Harry & Meghan 4-6: Fame and its Consequences

I said in my review of the first three episodes of Harry & Meghan, the documentary by Liz Garbus on Netflix, that I was more interested in the media aspects of their story than the royalty, though the two are of course intertwined.  The same is true of the final three episodes -- 4-6 -- which I just saw on Thursday.

But the media play a different role in this part of their story.  In the first part, we see Meghan in control and on top of the media, able to use them to her and Harry's advantage, and good for her.  Now we see her become the victim of their incessant intrusion into their lives, to the point that she and Harry and their son and the daughter need to go into a kind of hiding. Tyler Perry, the rich American actor who gave them shelter and peace in his beautiful home in California, deserves a lot of credit and becomes a real hero in this story. And shout-out for Chris Bouzy, for providing some savvy research which shows that the avalanche of vicious tweets aimed at Meghan were the work of a small group of well-organized racists.

Both Harry and Meghan, of course, are understably focused on what happened to Harry's mother Diana, and making sure Meghan doesn't suffer the same fate.  I would say that the ultimate culprit, in both cases, is fame itself.  When you don't have it, you pursue it, often desire it above all else.  But when you attain it, especially if it's a lot of fame, it suddenly is pursuing you, and your task changes from seeking it to avoiding it. The problem is that fame unleashed becomes incompatible with basic human privacy.

And here the royals do come into play.  Whatever we may think of them, they have figured out a way of dealing with the flames of fame, including keeping it at bay when necessary.  Although their corporate-like decisions may rankle -- and certain did bother both Harry and Meghan -- the "firm's" endless decisions on what information to dole out, precisely where and when, were and are designed to give the media what they want in a way that doesn't burn or singe any member of the royal family, or the concept of royalty itself.

Ironically, the forces that drove Harry and Meghan to leave the royals -- the decision being more Harry''s, and being made to protect Meghan -- left them even more vulnerable to the media sharks.  Why the royals didn't do more to protect them, even then, after they had left the royals, remains an indictment of the royal family.  After all, Harry and Meghan are members of their family, literally.  Prince William's responses, in particular, don't show him in a very good light in this documentary, though in all fairness, this documentary doesn't show, or purport to show, his side of this complex story.

But life goes on, and now that Charles is King and William is next in line to be King, there could well be time and occasion for a rapprochement between the brothers and the family.  None of that is talked about in the documentary, because its story concludes with Elizabeth II still on the throne.  But it does lead us to believe -- or, at least, it does me -- that Harry and Meghan are good, thoughtful people, wonderful parents, and they and their children deserve a happy life.

See also Harry & Meghan 1-3: The Media

Harry & Meghan 1-3: The Media

I'm not so much a royal watcher as a lifelong student of media (and professor of media studies at Fordham University), so it was through that lense that I watched and really enjoyed the first three of six episodes of the Harry & Meghan documentary on Netflix.

Meghan is unique among the royals for several reasons.  The most interesting and important, I'd say, in the long run, is that she was already a success in the media before she met Harry.  Although Suits on the USA Network isn't quite up there with LA Law or Petrocelli, the legal drama ran for nine seasons, and Meghan played a major role as Rachel in seven of them.  This means that Meghan has a comfort with media, an understanding of its levers, challenges, and opportunities, that few people on the face of the Earth have, including the Royals.

It shows in Liz Garbus' excellent documentary.  Meghan is sparklingly articulate, in control of every scene -- except when she wants to appear not so -- and knows just how to catch and look at the camera, and us her audience.  This is not say she's feigning emotions.  She was convincing to me -- though, then again, I of course don't really know her.

Prince Harry no doubt benefits from his wife's media insight.  He also comes across as real and relaxed, and when he's upset and not relaxed at all, that seems thoroughly justified.  Again, I don't know Harry, so I can't say what he's like off-camera, but certainly his concern for Meghan's well-being and very life, in view of what happened to Harry's mother Diana, seems 100% warranted.

