Netflix series saga: What Harry and Meghan did that Diana didn’t

How would you feel if cameras were recording every minute of your life? Creepy? Intrusive? Unbearable? Absolutely. Paparazzi are all those adjectives, so on that count I am one hundred percent with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — H&M, going by their pet names for each other in the 6-part Netflix ‘documentary’ on their love, life and much more. But wait, they also let Netflix (and others) eavesdrop willingly. What am I missing here, then? Payment?

Let’s not forget that the Sussexes were paid some $150 million for this tell-all series, a sum that only a multi-billion dollar US streaming service could offer, not any of the British tabloids they loathe. And to think that Princess Diana — who actually lost her life being hounded in Paris by the paparazzi and is liberally quoted and posited as a fellow victim by her younger son and daughter-in-law — got nothing at all for baring her soul to the now-disgraced Martin Bashir.

Let’s also not forget that the UK tabloids feed off the British royal family’s lives to attract more readers and thereby increase sales. Netflix’s motivations are exactly the same, although the target audience is probably more American than British and the rest of the world. If Harry and Meghan had not been imbued with that royal “chhaap” and had not been willing to cash in on his family name, Netflix would probably not have played ball. So why the double standards?

Strangely, never during even the darkest days when the media was let loose on Princess Diana — that H&M claim also happened to them when they left ‘the institution’ — was she ever accused of taking money from the very people she abhorred. She used the media to tell her story, not sell it to them. Taking those metaphoric 30 pieces of silver from the Daily Mail or Netflix (had it existed back then), would not have crossed her mind. A sense of noblesse oblige, maybe?

Diana did let the media “see” some candid moments, such as greeting her young sons with open arms after a long time apart or sitting alone sadly on a bench with the Taj Mahal behind her. Yet the idea of letting a camera crew follow her around day and night for months on end filming even intensely emotional personal moments with a spouse or child — that too only because they paid handsomely for exclusive footage — would almost certainly have horrified the late princess.

There is something gruesomely Kardashian-esque if not uniquely American about letting multiple cameras be flies on the wall recording everything from phone calls with family and friends (nearly all hers and theirs, not his) to supposedly private displays of affection in a tent in Botswana — did they plan a TV series from their first outing itself? — and their kitchen at Frogmore. We only see select moments from what must be hundreds of hours of footage. What remains unseen?

Indeed, the only obvious thing common between Diana and Harry is not being victims but their target: the Windsors. There too, the crucial difference is that she married into the royal family and was therefore a mere in-law, and eventually an outlaw. Harry was born into the House of Windsor, which made him that rare entity, a “Prince of the Blood Royal” as the quaint British term goes. But he has just proved that blood (or at least blue blood) is not thicker than water.

We now know Diana was deliberately misled by Bashir into thinking she was being spied upon by palace courtiers who were out to ‘get her’. So she retaliated in the only way she thought possible: by telling her side of the story, that too only after Charles (still her husband at that time) admitted to his affair with Camilla. But Harry has gone public about his father and brother — using the familiar 21st century term, speaking truth to power — despite no provocation by them.

H&M repeatedly allude to Machiavellian palace communications teams and shadowy officials who leaked information to the vicious tabloids but their prime targets are clear — the current King and his heir, who are portrayed as stuffy, dissembling and cantankerous, if not downright rude, uncaring and moribund. Even the late Queen, his beloved granny, is shown to be an ineffective old biddy, possibly not quite compos mentis and very prone to being manipulated.

Discord crops up in most families at some point; perennial positivity would indicate dysfunctionality! Unlike us normal people, however, being a celebrity means private squabbles, even if unexceptional, never remain private as it goes with the job. In the royal families’ case, it goes with the silver spoon. But whereas celebrities use the media to air grievances, royals tend to stay mum because they are told to keep the spotlight on charities and causes not feuds and fights.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with the Windsor family’s supposed unofficial motto ‘Never complain, never explain’ though Diana broke that rule. Would we like it if a disgruntled or misguided family member decided to wash dirty linen in public, even though there would be no socio-political consequences in our case? Would we seek revenge for slights, real or imagined, by trashing our parents and siblings to random strangers? And get paid for it? I should hope not.

Much as the Sussexes deride the royal family, the courtiers and the British tabloid press, their cachet and cash flow is contingent upon their continued engagement with all three. If they disengage or hostilities cease, very soon hardly any attention would be paid to them. It is like those unending Indian TV serials whose storylines revolve around antagonisms within families, aided by machinating relatives and friends. Cut out conflict and public interest tends to flounder.

Harry’s memoir Spare, (ghostwritten by LA Times journalist JR Moehringer, many of whose works have been made into movies) for which the prince is reportedly being paid $40 million, will certainly also target the Windsors though it is now slated to hit the stands a fortnight only after Christmas. Otherwise, King Charles III would have had to make his very first Christmas Day speech to the nation amid potentially very embarrassing revelations by his younger son.

Two brothers once close but now squabbling is bad enough but children being dragged in is especially horrible. The alleged racist comment by a royal Windsor relative before the birth of H&M’s son Archie is alluded to in the Netflix series but the perpetrator remains tantalisingly unnamed, raising anticipations of a big reveal in Harry’s book. This could irretrievably sour relations between the two Sussex children and their three first cousins on the other side of the Atlantic.

Race is the most divisive factor in the US today and has become a flashpoint in the UK too. The recent outrage over an allegedly racist conversation that an octogenarian lady-in-waiting to the late Queen Elizabeth II had with a Caribbean-British charity worker is not only a shot across the bows of the new court of King Charles III but also a pointer to the damage potential of what Meghan may choose to ‘reveal’ in future about royal racism. Possibly Netflix’s H&M Season 2?

The only ones smirking openly are probably the paparazzi who know they are an intrinsic part of the H&M gameplan, as their relentless coverage ensures more grist for the Sussex mill and more buyers and viewers of their footage and photos. And the losers are the Windsors, as they cannot make millions from this family discord but still have to weather a surly and vengeful prince and his terrifyingly articulate duchess who knows just how to keep those cash registers ringing.

The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed are personal.

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