
It’s a tricky time for the special relationship. Offering a sweepingly negative assessment of Europe’s fighting capability this week, JD Vance may or may not have called us “some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”. A Daily Star front page featured “J.D. Dunce” in retaliation, and even Nigel Farage has been forced into publicly rebuking his chums across the water.
The Vice President has responded by denying he was talking about us, calling the media “hysterical”. History tends to suggest that this will not calm things down. With US tariffs hanging in the balance — not to mention World War III — a distraction must be found to subdue the escalating dynamic. Step forward, Netflix’s With Love, Meghan. There could be no better time for the Duchess of Sussex’s “tips and tricks” on how to become a Californian domestic goddess to finally hit our screens.
In Violence and the Sacred, René Girard argued that when two sides get locked into an apparently intractable feud, unity can only be restored by finding a scapegoat onto which to load the mutual animus by proxy. But not just any “surrogate victim” will do: “all victims [must]… bear a certain resemblance to the object they replace”. To reestablish transatlantic alliances, then, ideally we need a sacrificial object who seems quite annoyingly American (to us), but also quite annoyingly British (to them). And who better than a barefoot Meghan Sussex? Rubbing pink Himalayan salt into British economic wounds, she talks about being “defined by growth” — but also seems to have a not-very-Californian addiction to bacon.
The ostensible idea of the new show is educational. The Duchess will tell viewers how to become better hostesses by “elevating the ordinary”. This roughly translates as fiddling about with edible flowers and sticking labels on everything, written in elegant calligraphy. She wafts around an enormous Californian garden saturated with so much colour that sunlight-starved British retinas can barely cope, gasping at heirloom tomatoes and inhaling various scents through delicately flared nostrils. Then she pads into someone else’s well-appointed kitchen, chops a few things up with a tiny knife, and produces aphorisms such as “rosemary is nice and grounding” and “the brightness of citrus helps so many things”.
She seems extremely keen on managing people’s “experiences”. When someone comes to visit, she wants to give them “a guest experience”; when people drop kids off at a party for Archie or Lili, she wants to give them a “parent experience”. Arranging chopped fruit on a board to resemble a rainbow, she begins with the strawberries, but generously gives the viewer permission to do “whatever feels right for you”. The mantra “Love is in the details!” is uttered several times. Sometimes it’s with a slight air of passive-aggression, prompting the cynical viewer to imagine terrible rows with Harry when he forgets to bring her morning cup of tea.
So far, so stereotypically Yank; but there are weird digressions from the template here too. As I watched, I started to think her time in Blighty had left her with more than a taste for our dry cured pork products and a trauma response to adverts for The Crown. Incredibly for an American showbiz type, she can’t actually pull off all the positivity and quasi-sincerity; she comes across as too self-conscious, and her energy too low. It’s almost as if she is one of us.
The first two episodes demonstrate this most starkly. In the first, her make-up artist and gay BFF comes to visit and she tries very hard to give him a guest experience. The repartee between them is turgid and halting, his gestures are nervous, and they both seem like introverts, dying inside. At one point, he rebukes her for assuming he has a counter in his tiny New York kitchen; at another, he looks at the stunning Montecito mountains and says the quiet part out loud: “I feel like this is all fake.” Hovering in the background, laughing and taunting the dead air between them, are the ghosts of Will and Grace. At times it feels as if she would rather be communicating entirely with labels.
But this is as nothing to the awkwardness between Meghan and fellow celeb “toddler mom” Mindy Kaling in the next episode. The gimmick is that they pretend to host a kids’ party together, minus the leavening presence of any actual children. Over the course of 40 minutes, Kaling’s natural perkiness and gifts for comic timing are slowly crushed into the black hole of Meghan’s earnestness. “I’m so glad you’re here, it’s going to be fun,” our hostess-with-the-mostess says near the beginning, a quick smile reaching neither eyes nor voice. By the end, Kaling is having to conjure up enthusiasm at the world’s least exciting party bags — mini gardening tools, seeds, and compostable pots; not a Haribo in sight — and Meghan, gazing off into the middle distance, is trying to imagine what would be happening at their fake party if there were real people present. “The kids are enjoying it, and then as the kids run off to play, at least the adults still feel they have had an experience too.” “Yes, which is what these are for,” says Kaling, gazing gratefully at her peach bellini.
It’s a mystery why the series starts with these shockers, because the following episodes are a lot better. One can only assume some high-up at Netflix decided this could only succeed as a hate-watch and so frontloaded the cringe. In later ones, our impeccably clad protagonist hosts close girlfriends on various confected pretexts — a Mahjong night, a beauty session — with whom she is much more at ease. The warmth and affection between them look genuine, and especially after a drink or three — more evidence of the secret British heart beating underneath the beige knitwear.
