America Not Buying This Royal Wedding Hype

You can’t turn on any Comcast/Universal/NBC outlet without being reminded of “America’s love affair with This Is Us”. An interesting appropriation of the collective approval process. If they mean that about six million out of the nation’s 250 million adults watch the tearjerker, then yes, love affair confirmed.

Equal entertainment media exaggeration is being applied to the public announcement of the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Companies looking for watchable winter content are desperately trying to turn the coupling into a major something between now and the wedding in May. Good luck finding anybody you know who earnestly claims they give a shit.

Prince Harry isn’t really a Prince. He’s sixth in line to the idiotic throne of a country that is equal parts stuck in the past and mired in Islamist PC surrender. He’s never seeing the throne. He’s a figurehead for second tier galas and charity fundraisers. Like being Vice-President for the rest of your life. Markle is on a lawyer show on the USA Network watched by even less people than This Is Us. Nobody heard of her before Harry felt his loins exploded in her presence and began sending her his dead mother’s jewelry. Even so, she’s quitting her TV gig to focus on being a royal wife. Also, she’s been married before. 

America did at one time find a way to connect with Princess Diana. She was from extreme privilege, but she was framed as a relatable young outsider forced into marital servitude with the older frumpy dude with giant ears. There was a rooting interest. Mostly for Charles to die horribly. Americans expect our idle rich to at least be involved in disturbing scandals. Nobody likes a wealthy polite guy raised in cotillion classes. A completely restrained and genteel Harvey Weinstein doesn’t move copies.

We fought a revolution to distance ourselves from blue bloods. Even though historical revisionism now paints that era as merely another of America’s imperial blood thirst and patriarchal racist oppression, we did win. Don’t believe the hype. There are more pending magazine covers about this couple than there are people in the U.S. who give a damn. The Brits care. Something to divert attention from their impending beheadings.

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