He begins with Meghan Markle who goes to get honey from the bees raised in the garden, the “With Love, Meghan” series, available on Netflix from March 4th. A sugary beginning to make us understand immediately how diabetic the entire show will be. “You don’t have to be afraid to do what scares us,” he says, heading uncertain to their sting, “how incredible is nature,” he adds sighing. Inside the nine episodes for forty minutes each, the protagonist is in fact the authentic life that the Duchess of Sussex leads to Montecito, in California, together with the former prince Harry. Between homemade jams and chickens in the chicken coop (rigorously saved by an industrial breeding), the former actress, here elevated to angel of the hearth, to guru of the lifestyle, seems to want to propose an image of self over all too genuine, perhaps in an attempt to bring the public closer, especially the most skeptical one. But the result is the opposite: authenticity is so forced to become artifact. And the series ends up further increasing perplexity towards it.

Over the years, the couple Harry and Meghan has ended up in the center of ferocious gossip, establishing an ambiguous relationship with the public, so much so that last year the approval indexes in England touched the historical lows. On the one hand, the accusations of hypocritical victims, culminating in the renunciation of the real title, on the other (above all) the media condemnation on her, advised by a part of the public opinion as a manipulator, social climber and ruin of families (and not of any family, but that of the British real, with the former prince who renounces everything to follow her in a new life in America). Where the truth ends and where the conspiracygy prejudices of sexism begin, it is not known. It is certain, however, that if “with love, meghan” is a (legitimate) sympathy operation, aimed at empathizing with the spectators, the result is cloying, decidedly not very credible and even counterproductive. Because it is true that bad witches exist only in fairy tales, but also Snow White. And the fairy tales remain fairy tales, in fact.

A little blessed Rossi, a little Barbie, a little San Francesco

In the total six hours of filming, the Millionary Meghan takes on the role of any blessed Rossi and teaches us “How to prepare a lemon cake”, “How to serve ladybugs in the shape of a ladybug”, “How to make lavender towels performed”. In short, it softens us with the rhetoric of small things with all the hypocrisy with which the millionaires know how to do it. The location is a sort of “home in the woods” to Antonella Clerici, however immersed in this case in the dream panorama of the Californian forest and not in the Piedmontese declempes in which the Italian presenter lives. Here, Meghan moves between the romantic furniture of his kitchen and a garden so beautiful that it seems an impressionist picture, wearing clothes bon ton Pastel color: collects oranges and blackberries, tear the lettuce with your hands, nourishes the chickens every morning; Listen to the Usignoli at the window and then exclaim “I love their song”, with the unexpressive smile of the Barbie and the heartfelt emphasis of St. Francis. Yet, despite the fact that the ingredients are all genuine – starting from the compostable vessels – the result is deeply artificial.

The ingredients are there, but the dosage is wrong

And to think that, if the intention was really to bring the public closer, Meghan had apparently chosen the easiest way. Nothing is more “Relatable” than a facility show, nor of the kitchen. Nothing is more equally equivalent to people at home, considered the “aspirational” mix of accessible and inaccessible factors. We all have a fridge at home. All those artists know it well – many – who over the years have put themselves in the kitchen, in a wink attempt and a little ruffled to establish a dialogue with the spectators. Yet Meghan pressed on the accelerator to the point of crashing. “There is nothing expensive, here,” he tells her in the third episode a friend who goes home, while observing the vegetables on the table, “everyone can do it”. The same friend who, then, will force Meghan to admit to wearing Zara jeans. How human is, her! She who can afford an 8 thousand euro sweater in their flat yet chooses low cost. In short, the expedients of forced deconstruction of the privilege end up innerous and that’s it. Including the clichés, deliberately inserted, of such a humble meghan as to offer food to the Chambermen.

Among the elements that could have made the show work, there is then the itchy component: the idea of ​​entering the house of a celebrity inevitably makes a throat to viewers. Too bad that here the house is not really his and that the hints to private life, which could give substance to the idea of ​​”familiarity” that the show wants to convey, have just mentioned, immediately aborted, with Harry that appears only and exclusively in a small cameo in the last episode. This is despite the only news of the series is precisely the claim of the noble title acquired by Meghan: “Nobody would think that Meghan Markle can make this recipe”, a friend jokes. “It is curious that you still call me Meghan Markle, I am the Duchess of Sussex,” she replies, boasting the origins of the royal family that she has always denigrated. In short, apart from this message from the clear recipient, to those who speak the series is not understandable. But someone will have to contact, otherwise Netflix would not have already announced a second season despite the rain of criticisms (which Netflix then has an exclusive agreement with the Sussex, and which seems to be dissatisfied with the returns of this agreement, is another story). At least, however, we hope that the next episodes have a less soporific rhythm.

From Fighter Feminist to “Traditional Wife”

In short, the accusations of hypocrisy continue to chase Meghan, even multiplying. Among the things that are stoned, there is also this sudden change of image: the 43 -year -old American has gone from proposing himself as a fighting feminist in the name of theEmpowerment The figure of a “trad wife” that bowls cake paying attention to the doses of preferred salt by her husband Harry (with the term “trad wife” we mean the Tiktok trend under whose hashtag some women return anachronistically to the stereotyped roles of traditional and traditional housewife, editor’s note). Mind you, there is nothing wrong with spending your time preparing donuts, I myself spent my Christmas holidays to develop the chemical formula of the perfect chicken broth and I am certainly not a “desperate housewife”, but in the case of a public character comes to be asked for the reason for certain media choices. For those who had lost the previous episodes, in fact, Meghan is the one that – the legend tells – at the innocent age of 11 wrote a letter to Procter & Gamble, so that the company changed the sexist stereotype present in the spot broadcast on TV, in which there was a woman who washed in plates. And it is also the one who, on the wedding day, wanted to travel the nave of the Church alone, distorting the secular tradition and launching a very powerful message of self -determination: nobody would have “delivered” it to another man, namely the future husband Harry, nor his father (absent at the ceremony by the will of the actress) nor King Carlo, who still accompanied her for a few meters of her path.

The series is therefore configured as a false step, this time deliberately taken by Meghan and Harry. Which arrives after the many false steps attributed by public and press, rightly or not, by preconception or for the wars of principle carried out by the very powerful English tabloids. Every time Meghan and Harry take a step, there is always a counterbalance. In 2021 the hypocrisy with which the couple, who escaped from England, shouting to confidentiality, then climbed its own facts in exclusive interviews with Oprah Winfrey: in the aftermath of the interview, the Mirror He published a list of the 10 lies included in that three -hour chat. On that occasion, Meghan had accused the royal house of racism, claiming that he had not been protected, of having thought about suicide, and that he had perceived that there was concern “for the color of his son’s skin”. Heavy accusations to which they had arrived in response rumors equally heavy on his account. To the victim’s narrative, the more or less scandalistic press had opposed the figure of the Duchess as a “dictator”, who had reduced staff members in tears, and who was “obsessed with the narrative of the ‘rejected’ since the first day”. In the face of the disagreements with his father and his half -sister, the gossip then fed the idea that it is not an easy person to have to do. After all, this is not what matters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdro1p53lyq