It is at moments like this that the series comes closest to managing what it was presumably always supposed to be: a feast for envious female eyes. It certainly isn’t a cooking show; there’s not even the vaguest pretence at offering recipes. “Who wouldn’t want this?” Meghan asks us as she surveys her bountiful garden, summing up the attitude she secretly hopes onlookers will take to take every bit of her gorgeous life. When she says she wants to show those living “in a little flat in London or small apartment in the city” that they too can have “some small piece of this”, she probably means: why not try making mint tea in a tannin-stained mug to the sound of traffic; or cut up some puny strawberries on a scarred old chopping board, so your toddler can turn up her nose, make sick noises, and chuck them at the cat? That way, you can gain even more clarity about by how utterly unlike your life is to Meghan’s serene and beautiful one.
But the thing is, it doesn’t work. Alongside his work on scapegoating, Girard is now best known for his theory of “mimetic desire”. He thinks wanting something is just coveting whatever others already have, with no independent appraisal of its value. Most or even all human conflict stems from robotic, envious grasping at what other people want, allegedly. Peter Thiel is a big Girardian, as is Vance, or so they say. I’ve always thought the theory was far too simple. Blatant thirst-trap programmes such as With Love, Meghan are its reductio ad absurdum.
Of course, it’s true that desires can be generated via exposure to others’ desires. Wanting to try what others are already enjoying is a reasonably efficient heuristic, based on the assumption there is something genuinely enjoyable there that I might like too. But it has a limit: just ask toddlers, nonplussed by parental rhapsodising about strawberries, and unswayed by the preferences of peers. Adults, too, have minds of their own, at least sometimes; which explains why populist politicians such as Trump and Vance try to work out what those minds want, then give it to them. If anything, progressives seem more Girardian in spirit, assuming that if policies are presented with enough desirable surface glitter by celebs and influencers, our magpie minds will get onboard with the trend.
But sometimes, the more it seems someone wants you to want something, the easier it is to resist. In With Love, Meghan’s case, the desperation is palpable and it’s counterproductive. The only things worth envying in her life are the odd things here and there that seem real and unforced: her friendships, her love for family and dogs, her appreciation of nature. All the rest — the Le Creuset, the crystal glasses, the perfect blue sky, the irritatingly upbeat music — left me happier than ever with my food-spattered compost bin, my dishwasher-scratched glassware, and the iron-grey English sky. As the woman herself might say, it turns out that my viewing experience has been defined by growth.
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SubscribeThe obvious Meghan show would be her moving to a soggy estate in rural England and trying to fit in. Episodes with her preparing toad in the hole with spotted d**k and clotted cream for dessert. Walking around in the pouring rain in boots – possibly with a shotgun. Growing cabbages. Trying not to be horrified at fox hunting. Dealing with the fact that her entire house is irreparably moldy. Drinking warm beer at the local pub trying to chat brightly with some old guy whose accent is so thick she can’t understand him. Entertaining local blue bloods who relentlessly put her down. It would be good television. Especially if she shows a bit of stiff upper lip and soldiers on with it.
On behalf of all Americans, I apologize for Meghan Markle. She ruined your cool prince and now we all have to suffer her inane Netflix shows.
You’ve no need to apologise. Unherd should apologise that it has a Megahn Markle F__king Archive. https://unherd.com/tag/meghan-markle/
FFS, just ignore her, guys.
If it weren’t for Unherd, I wouldn’t know she exists.
I fail to understand the fascinating hatred you Pommies have for this Californian grifter.
Hatred only in a certain strata of folks more predominant here on Unherd. Most just don’t pay much attention. The annoyance she causes some is quite funny though
I can quite understand why she doesn’t annoy you.
I’ve got her recipe book on order HB. Recommended. Especially the Sour Dough.
No recipe is going to help you make top sourdough. It’s all about finding the place in your home that has the right temperature and humidity to achieve the perfect proving time, which varies with the type of flour you use.
I knew I was doing something wrong.
What’s fascinating about it? I suppose the UK is just hard pressed for people to look down on.
The qualifier of her being Californian doesn’t add much – I tend to ignore places where people defecate in the streets.
Many of us feel sorry for her and Harry and wish the mob would leave them alone.
However you express it the estrangement is bad for the Royal Family. Better to have a beloved black (slightly) member in its midst.
Other royals like Anne and Edward’ s children are allowed to be part time memebers of the family but have business interests.
I also think Andrew has been shamefully treated.
It’s a British thing – being able to spot a “wrong un”.
Mostly because we know what Harry was like before he met this creature and we prefer his former self. She is so shallow it makes my teeth hurt, and why has she got that pan-cake makeup slathered all over her face?
