Review of Netflix's With Love, Meghan
A Wrong Turn for Meghan Markle in the Direction of Trump.
Netflix has released Meghan Markle’s documentary of her “current” life, and not one thing, not a crumb, not a utensil, not a pot nor pan, nor sprig of time in this offering, is out of place.
Every little thing is curated, angled and filmed.
Netflix
All for you.
And, despite my being sympathetic to Meghan Markle and a supporter, the scathing reviews of With Love, Meghan are somewhat accurate.
Yet for many other reasons, I strongly recommend you watch it.
Thankfully each of the eight episodes is fairly short. It is so low key and ambient, and mostly uncomplex, like background listening.
If you are totally fed up of the wellness, clean eating and perfect mum movement, then these episodes take it all and you to the next level, elevating, along with everything else in the series, to high entertainment. Haute living Indeed.
There really is nothing Meghan can’t do.
She can fold linen, bake, flower and food arrange, cook, preserve, style clothes, garden, make cocktails be a mum, and much more.
The episode on wrapping gifts. That had me.
And for many of us who are knackered on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then again, on Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, isn’t this what we want to watch to alleviate the tiredness of our lives?
Wild escapism? I mean it is wild. Reportedly, Netflix paid Harry and Meghan a wild USD100Million for their projects.
Watching Meghan Markle divulge tips such as cutting crostini on an angle is exactly what my head needs as it simultaneously contemplates America allying with Russia.
I want more. Give me more. No in fact. In Russian. Day mne bol’she.
Did someone say elevate? Yes. With Love, Meghan has elevated the movement.
This movement has been around a long time, but my generation seems to have “elevated it”. The word “elevated” was used tens of times in this series.
We traditionally hear about elevating in the food industry. Chefs and wannabe chefs, use the term to describe something simple that has been made interesting and posh. Think of the Macdonald’s Filet-o- Fish, for example which we now see in the poshest of restaurants, elevated as sliders.
People have elevated donuts, fish and chips, cheese on toast, pies and the like.
Meghan too wants to elevate stuff.
Yet it seems that the only thing With Love, Meghan is actually elevating, is the ridiculousness of this movement.
“Mornings (with kids) are fast”. NO SHIT MEGHAN!
The revolution is indeed being televised - through the garnishing of food with petals.
Just when you thought that Gwyneth Paltrow and her vagina merch took it to the next level, Meghan has entered it, (not the vagina, nor the merch), and blown it up and left no crumbs.
SALTY
Yet midway through the episodes I realised that in fact this is not cringe and could actually be satire. Is Markle having a joke on us? And if it's not satire, is she using this series to get her own back?
Meghan is bright and educated, but with her smiles, her kindness and love spreading, is she using this series to get back at the Royal Family?
Not one episode goes by without a hint, a nudge, a stab and a sigh for what happened to her. Literally every dish is framed as being nice on the inside as well as the outside. Little phrases are dropped in about having multiple sides to one’s personality. There are comments about how much she has gone through. There is an awkward silence when one of her guests talk about getting the family together at Christmas, which took me to thinking about Royal Christmas tradition and how Harry has been absent.
The songs are also comically curated and lined to dig. “Don’t Fence me in” by Bing Crosby plays in the background. A chalk board has “I'm imagining it” on it.
So many messages to the viewer.
SWEET
The guests ALL tell her how nice and kind and generous she is. Is this the only way the public can learn to like her, by her friends telling the world she is nice on TV? Her guests probably do genuinely like her but it feels as if they have been scripted to say something nice about her.
Is this what it’s come to? Meghan, these people are not worth it!
One friend seems to have been invited only to show off that Markle can speak Argentinian Spanish. And yes that scene where Mindy Kaling calls her Meghan Markle and she retorts that she is a Sussex now, feels like a set up announcement to the world.
SHAGGY FEMINISM
All the women look the same. In fact they all look like a cross between Courtney Cox and Alanis Morisette - middle parting and wired hair. This is remarkable given the ethnicities involved.
Yes there are male chefs in the episodes, but I actually became quite fed up with her “girls” and references to the “the boys”. If you don’t have kids, this is one of the saddest aspects of social parenting, where the mums and dads go off in gendered groups.
Why didn’t Harry come on and cook? And I raise this, as in one episode her and her guest talk about working mums needing to be easy on themselves for not making everything (but let’s be honest most things) from scratch.
But I was left wondering why they are not talking about dads who cook? In a world where people are complaining of the popularity of Andrew Tate, isn’t the counter to that to show men, as Dads and caregivers who are cooking?
I also wonder how a professional woman feels when they see their skill of cooking, flower arranging and clothes styling, perhaps skills they have learned over decades, hijacked in this way by an actress with a nice house? Meghan calls spaghetti, noodles and does not know how to cut things properly. This does not mean that she shouldn’t be in this space, as many women are also doing this without qualification, but putting herself out there as an expert on food is dubious.
What’s worse is that the house in the series is rented. House-play! The kitchen, in most families, is the hub of a home where people do not wear nice clothes. Selling the show as a food show, yet wearing unstained perfect clothes, in a spotless rented kitchen is fake. Wear an apron Meghan!
I know many women sell perfection in their kitchen, and Markle should be allowed to join that scam too, but this is far out.
TRUTH
The truth is that we can all jump on this bandwagon.
Here is my attempt:
Here is me having chosen some Italian figs.
