cyber bullying aspect too is really interesting and I. kind of relevant to those of us who are kind of public facing intellectuals.
You know, this, how kind of bots work and how, you know, they're targeted in, in this case, mainly by a lot of envious white kind of mo soccer moms. I don't know what they were, but
Yeah, that
her sister.
oh my gosh. Samantha Markle Wright. It was so interesting when they talked about, when they did that analysis of who was it that was spearheading these anti Meghan accounts, and a lot of them were Karens, a lot of them were the majority of the more Karens, and they were like, you know, they were a handful of like 80% or something like that.
If all hateful tweet. That was interesting.
It was, I, I love that part with Sophia Noble and kind of the en the analysis of, you know, digital harassment I think was really interesting. But yeah, I mean ultimately these, this couple represents a fantasy and for I think a lot of white women, it's like, how dare she, right.
How dare she get the Prince? I know.
Exactly. And then that's what it comes down to, unfortunately, including her half sister. kind of, we saw increasingly grew bitter and envious about the life of, of Meghan.
For sure, and I think that's another really rich part of the documentary. Thank you so much for being here. I'm so happy that you agreed to come on, cuz I have been dying to talk to someone about the documentary
Thank you for having me. This is fun.
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