When Harry Met Meghan
Harry and Meghan's $100m docusoap would seem to have been a win for Netflix, with more than 85 million viewers worldwide.
Image courtesy Wikicommons
Harry and Meghan's $100m docusoap would seem to have been a win for Netflix, with more than 85 million viewers worldwide.
Of course, it has proven to be a very controversial series, but that is what drives the ratings, and what drives the ratings is what is good for Netflix.
There have been innumerable articles written about the series, the accusations, the lies, the incriminations, the expose of racial prejudice in the Royal Family, and God only knows what else.
I would prefer to look at the series purely as a reality show. Having produced many reality TV shows in my life, I looked at it in a slightly different way. As Reality TV, it was brilliant. It ticked all the boxes.
What makes Reality TV work is that, when it works, it captures moments of intimacy. The viewer should feel like they are seeing something that they would not normally get to see. It is the media manifestation of pure voyeurism; that is what grabs your attention and keeps you watching.
The Harry and Meghan show certainly delivered on that score. You, the viewer, are there, privy to their most private, their most intimate, their most 'real' moments. I particularly liked the moment when Harry and Meghan are both working at their laptops, side by side when out of nowhere, a text message comes through from Beyonce.
"Beyonce just texted me," Meghan says. "I didn't even know she knew who I am ," (let alone my phone number).
As a former Reality TV show producer, this is pure gold. This is the kind of stuff you wait for. Well, you don't really wait for it, you script it most of the time. But the secret to making reality TV work is that the viewer should feel like these things just happened and you just happened to be there and caught it. How lucky!
As I watched the Harry and Meghan show, purely from a professional point of view, I came to realize that Harry and Meghan must have had film crews following them all the time, pretty much living in their home with them. The sound is great - so either they are wired for sound, or there is a sound guy with a boom mike over their heads all the time. I am opting for the latter as I don't see them wearing any radio mics. Also, the lighting is always just about perfect, so my guess is that they also lit most of the scenes.
From time to time, you can also see that they used a two-camera shoot for these moments of intimacy and immediacy. Great job Liz Garbus, who directed the series.
When you look even more carefully, you can see that along with the intimate video (or at least the impression of intimate video), there are tons of really beautifully shot and staged (and nicely lit) black and white photos throughout the series. So, they not only had a film crew living with them and following them everywhere, they also had a professional photographer directing their intimate moment shots. Nice!
Well, you can do a lot with $100 million.
What they did, essentially, was produce (and air) an extremely professionally done Royal (at least for the moment) version of the Kardashians. This is Reality TV at its best. But let us be honest. It is not real. It is a TV. It is entertainment. It is manipulative. It is supposed to be. But above all else, it is a TV show.
Let's look at it for what it is, extremely well-produced, extremely well-directed entertainment.
We live in a world awash in entertainment. More and more, we learn about the world through entertainment. Because we watch so much entertainment, we are increasingly unable to distinguish between reality and entertainment. Our world is kind of an amalgam of the two.
In this world of infotainment, Harry and Meghan become actors in their own never-ending TV show. What is real? What is fake? It's hard to tell.
Donald Trump was an outlier in this new world. Did he really believe the stuff he said? It's hard to say, but I think, over time, he also became little more than an actor in his own Docudrama, which, mercifully, has apparently been canceled before it can be renewed for another season.
So enjoy the show. But bear in mind what it is. Entertainment.