Oprah is one of the most influential women on the planet. Meghan Markle was the cunning Northwestern graduate who went from B-list cable supporting actress to marrying an underwhelming prince.
During their prime-time special, Oprah and the two former royals put on a hell of a performance — one laden with so many emotional beats, rubs of carefully smudged eyeliner, and thoughtful hemming and hawing, that the Television Academy awarded them an Emmy nomination for outstanding hosted nonfiction special or series.
It’s true that it was quite a special, perhaps deserving of an award, but it was anything but nonfiction.
Harry and Meghan fled the palace believing they would profit from the royal association while charting the post-White House path of the Obamas. Instead, they were deemed irrelevant, not only by the upper crust philanthropists they believed would beckon them, but also by a Hollywood elite that had already written off Markle once before. Oprah has already achieved a level of celebrity that few can dream of, but she too has developed a near neuroticism about protecting her image. After all, why would the multimillionaire television legend pull out of a documentary on hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons’s alleged sexual predation? To preserve her clout among the circle of #auteurs such as director Ava DuVernay who rallied to smear said documentary as racist.
So it comes as little surprise that the near-septuagenarian superstar would fluff Harry and Meghan’s images (or try to, anyway) in advance of her symbiotic business venture with the former, an Apple TV series about mental health.
So their interview, an overproduced blockbuster television special, hit all the right notes. Meghan batted her lashes just coyly enough as she accused her sister-in-law of weaponizing those dreaded white woman tears. She claimed the palace couldn’t care less if she killed herself. Harry would have been believable enough if he had just committed to blushing to those ginger roots. But his blatant branding of his father and grandmother as crappy parents got the point across.
Ultimately, it was an acting performance. No matter how committed the acting or overwrought the dialogue, it just cannot beat the raw reality of the shadow princess looming large over Meghan and Harry’s entire tableau vivant.
Meghan may be a comic actress, but she’s no Diana. Meghan is a duchess on her second decade of trying to be a celebrity. Diana was a princess regarded by her people as the queen of their hearts. Charles was living his own fated fairy tale, just with the wrong woman and in the wrong century. Harry, in contrast, is the problematic window dressing, forced to condemn his own family, genetics, and mental state so as to be eaten last by the woke mob to which he pledged fealty.
The only true tragedy of this utterly predictable interview affair was Oprah’s degradation. The tastemaker of more than a quarter century didn’t have to sit through over an hour of two spoiled brats lying to her about everything from Prince Charles denying their son a title (he didn’t) to their claim that the Archbishop of Canterbury granted them a secret wedding (he also didn’t). But the best way to score points among our contemporary patrician class is to fluff their fellow privileged, self-styled country club oppressed. Oprah played along, holding up a literal prince and duchess as victims. Now she’s up for yet another Emmy.
But at least Meghan is finally getting her shot at an Emmy. She really was always an underrated actress.
