Can the Royal Family Withstand Oprah’s Scrutiny?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2021
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan and Harry, the Duchess and Duke of Sussex, was riveting celebrity television, but it may also be a significant turning point in the history of the British royal family. Revelations about racism and about Meghan’s struggles with mental health are already reshaping public perception of the powerful institution. The interview also touched on racism and mental health, issues that are familiar to many families. “In the future, we will look to this interview as a real touchstone marking the change of who it is we see as authorities of their own experience,” says Doreen St. Félix. In conversation with St. Félix and the eminent historian Simon Schama, the author of a three-volume history of Britain, David Remnick discusses how the interview plays into culture wars in the U.K. and in American.
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| 1:10.9 | This is the Politics and More podcast. I'm David Remnick. |
| 1:16.2 | All week long, we've been talking about the interview, capital I, the interview, Megan |
| 1:21.8 | Markle, and Prince Harry, sitting down with Oprah Winfrey. That interview turned out to be something maybe weightier than |
| 1:29.7 | we had any reason to expect, and we're still talking about it today, because this drama in the |
| 1:35.0 | House of Windsor grappled with everything from mental health issues to racism to the most enduring |
| 1:40.8 | institution in the United Kingdom. So I called up two wonderful writers who have engaged with these questions to talk about it. |
| 1:48.8 | The historian Simon Shammell, who will join us in a moment, and staff writer Doreen St. Felix. |
| 1:54.5 | Doreen, so I've got to admit that we were texting a little bit during that interview, |
| 1:59.7 | and I thought the headline was going to be, you know, Kate made me cry or something like that. |
| 2:06.4 | I had no idea that this interview was going to be as dramatic and in some way, as important as it turned out to be. |
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