I bake bread too.
I just love colour in my kitchen!
Did you know that you can put saffron in your coffee?
I welcome any woman entering this space, especially a woman of colour adding to the diversity. As a result of With Love, Meghan, we can now say that this area, where unbelievably skinny women sell their lifestyle, their food (that they clearly do not eat and it is very important to note this), their children’s achievements, their dress and perfect homes is for all.
TRAUMA
But it is also clear that this series is borne out of trauma.
Meghan Markle has been treated appallingly. And, it feels to me that she has felt the global hatred aimed against her (there is even a mention of the avocado which you may remember that the UK press vilified her for eating) so much so that she is looking for meaning in the earth, bees, gardening and chickens, to heal.
Her pastimes are worthy, but her sheer skinniness, her constant desire to feed people yet not seemingly eating much herself, her words about joy and love and friendship, the obvious and blatant need she shows to be liked and perfect, reminds me of what some people behave like when they have been bullied, hurt and let down.
We can criticise Markle as much as we want, but for me this series is showing us that somehow, she is barely surviving, not loving and living. It should have been called, I’m Still Here, Megan!
And I think that in all of this, the Royal Family has missed a trick.
With Love, Meghan is so contrived, so perfect, so obsessed with messaging and yet so scarily real and authentic, she seems exactly what the Royal Family could do with, and what they are, and what they have always been.
Meghan shows us that she is perfect for Harry and the Royal Family. Harry lived and grew up with his life being curated and his actions and those around him tailored each and every minute for the press. And in Markle, he found a woman who knows exactly how to do that. What an own goal that the Royals let her go.
And I also see similarities between Megan and Kate Middleton suggesting that they could have been friends all along. Just like this series has landed badly, remember when Kate released a video on her cancer journey being over (or mostly)? At the time there was much criticism of her being perfectly manicured and preened, celebrating in the outdoors - not something most people with cancer can do.
Trumpian?
When you watch episodes like these which frame the woman entirely in the kitchen in a serving role, when you watch reality TV, someone selling their life to make a living and to be accepted under the umbrella of feminism, when you see that at the end of the day it is mundane TV with little depth and you weigh it up against the American Trad Wife phenomenon of skinny women online giving their whole life to house holding and celebrating it, and you see how in some cases these women have multiple children, in the backdrop of a country that now hates abortion, has rid itself of DEI (of which white women received the most benefit and who voted for Trump in majority and therefore against DEI), it is hard not to worry for women in America.
It's also hard not to worry for America and the world as a whole. This is a decline.
In the most recent Academy Awards, we saw Demi Moore, an older woman, being sidelined for the younger version of herself, Adrien Brody uncouthly throwing chewing gum at his partner (who happened to be Harvey Weinsten’s ex) before accepting his award, and Kieran Culkin asking his wife for a fourth child on winning his award.
It all just adds up to feel anti feminist and in the landscape of Elon Musk’s power in America and his obsession with birth rates, which is a movement that discusses why birth rates are low, yet surprise surprise is a global conversation largely being led by men (who if you did not know cannot give birth), it seems America is reverting to an olden age not a golden one, very fast.
Sadly the trad wife elements in this series and especially as she often refers to Harry as “my husband,” Meghan Markle, in trying to get her own back, and her life back, seems to be slipping back with America.
Many have criticised her for being “beige” which suggests someone is being bland, neutral, playing it safe colours with no life. Beige looks good on her and women of her skin colour. But this is not beige, it is red for Trump.
With both British and American politicians recently openly asking if Trump is a Russian asset, and Sanders warning that America is slipping into authoritarianism, we all know that in an authoritarian regime women are subjugated and limited to the home as baby makers. And with reality TV being so common and so bad, it is no wonder that we find ourselves where we are geo-politically.
As someone who remembers the first UK Big Brother, it's hard not to see how devastating reality TV has been for minds and brains and politics initiating a decline from the 90s onwards.
This week the UK celebrated World Book Day and will celebrate International Women’s Day, two movements I find so problematic. If you are at the coal face you will know that more than ever people cannot afford to eat let alone read, and women are being killed by people they know. All this before you delve in to the fact that children are addicted to their screens and so cannot really hold attention to read at length, and sexual violence against children is rife globally.
Who are we kidding?
I am not comfortable with the world encouraging mums to go through the horror of finding a costume for their children on World Book Day and children associating reading with dress up, the latter which takes the gravity and importance out of the reading process.
This series is just a poignant reminder of how we have dumbed down, and continue to do so and for that alone, I hope it wakes people up.
But it is not just the Royals who have missed a trick.
Markle is better than this.
Imagine how much change she could make if she instead pulled a Lady Diana? A woman with many flaws, and a disordered eater, but one who tossed convention with the same zeal that she tossed babies on her hips, touching hearts and minds and making change.
I think the perfect mum and homemaker sector is not all that bad. I don't want to take away from any woman who wants and can afford that life. But not all women can embrace this life, because it's bloody hard. Some women have to work and still can’t make ends meet, and some who don’t work, can’t afford to work and make their home look nice. Some women are not allowed to work. It is a lot more complicated than this.
With Love, Meghan, a Netflix series - Meghan would do well to elevate her content not just her food and harvest baskets.
Right now, the world needs more rad wife than trad wife.
Thanks, and have a great weekend.
Ludology