It’s because she turned our favourite royal after the queen, a genuine hero and down-to-earth bloke, into an irony-free zone of whingeing self-pity.
She doesn’t exist
The concept of being overpromoted ought not to have any meaning in the worlds of celebrity or royalty. Advancement in the former being largely a product of how much bovine attention you can attract and in the latter merely a consequence of birth order.
Yet somehow both Meghan and Harry have managed it.
Did you not just turn it off and watch something else? Haven’t you a remote control with a button at least?
In retrospect I would say that Harry was probably quite likely to make a fool of himself some other way in any case: the oceanic volume of resentment he seems to have developed towards the Royal family as an institution wasn’t simply planted in his head by his wife so that she could become a Montecito princess.
If it’s any consolation, the northeastern US and parts of our Pacific northwest look nothing like southern California, and on occasion more closely resemble the Aran coast.
Quite a few of us are packed into grimy but costly coastal cities, where the nearest garden probably grows newly legal marijuana, and where the tax rates are roughly similar.
Princess Megan, who reminds me of no one so much as Wallis Stevens, will always be something of a fish out of water, her multicultural background allowing her to be both a literal aristocrat, except with lots of money, and the victim of racism, in the way that the Obamas are sometimes the victims of racism.
A certain amount of that is to be expected when one marries a foreign national -UK and US societies are very similar, but not identical. I suppose it could make for entertainment, at least to some people. It also has the happy effect of restoring the Dutchess to breadwinner status, in her former profession.
Acting, I mean.
I don’t think I’ll be watching. I’m moreso enjoying the fictionalized exploits of Paddy Mayne and his SAS, when I’d like something entertaining, or a decent documentary, when I’m craving substance.
Lives of ersatz, unattainable glamor and easy sunshine just aren’t as interesting.
Oh Kathleen, oh Kathleen, it is not an Irish dirge I bring to comment but a grave disappointment. I had thought you above the British disease of Meghanism. It has no rash nor excrement to sample but is characterised by hatred of a sad little Californian grifter. You join the millions of vape toking harridans who spit. Who spit bile on strangers in a Freudian attempt to protect your “Royal betters”. Betters who look down on you doing the simple crossword in The Mirror or Sun with bent knee.
Yes, Meghan is more British than you care to admit: they both look pretty sad and desperate to the outside and every effort to stave off the admission of the cold hard truth that you’re failing just makes the look worse.
Just brilliant, laugh out loud funny. Kathleen Stock definitely gets an invitation to my imaginary dinner party alongside Julie Burchill and Kristian Niemitz.
That was great. Calling MM a bit British is possibly the worst imaginable insult for her.
PS. My dinner party would also include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mary Harrington, Edward Luttwak, Kat Rosenfield, and maybe Poppy Sowerby if she behaves herself.
And Giles Fraser to say grace.
We haven’t heard from him for while. Does anyone know why?
A few of the earlier Unherd writers are thin on the ground these days.
UnHerd threw out a wide net and dragged in a turgid lot of academics choking on jargon and long sentences about uninteresting subjects. They proved surprisingly easy to find and most of the haul had to be returned to the polluted waters. To get through these pieces, think of having a pounding hangover in an overheated classroom with 40 minutes to go with a test at the end.
The Anglican bosses called him in for a talking to about pride.
You have to watch Poppy after she’s knocked back a couple.
The sarcastic “hostess with the mostess” got me, too.
Once again, a needle sharp piece from one of the best contemporary commentators on our culture. Thank you Kathleen.
Thanks for this clever, funny article!
Guiltily watched bits of it – defence was that so much being made of it including here on Unherd.
My instinct is it’s a tongue in cheek spoof designed to really irritate those who already detest the her and her husband. Quite funny really.
Do you really think she has that much self-awareness?
Does it matter?
I’m impressed that to you it seems to matter.
Can Meghan save the transatlantic alliance?
.
Yes, she can! People hate her equally on both sides of the Atlantic!
.
P.S. Oh my god! I hadn’t even read the article when I added my comment. Apparently just mentioning Meghan’s name is enough to trigger a squall of identical emotions
I am grateful to her for taking Harry off our hands. And I have no access to Netflix.
There is nothing British about Meghan. NOTHING.
Nothing American either. Just a grifter on the make
Hold that position, Dear.
Aw shucks! Just as well the majority of the US electorate have more common sense.
As usual, another LOL piece by my favorite Unherd writer. I will respectfully disagree with you on one thing you’ve said, though – “her love for family and dogs” is not supported by any evidence to date, to put it mildly.
Exactly. Whose family? Her kids possibly as long as they don’t interfere with her self-absorption filming.
