Beyond Meghan and Harry: The Call for a Postcolonial Public Health Approach to Survival and Joy

April Moreno PhD MPA MA

The Media and the Royal Family can be imprisoning, especially if you are a woman of color. Image of palace grounds in the UK somewhere.

The Media and its Damaging Effects.

If you are watching the Netflix series, Meghan and Harry, you may notice a variety of themes taking place. The contrasts of business and family, tradition and hypocrisy, immense wealth and exploitation, financial freedom and lack of peace of mind, a golden cage, lots of love and unexpected betrayal.

You will also hear endless examples of the coldness and cruelty of the media and its unmatched power.

And what I noticed most was the heavy preoccupation of the media and what it is doing to their lives; How it caused them to uproot their lives several times. How it just does all these things to make them miserable. How what the media did caused Meghan to consider suicide. How the stress of media negative and racist bias, of what the media did to her, caused Meghan to miscarry her second child.

There are various implications from their story, from racial justice, to media harms, postcolonial critique and response, and as I see it, public health action.

Postcolonial Being, Survival and Joy.

You might not be familiar with postcolonial studies, as it is not as much of a prominent field of discussion in the United States, as in the UK and various nations impacted by British colonialism.

Postcolonial theory (and discourse) is described by Vijay Mishra as:

“…the critical underside of imperialism, the latter a hegemonic form going back to the beginnings of empire building. In the languages of the colonized – those of the ruling class as well as its subjects – a critical discourse of displacement, enslavement, and exploitation…:”

Postcolonial critiques are also communicated through literature and film, as seen in books such as Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and one that I could never forget, Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, which begins in Southern Rhodesia, a country now located in Zimbabwe.

My first master’s degree was in cultural anthropology from the University of London, where I enrolled in a Postcolonial Studies course. I thoroughly enjoyed this class, hearing some of the first theoretical critiques that I viscerally understood, experienced, and perceived beyond an academic level. Postcolonial studies includes theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, and others. Deepa Mehta’s trilogy on Fire, Water and Earth are examples of postcolonial film.
Whether it’s racism, sexism, ableism or other abusive actions we have yet to put into words, the global impacts of colonization continue to affect all of us in some of the most subconscious and insidious ways that we are all still working to unpack daily.

In the United States, movements such as cultivating Black joy, rest, and self-care have provided spaces for survival and thriving. Making an active decision to embrace healing and self-love are not an option – they are the only option to survive and thrive. These practices include developing strategies, rituals, and spiritual practices to release toxic racism from our bodies.

Perhaps as a chronic illness survivor managing my stress and health moment by moment, I found that there is a point where you have no choice but to literally change your perspective to what is harming you, and to change your perception to survive, or you will not make it through. When you have chronic illness, there is a realization that no one is coming to save us from our problems and make them go away.

The Turning Point.

Meghan and Harry’s sense of helplessness and high attentiveness to what the Daily Mail or other newspapers were doing to them stood out and made me want to turn off the program. I was tired of hearing about what was happening to them, and I wanted to know more about what they were going to do about it.

There are two notable turning points in the story where they made conscious decisions to respond to their circumstances.

The first one is when Meghan experiences thoughts of suicide, feeling trapped by the gaze of the public and the negative portrayals of her actions, (while her royal sister-in-law does the same thing and receives praise in the newspapers). Harry makes the decision here to protect his wife and navigate options to distance from the royal family.
The second is when Meghan experiences a miscarriage and realizes the levels of stress the family is experiencing from media abuse is no longer sustainable or acceptable. (There was actually a third, when Meghan sought legal action against the media for invading her privacy, publishing a private letter to her father, and snooping into other interactions with friends and loved ones.)

But when Meghan and “H” decided to take action and no longer feel imprisoned by the media, it was almost done in a whisper. The decision and the process of change was extremely muted, but was probably the most important part of the entire documentary, from a social justice standpoint. We just saw the results of this transformation.

Recreating, Taking Over, Taking Space, and Reclaiming Your Power.

Though I don’t understand the full details of their transformation, apparently, they were now freer, if not free. The sun was shinier, they were now able to play with their dogs and kids in their beautiful backyard moments in their incredible Montecito home with oak landscapes, ocean views, and grassy hills. Their perfectly beautiful and spacious Mediterranean home was no longer a backdrop for the mental cage they had lived in.

I believe they decided not to be victims of the media any longer, but to find ways to create their own media, or at least hire their own PR. I mean, they are friends with Tyler Perry, Oprah, and even Beyonce supported them. Being some of the most known people in the world, with connections to others of high profile and clearly, high financial means, it’s beyond time to leverage the celebrity status to transform the challenges they faced.

One of the most powerful parts of the turning point is about literally turning a traumatic event into a learning experience of self-transformation and service to help others experiencing similar challenges.

There is a phrase I have heard that used to irritate me, until I understood its life-giving necessity: Make it a good day. There is also another phrase I want to mention that puzzled me, from cancer survivors. I’ve heard a few people say that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them.

As a human being, you have the right to exercise your power to survive, thrive and live with radical, transformative, healing, and restorative joy.

Concluding.

So why do I even care about this series and what does it have to do with public health?

With the millions of pandemic deaths in the United States alone, we are very familiar with the harms of the media. We were and still remain audience to misinformation, disinformation, and missing information.

The Public Health Podcast Network is our approach to being part of the solution. Sharing health information, addressing health equity needs, serving community health with conscience, and supporting the public health workforce.

If we are not devastated by our challenges, we can learn from them and use them for good. We can help others to overcome their challenges. I believe that this is what our difficulties are here to do.