Figuring Out How To Feel About 'With Love, Meghan'

Culture Study Podcast

Anne Helen Petersen

Fashion & Beauty, Society & Culture, Arts

4.6 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When With Love, Meghan — the Netflix lifestyle show starring Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex — first came out, I knew the only way I wanted to even touch that discourse was by talking about the show, as a show. How does it conform to or reject our understanding of what a lifestyle program should look it? What’s Meghan’s twist? And what’s going on with the (predictably) weird way I knew people would respond to it?

Luckily, Lilah Raptopolous — cohost of one of our most popular episodes ever, on figuring out what to make in the world of infinite recipes — wanted to talk about all the same stuff. Namely: is this an aspirational show? A relatable one? Does it have to be one or other other? Why did Netflix make such weird editing choices? How do we balance a protective impulse of Meghan, given all the very real sh*t she’s endured, with an understanding that some of the decisions on this show are just odd?

Lilah, Melody, and I tried to be really thoughtful in the way that we approached this discussion — and I think you’ll hear that in episode. (In many ways, a podcast is the perfect place to have this sort of complicated, dynamic discussion). With that said: if you’re not in the mood to hear analysis of some of the show’s shortcomings, this might not be the episode for you. But if you want to sort through your own feelings (or just want to hear us sort ours!), I think this episode’s pretty great — in large part because your questions were so layered and good.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Ollie. Dogs deserve the best, and that means fresh, healthy food. Head to Ollie.com/CULTURE, tell them all about your dog, and use code CULTURE to get 60% off your Welcome Kit when you subscribe today! Plus, they offer a Clean Bowl Guarantee on the first box, so if you’re not completely satisfied, you’ll get your money back.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I don't think anyone in the world knows that Megan Markle has eaten Jack in the Box and loves it.
0:05.0	It's so funny too that you keep saying Megan Markle, you know I'm Sussex now. You have kids and you go, no, I share my name with my children.
0:13.0	Yes. And that feels so, I didn't know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go, this is our family name, our little family name.
0:24.2	Well, now I know, and I love it.
0:32.0	This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
0:35.8	And I'm Lila Raptopoulos. I'm a culture journalist at the
0:39.2	Financial Times. I'm the U.S. editor of F.T. Globetrotter. We publish cultural guides to cities
0:44.2	around the world. And I have a special interest in how cultural memory gets passed down through
0:49.9	taste and through food. We should also note that you were our co-host on one of our most popular
0:55.2	episodes, if people haven't listened to it yet. It's all about recipes, the problem of too
1:00.9	many recipes, but also passing down recipes. It's such like a broad, expansive topic that
1:08.3	we somehow managed to get really fantastic questions about and people just
1:11.8	love this episode. So that's part of the reason we wanted you to come back. Also, you had been
1:16.4	posting a lot on your Instagram about watching with love Megan. So we're talking about
1:22.6	this show today. It's a cooking show slash crafting show slash aspirational lifestyle,
1:29.5	slash we want to know something about the woman who is married into the royal family.
1:36.4	And we decided to do the show because you were posting about it in your Instagram stories,
1:40.7	but also you were getting a ton of responses from other people who were also watching
1:44.2	it. Yes. And what were the takes that you were hearing from other people? Great question. First of all,
1:51.7	I'm so thrilled to be back to be talking about this. I have so many thoughts about it. And you know,
1:57.2	when you're so, when you have so many thoughts about it that you want to like like, say them all at the same time and you also kind of want to lie down.
2:03.4	Like you just can't get it all out.
	...

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