Meghan Markle, Duchess of Rorschach
28th July 2018
In a summer when the news is urgent, relentless, and horrifying, royal-watching is a welcome diversion. And the show hasn’t been this good in years. What is it about Meghan Markle, the new Duchess of Sussex, that has unleashed such a frenzy of decoding? Why do people project so many different meanings onto her, as if she were a living Rorschach test, begging to be interpreted and analyzed?
Well, for one thing, she is one of us. Or more nearly one of us than anyone who’s ever entered the royal family. She’s American, biracial, self-made, a grown-up. She’s had a career. She’s not like Diana Spencer or Kate Middleton, who were unknown before they emerged as princesses-to-be, appearing as public figures at the same moment that they began to disappear into the mystery of royal life. Meghan was already visible, and we’re hoping she’ll stay that way. We know the sound of her voice — she’s been an actress, she’s written a blog, she’s expressed opinions about feminism and race. We want her to keep talking.
I question whether the Boston Globe would be quite so comfortable with her ‘keeping talking’ if her expressed oppinions about ‘feminiism and race’ hadn’t been conventionally ‘progressive’. It is de rigeur these days for anyone who has any possible whiff of Upper Class about themselves to be anodyne in public and not express any sentiment that Elton John or Beyoncé would find objectionable. This is especially true of modern ‘royalty’, and the handcuffs are especially tight for those who marry into royalty, such as Catherine Middleton and Meghan Markle. Every photo must be ‘heartwarming’. Every word must exhibit a bleeding heart. Every virtue must be signaled, although not to excess, of course. The Crust look to them to provide the glossy overcoat that allows their precious moral superiority to shine and gleam and serve as a beacon to those who, not having millions in the bank and instant celebrity, must row their own boat as they make their way in the world.
There is no substantive difference between the Queen’s kids and Barack Obama’s kids, between the Duke of York’s kids and AlGore’s kids, between a Montbatten-Windsor and a Kennedy. None can be allowed any degree of intellectuality or to express an original thought (even if an original thought would dare intrude; against that horrible happenstance they have been carefully programmed). None can be allowed to hold a Real Job, one where you make a useful thing and sell it to a willing buyer, meet a payroll and build a business; what they do is modern clerisy work, preferably for some level of government or (ideally) a fashionable foundation.
We want her to show the world, in the summer of 2018, that not all Americans are boorish jerks.
And that, of course, is the chief fear of the Boston Globe, and those who take their cues from its pages.
Our ruling class is becoming overbred, like certain breeds of dogs, and will eventually be fit only to be carried around in a purse and handed off to minions when they become inconvenient.