--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know it's a little early, but I've already figured out my Halloween costume. I'm going to be a mattress. I'll probably get the costume at Mattress Firm, because right now if you go to mattressfirm.com slash podcast and use the coupon code podcast10, you can get 10% off a mattress. That offer lasts until June 5th, but I won't need the mattress until October. Call your mother. It's time you had the talk.
--:-- [Sound of a phone ringing]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hope she picks up. Hope the call's not dropped. But you... Hello? Hey, Mom! What are you doing Saturday? Nothing. You sure? I think so. You're not gonna... Are you gonna watch anything on TV? Wedding! Of course, I'm watching at 1 o'clock in the morning. Does that mean you're waking up or you're not going to sleep? I'm not going to sleep, I guess. And how long is it? How much are you committing here? You're starting at 1. What time are you out of this thing? It's supposed to be 7 hours. What? Oh, my God. Yeah, of course. How many royal weddings have you watched? Diane and Charles, William, maybe Prince Charles a little bit, the second one. And, of course, Harry. Why do you watch these things?
--:-- Mom: Well, my mom was a very... She followed the royal family and those two kids are only one year older to you and you. So you feel some sort of connection to those boys? Yes. So you mentioned my grandmother. Yeah. But, like, this was in Colonial Salon, right? Before Salon became Sri Lanka? Mm-hmm. So does that mean that you had, like, a positive view of your colonial overlords and your mom did too? It depends. Some things, yes, because they built schools, they educated the people, but they stole a lot of stuff from our countries too. But you don't mind? You're still going to watch this wedding? You're not going to protest it? What's the point? It happened long ago. I don't know. I don't think you convinced me to watch this. I might just watch Atlanta instead. Well, why do you think all these millions of people are watching it all over the world. Why don't you ask somebody else why they're watching it? Do your job. Do some research. Thanks, Mom. You're welcome.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kristen Meinzer, host of the When Meghan Met Harry podcast. We like to call it the Royal Wedding Cast. My apologies. I am going to say the first thing on the show that will upset my mother, which is I'm not really sure why this royal wedding is such a big deal.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: I've heard this before. You have? I have heard this before. I thought it was the only one. It is a huge deal. It is? This is the most important wedding of all our lives. And I'm saying this as somebody who got married a couple years ago and it was a great wedding, but this is big. You've heard of the key players? In this corner, the bride from Los Angeles, California. She's 36 years old, 5'7 with brown hair, a Northwestern grad with a degree in theater and international studies. She played Rachel Zane on the legal drama Suits. Megan the Sparkle Markle! And in this corner, the groom. Born in London, he's 33 years old, 6'1", with red hair, red beard. He's an Eaton grad, an athlete, and a former air controller in Afghanistan. You can call him Henry. You can call him Harry. But either way, he's the Prince of Wales.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We have Meghan Markle, an American mixed race, divorced woman marrying into the royal family, a bunch of people who've been inbred for 1300 years. We have the greatest reality show in human history and they're going to bring it together. But then she becomes like a member of like the British ruling class. And like, is that exciting for any reason? Is it really the ruling class or is this the case of her joining the greatest PR firm that the UK has ever had? Is that what it is?
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: I mean, they're the number one tourism attraction in the UK and they really promote an identity that is Britishness. And now for the first time, this British identity includes somebody who looks a little bit more like me and you, Sean, a little bit more like the people that they go and claim as their commonwealth. You're ours now. We're putting a flag in this land. But none of you are allowed in the castle. Now somebody's allowed in the castle who's got a little bit more melanin like me and you. And I think that's a fantastic thing. And I hope you're not alone in thinking that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, I'm not alone. This weekend, Lifetime Television premiered Harry and Meghan. Are you familiar with this made-for-TV movie? What am I supposed to do? Never have fun? Peter Pan can't stay in Neverland forever. The marriage isn't so bad. There goes my heart. I'm Megan. She makes me happy, so to hell with tradition. She's a little concern. I need you to hold me tonight.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: If you saw the Twittersphere exploding over the weekend when this was on and you saw the number of people who identify as black tweeting to quote one of the people who was tweeting me black Twitter is all over this Kristen You're not alone. I love that people who weren't interested in the royals at all before suddenly feel that they're included in this story because, again, somebody is entering the firm who looks a little bit more like them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're saying basically that this is the first inclusive-ish royal wedding. Well, yes, because in the past there have been people who may be a little bit mixed race. There was a queen named Charlotte hundreds of years ago, and they tried to cover it up. But whoever's actually been in line for the throne, who's been publicly getting married and out there for the world to see, It's mostly been marrying their cousins.