Why it’s now fine to love the royals
THE younger set of Windsors certainly have a certain something that their parents lacked, and they sure as hell aren’t letting it go to waste, writes Katy Hall. In a world of gloom, loving them is nothing to be ashamed of.
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LOVE them or hate them, there’s no denying the British Royal Family, and specifically its younger generation, is having a moment.
And no more so than this week.
On Monday, Prince Harry and his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, touched down in Australia to embark on what will be their first official royal tour since marrying in May. Record crowds are expected, full of wellwishers hoping to sight the newlyweds and Meghan’s barely-there baby bump.
Their visit comes days after the wedding of Princess Eugenie to Jack Brooksbank, which a staggering 1.5 million Australians tuned in to watch on Friday evening. Not a bad number for a minor royal ninth in line to the throne.
And earlier this year, when Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge emerged from a London hospital with their third child, Prince Louis, the internet just about collapsed on itself with delight.
From the outside, it’s hard to understand why it is so many of us still love this ramshackle bunch of people who were seemingly thrown together by nothing more than genetic chance and who live a life few of us will ever be able to dream of, let alone understand. And after decades of infighting, toffish behaviour, out-of-touch comments, and toe-sucking, we the people of her Majesty’s commonwealth would be more than within our right to say “thanks, but no thanks”. Yet overwhelmingly, we’re not.
Maybe it’s as simple as pure voyeurism. We like to look in on the lives of young, rich, attractive people going about life. That’s certainly a part of it for many people (if it weren’t, we wouldn’t have the Kardashians), but it’s still not entirely it.
Their real success, it could be argued, is in fact the often overlooked skill they all happen to possess — they are masters of PR.
Unlike their predecessors, who for years republicans looked to as certain to scorch the commonwealth earth irreparably, the younger set seem to be an altogether more professional and personable lot who, rather than rebel against the positions they had no choice of being born into, seem determined to sculpt them into a fulfilling and manageable situation.
Take Prince Harry, for example — who after returning from Afghanistan saw a gap in the community’s care of returned servicemen and women, and created the Invictus Games. Like an Commonwealth Games for veterans, it combines his love of sport and sense of civic duty into something that not only does good for thousands of people around the world, but also serves as a major tourism campaign in and of itself.
The same could be said for Markle’s first endeavour since joining the royals, Together, a cookbook with recipes from women who survived the Grenfell Tower fire that celebrates the diversity and multiculturalism of the United Kingdom. In addition to spruiking a feel good community message into an particularly bleak and isolating period of global history, it’s proved to be incredibly commercially viable.
Hell, the global economy can almost single-handedly thank Meghan, Kate, Prince George and Princess Charlotte for keeping many a fashion label afloat, so popular and guaranteed to sell out is the effect of them wearing a designer’s wares.
Maybe they are ineffective and maybe their power is superficial, but for as long as they make people feel good and use their undeniable power for good, republican or not, we should all be pretty happy with their PR spinning powers, right?
Katy Hall is a RendezView writer and producer.