Meghan Markle’s gesture in the Netflix documentary that offended the British… and Prince Harry?
On Thursday the first three chapters of the controversial documentary of harry and meghan on Netflix in which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex launched a strong attack on the british press and racism which, according to them, fuels the coverage of their relationship.
Based on interviews with the couple, as well as their friends and specialists, and without dissenting voices, the first episodes of harry and meghan dissect the close relationship between tabloids and the royal family while entering the history of racism in the british empire and how it still pervades society.
But in the midst of all the scandal, a detail caught the attention of viewers. Prince Harry seemed annoyed with his wife at one point when she joked about having to curtsy to the late queen.
In one of the episodes, the Duke of Sussex recounted the conversation he had with Meghan when he was first introduced to the queen. Isabel II, explaining that I would have to take a bow.
“How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that she will have to do it too? Especially to an American…it’s weird.”Harry recounted.
The Duchess replied that it was “surreal” and that he thought he was joking when he asked if he knew how to bow, and then he let out a laugh as he exaggeratedly bowed for the camera.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Your Majesty. It was good?”, he said, mockingly. “I didn’t know what he was doing.”
Prince Harry threw him an awkward look to his wife who suggested that she was not amused by the joke.
critics
Meghan’s rude gesture aroused a wave of criticism in the British media and on social networks. “Why is it okay for Meghan to make fun of our culture like this? Or does racism only work one way?”British journalist Sarah Vine wrote on Twitter.
a royal source commented on the episode The Telegraph: “This is a real royal family, they are not playing a part.”
For his part, the writer Gyles Brandreth dismissed as “mocking” Y “shameful” the show of curtsy from the Duchess of Sussex. “No one curtsies like that to the queen, and no one would have advised her to do it that way.”argued in the program Drivetime by Vanessa Feltz in TalkTV.
She added of Harry: “He would know that the curtsey, if you will, is a brief nod and that it is to show respect for the sovereign, and in the case of the queen – a lady in her 90s who actually he had earned respect through a lifetime of service.”
Brandreth, a friend of the royal family, also said it was unlikely the king saw the docuseriessince he does not spend much time tuning the television, but that, unlike the trailerthe program was “interesting” rather than “explosive”.
Princess Diana’s former personal chef also joined the criticism of Meghan for appearing “mock the queen” with an exaggerated reverence, As reported The Daily Mail.
Darren McGrady, who cooked for the late Queen, Diana, William and Harry for fifteen years, said: “The look on his face when his wife laughs at having to curtsy to the queen says it all to me.”
And following the Duke of Sussex’s claim that his wife was like his dearly departed mother, McGrady declared: “I’ve known Harry since I held him as a baby while Princess Diana ate cereal in the kitchen at Windsor Castle. Prince Harry, with all due respect sir, his wife will never be like or similar to his mother. I knew Princess Diana for 15 years. Not even remotely.”
“She chose to marry into the Royal Family. She had a choice”he added about Meghan.
His opinion was shared by many on social media.
“The Princess of Wales also had to learn a lot when she became part of this family. But she was never disrespectful or made fun of when she had to bow to His Majesty. Her Royal Highness was always respectful of the woman who dedicated her entire life to the crown,” wrote one user.
Calvin Robinson, British political commentator, broadcaster and deacon in the Free Church of England, posted the excerpt from the documentary on Twitter and sent a strong message to the Duchess of Sussex: “Our culture is not your costume.”
To which Conservative MP Mark Jenkinson added: “The ultimate betrayal. And he sits down to watch.
Meghan’s account of her first curtsy to Her Majesty also differs from her earlier recollection. In 2021, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she said that she “didn’t even know how to curtsy” and was surprised when Harry explained what was expected of her.
“Right in front of the house we practiced and ran in. Fergie ran out and said to me, ‘Do you know how to curtsy?’” she recalled. “Apparently I took a really deep bow, I don’t remember, and then we just sat there and talked.”
Meghan first met the Queen during a lunch at the Royal Lodge of Windsor, shortly after she and the duke revealed they were dating, in 2016.
But she said the whole occasion felt like an old-fashioned banquet in Medieval Timesa family-friendly dinner theater in the United States featuring medieval-style staged games, sword fighting, and jousting.
The queen was the first senior member of the royal family Meghan met after she and Prince Harry announced their relationship in 2016. “She had no idea what it was about,” Harry tells the docuseries, while surrounding his wife with his arm. “So it was kind of a shock to her.”
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