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: Are we sure that Harry and Meghan Markle are not related? They are related, but it goes back about, I don't know, 5,000 years or something. Okay, fair. There's all these family trees. One member of his family, actually, I believe, was in charge of assassinating one of the members of her ancestry, actually. Really? Yeah. Does he know that? Yeah. Have you told him that? It was a long time ago. What if you told him that and they called the wedding off? Let bygones be bygones. You don't want to call the wedding off. No, this is love. This is the greatest thing that is happening this year or possibly in our lifetimes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Maybe the way to convince me here is to, like, tell me a little bit more about her parents. I know a ton about Prince Harry's parents, but who are Meghan's parents? What do they do? Her dad is Thomas Markle. He is white. He's an Emmy Award-winning lighting designer, most notably on Married with Children. And her mother is black, and she is a licensed social worker and also a yoga instructor.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: Megan's parents did not stay married when she was young. They divorced, but she spent quite a bit of time with both parents, and she's described both as incredibly loving and supportive. And Doria and Megan are both very open about the fact that they deal with racism. Sometimes people think Megan doesn't look, quote, really black. And so because of her racial ambiguity, some of the shows she stars in, they actually will cast two white people to play her parents. She told Elle magazine that while in class, she was asked to check a box for the census, Caucasian or black. She wrote, my teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. Because that's how you look, Megan. Markle refused. She obviously knows what racism is. She has talked frankly about her mom being called the N-word, and, you know, she's the descendant of slaves. She is somebody who thinks it's important to acknowledge, and she's proud of her racial identity. She's not trying to hide it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, at the end of the day, I'm really just proud of who I am and where I come from, and we have never put any focus on that. We've just focused on who we are as a couple. Is there something about Harry being the youngest that kind of allows him to sort of break the rules a little bit? Because it feels like he is breaking some rules there, right?
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: Yeah, I mean, we all know the term the heir and the spare, right? He's the spare. What's the heir and the spare? Oh, you don't know that term? I think I might be the heir in my family, though. So Wills is heir to the throne. Yeah. And Wills and Kate now have three children. Right. And those children are heirs to the throne now, too. And so Harry, as the spare, he's not really ever going to be king at this point. But he's still part of the PR firm for the UK. And this wedding, I know there are a lot of naysayers saying, this is a waste of tax dollars. Why is there so much hullabaloo around this wedding? But this wedding is going to bring in half a billion pounds in tourist revenue to the UK, according to Travel and Leisure magazine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Wow. On top of that, they're using their wedding as a way to publicize causes they care about. Instead of gifts, they've asked that all the well-wishers send donations to certain causes that are important to them, humanitarian causes, environmental causes. And they're using this wedding also as an opportunity to showcase their own commitment to these causes. For example, their wedding flowers aren't going to be from the family gardens. They're going to be seasonable and they're going to be sustainable. They want to send an environmental message to the world with their wedding.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: You're selling me on this. Am I? Yeah. Oh, my God. You are. If nothing else, Sean, if not for the fact of race and class and transcending national borders, if nothing else, it's just fun to celebrate love, isn't it? No, you're not selling me on it now. You don't like to celebrate love? Take a couple steps back. You were selling me on it when you said they were using it to champion their causes and things were going to be relatively sustainable and they're making a big point of that. This I like. You don't like love? I mean love is fleeting. Oh, love is everything. Love is the most important thing, isn't it? I know, but it's also fleeting. I think that love is something we should all cheer for. And if nothing else, we can at least have fun with this moment. Have fun with the Lifetime movie. Have fun with the paper dolls and the coloring books. Have fun with all of the quickly written novels and short stories and biographies and the documentaries that were thrown together in 15 minutes. Have fun with all of this. It a great moment just to smile and laugh at and enjoy and be part of the big party and the celebration
--:-- [Sound of a phone ringing]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hey, welcome to the middle of this episode of Today Explained. I want to tell you about a few things. First off, mattresses. They make sleeping better. Mattress Firm has a lot of them, firm or otherwise. If you live in America, there may very well be a mattress firm near you. If you don't, you can check out the website just for kicks. It's mattressfirm.com. If you make a purchase there, use the discount code podcast10 before June 5th for an extra 10% off.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: The show is oftentimes about politics, but we obviously cover some other stuff too. But one of the best all-time politics podcasts around is the Political Gab Fest. The people over there at that show practically invented the political podcast, to be honest. Political Gab Fest dissects everything from the Mueller investigation to the big cases currently facing the Supreme Court, to the future of public unions and sexual harassment in Congress. And contrary to the title, the Political Gab Fest does a lot more than gab. The three hosts are veteran journalists, Emily Bazelon with the New York Times Magazine David Plotz of Atlas Obscura and John Dickerson of CBS This Morning and The Atlantic They're funny, real, super smart people Subscribe to the Political Gap Fest wherever you get your podcasts and you'll automatically get your episodes every Thursday
