I watched this interview once where this actress talked about using Joker as a Litmus Test for human empathy. People who watch it and are repulsed by his villiany, disgusted by his actions, and alienated from his perspective, she argued, don't truly understand the human condition. Those who watch it and intuitively grasp just how miniscule the difference is between them and the Joker, how much he is just a representation of who we would all become in the face of mistreatment, do.
I'll be honest. I watched Joker one night on a cruise with my sister and a few family friends, and was so viscerally terrified of the makeup and voice that I couldn't feel empathetic towards him even if I tried. But, seeing as the new docu-series Harry & Meghan dropped this week on Netflix and I have been avidly following the Royal Family of England since Kate and William got married in 2011, I figured I could make my OWN Litmus Test (Meghan and Harry edition). Let's see if, through the course of watching this documentary, I begin to see myself reflected in the faces of these particular people.
1. Harry seemed determined to draw a parallel out between Diana and Meghan, as though their conditions or plights were even slightly similar. Not only is it a massive red flag when a man thinks his wife and mother are the same, but I thought it to be an incredible disservice to the legacy and contribution Diana made to the world to let her son spin her story after her death.
2. Meghan used George Floyd to talk about her blackness. Now, there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that the Royal Family was racist towards Meghan. I fully believe what she said on Oprah, that King Charles had warned Harry not to marry her because their baby might "come out darker". But I couldn't help but think it was incredibly exploitative of Meghan to use the tragic circumstances of George Floyd's death -- that, by the way, had literally nothing to do with her -- as a way to gain pity points with her audience. It reminded me of a similar instance when Meghan was still part of the Royal Family: she had claimed that her wedding was met with the same level of enthusiasm from South Africans as when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison. Listen, Meghan: there is a *slight* difference between you marrying a mediocre ginger and Nelson Mandela being freed from prison after 27 years.
3. Meghan Markle also has this Spotify podcast, Archetypes, where she attempts to deconstruct harmful stereotypes and coded language we use on women. The premise of the podcast is that she interviews a famous woman who has traditionally been labelled with whichever "archetype" she hopes to deconstruct in that episode. For example, to deconstruct the "ambitious black woman" narrative, she brought Serena Williams on. Serena spoke about how, at eleven, she was interviewed by a reporter who asked her who she wanted to play like when she was older, and Serena replied with, "I hope other people play like me". Williams used this anecdote to comment on how women do, generally, have a strong sense of who they are as children, and lose that as they learn to fear the labels that can be weaponized against them. In response to this powerful anecdote, Meghan responded with her own story about writing to a radio station when she was eleven, once again looking at other people's incredibly moving, impactful stories and only seeing herself.
There are so many more examples I wish I had the time to delve into (see below for a TL;DR-esque list). But the point here isn't the join the singing choirs of people hating on random people they barely know, nor is it to review the docu-series. The point, at least to me, is that maybe that actress in that interview was right, and media and literature exist for us to see reflections of ourselves in, exist to validate our own emotions and humanity and remind us how similar we are to both the greatest of heroes and worst of villains. But what we should learn in tandem is that it's really not about us at all. Maybe we should have sympathy for Joker because he's the victim of mistreatment, and not just because we, too, one day, may also, potentially, under some circumstances, face a similar kind of mistreatment. Maybe we should be able to walk into and out of other people's perspectives just because we're all stuck on this marble together, and not for some strange, self-aggrandizing ulterior motive. Maybe when told a story about Princess Diana, or George Floyd, or Nelson Mandela, or Serena Williams, we should stare open-mouthed and let emotion flood our body, without wondering how we play a role in the narrative. Irony of me writing a blogpost about *my take* on the docu-series aside, maybe our perspective is just not that important.
And on that positive note, here is the aforementioned list:
- When Serena Williams spoke about having to take her infant to the emergency room the night before Wimbledon, staying in the hospital until 4am, then returning to play (and win) her tournament at 6am only for the tabloids to talk about how terrible of a mother she was for "neglecting her child" for returning to work after giving birth, and Meghan Markle responded by claiming she, too, understood the pressures of balancing a work life balance. For example, one time, she and Harry went on a vacation to Africa without Archie, and Meghan got extreme separation anxiety. Because those two situations are the same.
- When Mariah Carey mentioned that after her record label executives told her to stop trying to sing in a falsetto, she would practice her falsetto for hours every single day until she had one of the best voices in the industry, and Meghan responded with an anecdote about how she, too, had to audition several times a week before landing her role on Suits. I love Suits, but I know that being an actress on a B-grade television show and being Mariah Carey are not the same thing at all.
- A few months after Meghan and Harry got married, Britian changed its immigration policies. Harry and Meghan tried to convince their audience that the entire country of Britian changed its immigration policies to prevent her from marrying into the Royal Family. As though a.) ANY immigration policy EVER has stopped Americans from immigrating to the UK or vice versa, and b.) there was nothing else at all going on in 2017 that maybe could've played a role in the anti-immigration sentiment. Maybe someone else also rising in popularity, who had a slogan with the words "great again" in it? No...it must've been Meghan and Harry.
Comments
Post a Comment