Criminally underrated, albeit predictably lauded by critics (such is often the case with a Safdie Bros. production), 2023’s The Curse is the best satirical black-comedy series, maybe ever. Starring Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone as the two most sanctimonious, holier-than-holy, out-of-touch people I’ve ever seen outside of Erewhon, Christopher Nolan called it “Unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” The same can be said about Meghan Markle’s latest Netflix reality show, With Love, Meghan, although Nolan’s comment was coming from a place of admiration.
The premise of The Curse is that Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder move to the small town of Española, New Mexico, in hopes of building entirely self-sustainable homes for the local, largely Mexican, non-English-speaking population. Benny Safdie plays a director paid to document their entire journey as Fielder and Stone hope to become the latest selfless, humanitarian superstars as they transform Española into Greta-Thunberg-World. In one scene, the director tells Fielder to give a young girl selling soda cans in a parking lot some money so that he can film it, thereby showing what an amazing person Fielder is (so candid). The only problem is that Fielder only has a $100 bill on him, so after the camera stops rolling, he asks the girl for the money back. Understandably, she refuses, so after he snatches it back by force, she curses him.
The entire plot can be condensed into the quote by Sigmund Freud: “There’s no such thing as a selfless act,” and thereby points an inquisitive mirror at anyone who’s ever filmed themselves giving a homeless person money: Would you still do it if the cameras weren’t rolling?
So, what does this have to do with Meghan Markle?
Well, after struggling through Meghan Markle’s very “candid” reality show, With Love, Meghan—a show where she laughs and makes honey for several hours alongside her “best friends” in a mansion—the parallels between her latest Netflix venture and The Curse began to dawn on me. As an American transplant who has made the UK his home for a majority of the last decade, I have watched her approval ratings fork into two categories: irritation and hatred from the UK, and complete and utter indifference from the US.
There’s a scene in The Curse when director Doug (Benny Safdie) is showing Whitney (Emma Stone) a scene where she talks about her marriage with Asher (Nathan Fielder), followed by the two of them painting houses and doing virtuous deeds for the local community, smiling and laughing into the camera the whole time. Whitney watches herself on screen in a state of astonished, yet befuddled awe—why is this so boring? Doug explains that there’s no drama, and a show documenting nothing other than showing the world what great people you are isn’t enough to captivate an audience. Doug then suggests that he edit the clip of her talking about her husband to make it seem like she’s criticising him and their marriage. At first, she hesitates, but after he demonstrates how interesting the show suddenly becomes, she relents and agrees to this new, catty direction.
Prince Harry has about as much screen time as a lightbulb in Nosferatu, and one can’t help feel curious if this was a deliberate decision from Meghan to either a) build her own brand devoid of Prince Harry or b) divorce herself from the curious yet often negative questions that follow Harry wherever he goes. After I finished The Curse, I couldn’t help but notice that the only people I met who had an issue with it were the ones who were clearly being mocked on screen—one of the best Rorschach tests of the modern era.
Anyway, back to Meghan (and Harry). The only time they’ve ever made any genuine headlines is when they criticise, lambast, and accuse the royal family of the most heinous crimes imaginable. This media tour of self-pity and accusatory finger-pointing resulted in a bazillion dollar book deal for Harry that proved wildly successful; Meghan’s bazillion dollar Spotify podcast deal, however, was not. Why? Because Harry spent 416 pages describing how horrific his family was/is, whereas Meghan spent endless hours gushing over her best friends like Serena Williams.
Meghan, much like The Curse‘s Whitney, clearly hasn’t understood that masquerading self-promotion as entertainment—in this case, virtue signaling in hopes of achieving fame and admiration—will result in backlash, or worse, indifference. Trying to be as objective as possible, With Love, Meghan, is one of the most insanely out of touch things I have ever seen. It felt like the “real” elements of The Curse were mocking what went on behind the scenes of filming With Love, Meghan. Or like the early days of American Idol where some girl in the audition boasts, “My mom says I sound like Whitney Houston,” and Simon’s like, “You are absolutely dreadful,” and the girl protests in anger and storms off stage. In this situation, Meghan is the girl on stage, Netflix is the adoring mother, and Simon is all of us.
I was reminded of that podcast Barack Obama had with Bruce Springsteen, Renegades: Born in the USA. Upon announcement, it felt like a guaranteed hit, yet it wasn’t. Why? How? Because after public curiosity faded, all that was left was two old, famous rich dudes talking about how cool the other one is. Meghan’s show highlights the wonders of imperfect baking and cooking, as long as your friends are rich and famous and you live in a mansion with your own bee farm. And when Gwenyth Paltrow—whose own cookbook says the best way to make a home pizza is with your own built-in pizza oven—mocks your show, then you know you missed the train of self-awareness long ago.
I once came across an Instagram video of a guy recording himself speaking into the camera as he vroom-vroomed some fancy sports car down the street. Later, the video cuts to him opening his car door for a young, impoverished child and allowing the child to sit behind the wheel before the video cuts to him driving again, filming himself. He concluded his philosophical video by telling the viewer, “Always give back to those who have less, and remember to inspire those around you.” Something tells me that heartwarming clip reached Meghan Markle’s Instagram feed, and she then pitched With Love, Meghan to Netflix the following day.
And if anyone has their own bee farm, please hit me up.
