Usually, the death of a 99-year-old man would not arouse much suspicion. But because Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is not your typical long-lived husband, his death on April 9 offers a window into the recent misery of the British royal family – and the media’s determination over the controversial relationship with Meghan Markle.
Prince Philip was admitted to hospital for a full month in February, allegedly for treating an existing heart condition. As he approaches his 100th birthday, his death is hardly a surprise. According to the royal family’s official statement, His Highness ‘died peacefully at Windsor Castle this morning’.
However, it was not long before the expectation spread through social media that the press would find a disruptive cause for Prince Philip’s death as illness or old age. Amid the many memes that started circulating online after the news broke, a prominent theme emerged: British media placing the blame on Meghan Markle.
Markle has spent the past year in controversy, the first time she formally resigned her royal duties with her husband, Prince Harry, and the second for an interview on March 7 with Oprah Winfrey in which the couple spoke out against the family ‘s treatment of her. Among the most shocking revelations that came out of the interview were the couple’s statements that the family was ‘concerned’ about the color of their unborn child’s skin, and that they refused to give the couple a safety feature in violation. with the protocol and refused. to help Markle seek treatment after she became suicidal – in part due to an avalanche of racist harassment by the press.
It’s no secret that the British media, especially tabloids, have lost little love for Markle since she became the youngest member of the royal family. From the moment she dated Prince Harry in 2016, Markle faced racist and sexist reactions and criticized everything from her unapproachability to her ‘exotic DNA’.
And in the aftermath of the Oprah interview, Piers MorganIn particular, the indictment of many British journalists led him to accuse Markle of actually lying about everything – an unfounded idea of ’decay’ that led him to walk away and eventually quit his news program. Good morning Britain. Hence the almost immediate assumption that the British press would find a way to shift focus of Prince Philip and on Markle.
Two Daily Mail columnists may now be ready:
1. Why Meghan Markle’s presence at the funeral is an insult, meant to overshadow a gloomy occasion.
2. Why Meghan Markle’s absence from the funeral is an insult, meant to overshadow a gloomy occasion.
– Alex Andreou (@sturdyAlex) 9 April 2021
Sometimes the predictions that a narrative surrounding “Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview that contributed to the untimely death of Prince Philip” was strange in its effects.
For example, it did not last long the Daily Mail to portray a piece highlighting Prince Philip’s difficult final year and the way in which the end of his life was partially damaged by ‘bitter defeat of’ his favorite ‘grandson Harry and Meghan’s decision to’ end the firm ‘.’
However, it was especially the American outlet Fox News that apparently first arrived there.
The predictability of this response by certain media, especially conservatives, cannot be overstated. This suggests that at least as far as the royal family is concerned, a uniform monotonous kind of cover has been established: insult of anger and fear, attack, repetition. The fact that memes that expected exactly this kind of news coverage preceded the coverage suggests that Markle’s racist press coverage was transparently thin and largely ineffective as a form of persuasion for the average media consumer – whether they were well-informed or only half-informed. pay attention to social media.
Markle and Prince Harry, by giving such an important interview to Oprah Winfrey, explicitly involved the American public in the broader public debate over the family’s treatment of it. One result is a clear assumption by many observers worldwide, and especially black observers, that any coverage of strife or tragedy within the royal family will somehow involve a return to implicit racism against and perpetual attacks on Markle.
The “Meghan is to blame” memes – and the overall tone of the other witty, cynical and critical memes that have emerged – also indicate a clear breakdown between media coverage of Prince Philip’s death and its popular impression.
While many newspapers carried a more typical tone of gloomy respect, social media was largely reverent, and users on various platforms used memes and general disobedience to remind us that Prince Philip comes from a family with Nazis in it (although he opposed Hitler), to introduce Princess Diana greet him in heaven with hostility (actually they were very close), and to remember his long history of alleged racist remarks – with the kind of bluntness that the press largely avoided.
For example, one BBC obituary allegedly made racist comments on Prince Philip’s issue by introducing it as part of his “tendency to be straightforward” and offering other euphemistic twists – leading to criticism of both Philip and the exhaust valve.
Along with a sad ‘RIP’ thread, Twitter is rife with people celebrating Philip’s death on behalf of black citizens suspected of being offended by his treatment of Markle.
The lifestyle is not just about politics: on TikTok, memes about Philip’s death have circulated over the past few weeks, with jokes focusing mainly on the prince’s alleged immortality – or suspicions that he actually died weeks ago. But the more typical flavor of online humor was overshadowed by the recent royal house. It’s a reminder that the family can no longer figure out how to deal with strong, independent women today than during Diana’s rise.
TikTok’s view of the subject seems closer to the truth than that of the pony newspapers: The Duke of Edinburgh was 99 years old. Any attempts to place the blame for his death show much more about the state of the media than about Meghan Markle.