A delightful comic rosebud that opens to reveal razor sharp critique. Love it.
Q: I am bit behind on Valspeak, so is a ‘gay BFF’ the same as a GBF?
“So far, so stereotypically Yank”
We Yanks cannot stand her, either.
You reckon JDV would be an improvement? Surely not.
Some generations had valour and dacrifice. We have the pencil skirt and the ass that thrusts its cheeks into our sedentary countenance.
The latter has a bit more appeal, I have to admit.
Super funny
thank-you
This is quite simply brilliant. It takes real talent to produce an article about Meghan Markle that I can enjoy. I hadn’t noticed before quite what a good writer KS can be.
I just loved this:
“Over the course of 40 minutes, Kaling’s natural perkiness and gifts for comic timing are slowly crushed into the black hole of Meghan’s earnestness.”
I suspect MM can never quite be British while she’s so obviously trying so hard.
I did not read this story. Not interested in Meghan. Just ignore her and maybe she will go away. Stop publishing such drivel.
If you don’t live in Monticito you ain’t worth shit. That’s the real message.
However, I gather the house and garden she was showing off so brazenly is not even theirs. How shallow can she go I wonder?
Stand by.
It’s not an alliance it’s a satrapy.
I was somewhat disappointed that the Prof didn’t expand on her rather interesting idea of scapegoating Meghan in order to heal the rift between Britain and the USA. I wonder what form this might take? We might actually need to have some sort of plan in place in case The Donald really does decide that Harry’s past sojournes in Tooting merit a deportation.
As to the rest, I suspect her program is exactly what the Prof deems it to be: a TV-serialised version of those puke-inducing “I’m blessed” posts on social media that are transparently just outrageous bragging. Every time there’s a suggestion of you-can-do-this-too what it really means is no-you-can’t-do-this-really.
When it comes to skewering progressive “elites”, DocStock is the best.
Apart from the scathing review of M. Markle’s latest offering, I also learned why producers of shows like this expect to succeed: “One can only assume some high-up at Netflix decided this could only succeed as a hate-watch and so frontloaded the cringe.” This type of show both induces envy in some women, and simultaneously goads Markle’s detractors into watching (and presumably writing bad reviews on the internet).
Well done, K. Stock.
Transatlantic alliances are valuable.
But when one’s ally locks people up for Facebook posts, while politely ignoring grooming gangs and rallies for Hamas, it makes us wonder exactly what freedoms we’re defending.
By the way, the Orange Valdemort is currently threatening Russia with sanctions if they too refuse to negotiate. And unlike the ones under his predecessor, these would actually be enforced.
Sad that your observation of toddlers’ indifference to strawberries is so apposite. You are, of course, referring to the tasteless, factory-farmed items from the supermarket or greengrocer. When I was a kid, we fought over who got the last one. They were sweet, fragrant, exploding with strawberriness. Sic fugit gloria mundi.
The Vice President (J D Vance) has responded by denying he was talking about us, calling the media “hysterical”. (i.e. for thinking that his comment, “some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”, referred to Britain!).
Spot on JD!
Another excellent article by Kathleen Stock.
“they pretend to host a kids’ party together, minus the leavening presence of any actual children.”
“Kaling’s natural perkiness and gifts for comic timing are slowly crushed into the black hole of Meghan’s earnestness.”
“our magpie minds”..
LOVE Kathleen Stock. And for a chaser, the Julie Burchill review of same. (They need to have a show of their own, along the lines of “Stock and BURCHill, doo-doo-doo-we-ooh…”)
I’m glad you watched this, so none of us have to.
Meghan is a perfect addition to the Royal Family. She officially is devoted to quite progressive ideology–you know, the view that imperialism, colonialism, and hereditary wealth and privilege are the original sins of western history and culture. She also sees no contradiction between those beliefs and not only marrying into the apex symbol of Imperialism, the British Royal Family, but also embracing the title Duchess of Sussex and drawing from the well of privilege and wealth accumulated by them over centuries of colonialism.
Trying to have it both ways might invalidate her either as an avatar of Royal tradition or as a proponent of progressivism among thoughtful observers. Ironically, it actually makes her a perfect fit for the Royal Family. They too are obliged to continue the trappings of traditions while eliding the contradictions between their privilege and modernity. For if white privilege is a real thing, then certainly the Royal Family is its most flagrant example. Meghan only represents the next step. She is the retcon Bridgerton version of the Royals and the sign of what is yet to come.
Thank you Kathleen!, I was just settling down with my post breakfast coffee. Opened Unherd only to see the face of knickers down, gutter trash yacht girl Megain staring vacantly from the he header pic. Empty eyes, empty brain, empty heart.
i now feel a little sick. Please Unherd no more of this creature.