Much ado about the royal family’s racism
Live MintFor me the most revelatory moment in the much anticipated Oprah Winfrey interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle did not come from anything Markle or Harry said. Victoria’s friendship with her personal attendant and gillie John Brown had also raised eyebrows but this was worse—Abdul, as the film about them put it, was a “brown John Brown”. In the Stephen Frears’ film version, Victoria is shown as the racially “woke” one, a way for the British audience to feel good about itself. “Imagine a film about slavery in America that shows the ways a whimsical, poetic slave could enliven massuh’s melancholia without addressing the structural reason for the said condition,” writes Qureshi. That the visit of the queen’s grandchildren was front page news in 21st century India, with headlines like “‘WillKat’ Wows Humble And High”, was a little nauseating.