So the documentary brings home Harry and Meghan as a refreshingly real and therefore relatable couple.  As a significant comparison, Harry's older brother and heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Kate are also shown from time to time in the first three hours.  They seem nice and friendly enough, but on a different planet compared to Harry and Meghan in the way they relate to the world.  I suppose part of this is understandable, given the weight on William's shoulders as future King.  But part of this also comes from their personalities, and neither having anything like Meghan's facility with the media.

Other than Harry and Meghan per se, I thought the most commanding part of the documentary came from historian David Olusoga, whose critical take on the British commonwealth was a splash of icy salt water for any who romanticize the biggest empire that ever existed in our world.  The underside of bringing civilization to so many diverse places is the price that people of color are still paying for this achievement.

But there's a lot more to Harry and Meghan's story.  We're advised at the beginning of the documentary that the filming concluded in August 2022, or prior to the end of Queen Elizabeth II's long reign in September.  There was a walkabout in Windsor in September, with William and Kate, and Harry and Meghan, greeting the people.  For whatever reason, the two couples spoke to the people separately, on opposing sides of the street, and there was not much interaction between them.  Harry and Meghan of course were fully aware of the documentary, and the story it would tell.  William and Kate must have known about it, but it's not clear if they'd seen it. Probably not.

But I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the concluding three episodes of the documentary on Thursday.

See also Harry & Meghan 1-3: The Media

Timely, Masterful HBO Documentary about The First Amendment

Just in time for July 4, HBO debuted its First Amendment documentary, "Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech," this past Monday. Its perspective - that the First Amendment has not been under such fire since the 1950s - is something that anyone who cares about the First Amendment can't help but agree with. The documentary features First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus, and was made by his daughter Liz Garbus. She's already won two Emmys. Her work on this documentary should win her another and more.

Martin Garbus has been an heroic champion of the First Amendment - I quote him about the need for shield laws for blogger journalists in New New Media - and in this documentary, he is the main guide through recent attacks on our freedoms of expression guaranteed in the Constitution.

The key is that in order for the First Amendment to protect speech we value, we must support its protection of speech we may loathe. Communication that everyone including the government likes needs no protection from government censorship and punishment. "Shouting Fire" thus includes the battles of Ward Churchill, a professor who disparaged some of the victims of 9/11 as "little Eichmanns", and Chase Harper, a student who wore a tee-shirt in his high school that said "homosexuality is shameful".

You may disagree strongly with both points of view - I certainly do - but allowing them to be silenced, or punishing the people who espouse them, is destructive to the very basis of our democracy, or, as Martin Garbus aptly puts it, "a country where anybody can think anything, say anything, create anything." Technically, neither Churchill nor Harper was punished by the government, but Churchill (a tenured professor) was fired (on grounds that he plagiarized some of his credentials) and Harper was suspended.

Churchill's reinstatement is currently under consideration, after a jury found that he had been wrongly fired. But others whose First Amendment rights were trampled, as they tried to communicate ideas a lot more welcome than Churchill's or Harper's, have not yet been as fortunate. "Shouting Fire" tells the story of Debbie Almontaser, who was dismissed as principal of the first dual-language Arabic-English public school she was founding, after cowardly NYC officials caved to right-wing pressure. Her case is currently in the courts.

Liz Garbus's documentary - masterfully produced, with clips from movies and real-life interviews interspersed with keen analysis - concludes with a note on the importance of the Supreme Court, and the danger the First Amendment faces from the current court, which could be under the baneful influence of Bush appointees for decades.

No mention is made of Obama's first appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, because the documentary was no doubt already finished when Obama announced the appointment in May. But given the ruling of the Sotomayor Appellate court in the 2008 Doninger case, which upheld a high school's punishment of a 16-year old for objectionable language she wrote on her off-campus blog, the release of "Shouting Fire" is well timed.

I recommend this documentary to everyone who bears witness to our freedoms.

See also June 2009 Interview with Avery and Lauren Doninger and 2005 The Flouting of the First Amendment.