Harry & Meghan: Does the documentary make a Difference?

The answer to the above question can neither be a simple yes or no because things are more complex than one negative or affirmative answer. Any answer given must be properly qualified. However, to attempt to give either response, one must first watch Harry & Meghan. It is a 6-episode documentary about Prince Harry, the duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. The documentary premiered on Netflix with its first 3 episodes on December 8, 2022.

All 6 episodes are now up on the online streaming service. As I was saying, to have an informed opinion about this documentary, watching it first is what I would recommend for people to do. If there’s one thing to get out of this piece, just in case you don’t go beyond this point, it’s that you really need to watch the Harry & Meghan documentary.

Of course, you do have the right to not watch it. But if you don’t watch the documentary, how can you answer the question I’ve asked in the headline? Forget about the headline for a minute, what I’m really trying to say is that you’d want to have an informed opinion on the subject if there’s a need for you to speak about the couple. There are people who have very strong opinions about the Harry & Meghan documentary when they have watched, not even one episode. I hear things like: “I’ve been following the analysis of the documentary online.” Or “I’ve seen some quotes here and there.” Or any explanation the responder thinks is suitable.

Speaking of which, while chatting with a very close friend of mine, the issue of the Harry & Meghan documentary came up. This friend said something to the effect ‘I think they should just keep a low profile; they’re talking too much…’ Which led me to ask the obvious question: “Have you watched it?” To which I received the answer: “No.” So, if you haven’t watched the documentary, how can you say with such certainty and authority that it’s pointless or that they’re talking too much? How can they have been talking too much when everyone else has said more about them than they have said about themselves?

Other people have written books and tomes of articles about them purporting to be from the position of an insider (or royal experts) regarding the couple. Isn’t it only right for them to talk about their own life in their own words? Even if it’s for money, shouldn’t they be the ones making money from their own lives? One of the oft-repeated claims is that they said they didn’t want to be in the public eye. I thought what they were asking for was privacy, not that they were going to become hermits. In any case, how did we first meet Ms. Markle, did we dig her out of a convent that has a vow of silence? Didn’t we meet her on-screen? But I’m getting ahead of myself.

To be fair, even I didn’t want to watch the Harry & Meghan documentary initially. I knew it had the power to potentially make me sad having seen some stories of the racist abuse Meghan had suffered and still receives to this day. Fortunately, I started the documentary and became enthralled. I’m on the 4^th episode. While I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of this documentary, I feel confident enough, at this point, to answer the question in the headline: “Does the Documentary Make a Difference?” My short answer is yes. Although I do concede that it’s not going to change the minds of some whose views on Meghan are cast in concrete. But for me, the Harry & Meghan documentary humanises the duke and duchess of Sussex for me. As public figures and celebrities (somewhat), it’s difficult to see them beyond them as objects of entertainment or amusement. Watching the royal couple in their documentary with an open mind, you see a man (Harry) without a mother, and a woman (Meghan), now without a father (even though he’s still alive) who are trying to connect with each other and do their best as man and wife.

The documentary shows you things, things you thought you knew before, in a new light. For instance, I used to be a Daily Mail reader and I never really noticed their racism. The Telegraph was far more obvious. Yet, the Daily Mail is obsessed with Meghan and some of its stories make one’s skin crawl. Worse still, they seem to have the backing of the royal family. One of the new things I discovered in Episode 3 is that Meghan is actually close to her stepsister Samantha’s daughter even though she was not at the royal wedding on the advice of their communications team. Samantha has been that sister from hell, giving countless interviews, and even writing a book on Meghan. No, I won’t dignify it by naming the title.  (Samantha is wrongly addressed as half-sister in the documentary). How would anyone know that Meghan could get on so well with her niece? It turns out the girl was raised by her paternal grandparents who adopted her. And there Samantha was behaving like an avenging angel to Meghan.

I promised I wasn’t going to give you a blow-by-blow account of the Harry & Meghan documentary (I couldn’t even if I wanted to) but I absolutely like its gravitas. It’s able to match what was happening to Harry and Meghan with events taking place in Britain at that time. Events like Brexit, etc and hatred generated even more hatred towards immigrants, especially Blacks. There are long stretches of the documentary where it stops just being about the royal couple. We hear about the transatlantic slave trade, and the creation of the Commonwealth (I will never look at the Commonwealth the same way again). Commonwealth, indeed. Still, contrary to what many feared, the documentary isn’t some whining exercise by Sussexes nor some kind of gotcha at the royal family. That’s what I think anyway. This doesn’t mean that the royal family is going to be comfortable seeing some of their actions or inactions starkly shown onscreen. They may not have planned for Harry and Meghan leaving the fold (or Megxit as the British press dubbed it) thereby bucking the trend of suffering in silence. So far, the royal response as far as I can tell lends more credence to the views in in Harry & Meghan. So, does the documentary make a difference? Yes. But will it still make a difference in the long run? The answer remains yes.

For what it’s worth, there now exists Harry and Meghan’s side of the story for anyone cares to check it out. The documentary has broken Netflix’s streaming figures by garnering over 81.55 million viewing hours in its first week. It’s also top 10 in over 80 countries. So, don’t forget to see it for yourself.