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It hasn't all been fun. There have been, I think, some really nasty things written about Meghan Markle in the British press. Can we talk a bit about that? Yeah, it's been horrible. Let's go down the list. What are all of the things that have been said about her? A lot of racist things. There have been sexist things said. Princess Michael of Kent at one point was photographed wearing like a blackface sort of brooch. A Blackamore brooch. It has a history of going back hundreds of years that these were made. The problem with them is that they sort of fetishize African people, and it also represents subservience and slavery is basically what these images are.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: One of the most inflammatory headlines that the Daily Mail published was, I think, straight out of Compton. The Daily Mail said that Meghan is almost straight out of Compton. She isn't. She actually went to a private school in Hollywood, but she's black. She's on the West Coast, so she must be in NWA. The idea of depicting her as essentially a gangster is, you know, it was clearly about her race. Eventually, all of the negative attention and all of the racism, Harry spoke out about. His office issued an unprecedented rebuke. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subjected to a wave of abuse and harassment, a smear on the front page of a national newspaper, the racial undertones of comment pieces and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls. This is not a game. It is her life and his.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He said, it's not your place to be attacking her just because I love her. What about classism? Has that factored in at all in the British press? Oh, absolutely. But the classism frequently feels as though it's really just racism, actually, the way things are being worded. The Brits do subtle racism. It's not the N-word. It's in code. They say, meet the in-laws, the very unroyal Markle family. When they say unroyal, they really mean unwhite. They also talk about how Meghan's parents are divorced and she comes from a broken family. You know who else comes from a broken family? Prince Harry! She's not as refined. She doesn't have the sophistication of other princesses. She doesn't look quite the part. We all know what that means.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: The idea of marriage and seeing a woman in this white gown and symbolizing virginity and purity and the fact that she's been divorced, how is that factored into all this? I'm just going to school you on something here, Sean. The white dress has never been about purity. Is that true? The white dress is about class. And it's a way to show that you can have a really nice outfit that you can afford to only wear once. And the person who really popularized that was Queen Victoria. And having a beautiful white lacy dress was something that she could celebrate her own wedding to Prince Albert in. It was not about being a virgin. It was about having a really nice outfit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Meghan eventually got divorced. That's not without controversy, right? I mean, obviously there's a history in the British family of having some issues with divorced people. Prince Charles was not able to marry Camilla, who he really wanted to all along. He ended up with Princess Di because his mom didn't want him to marry a divorced person. Of course, we all know about Prince Edward and Wallace Simpson and how he had to abdicate the throne back when he was dating a twice-divorced American woman back in the day.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: I mean, the queen is coming around. She knows that sometimes people get divorced. She got to marry who she wanted to. She married her cousin. You know, she loved Philip. She thought he was a fox. She was totally into him. Why not let her kids and grandkids marry who they're super into, like she got to?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After Prince Harry spoke out against the way the press in the UK had been treating his now fiancée, has the UK since sort of coalesced around this event? I don't know if I would say there's full on unity. Of course, there are always going to be the naysayers who don't realize how much revenue is coming into the country because of tourism who see this as a waste of tax dollars who see the queen as a useless figurehead who has a ton of money and lives in a castle. And I understand where they're coming from, but I think that, you know, this is bringing in so much money, and this is the biggest PR firm for Britishness in the world. Just enjoy the moment.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: How are you going to enjoy it? I'm going to be there. You're going? Yes, I am. Oh my gosh. I'm just looking forward to watching that carriage go by and to cheer and maybe cry a little bit, to clap and to be with the masses in the streets. I have three different fascinators picked out. I have a few different outfits. Sorry, three different what?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's not quite a hat. It's a fascinating little head accessory that you wear on your head if you're a lady. And fascinators are considered appropriate for this wedding. During the daytime, you will wear tiaras at night. Night if you're at the evening reception.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got to get into this hat thing. For an upper class British wedding, you wear a fascinator during the daytime if you're a woman. Okay. A tiara only if you're the bride. Okay. You're not going to wear a tiara if you're one of the guests or standing in the streets like me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Some other rules of decorum with the British royals, their weddings are always in the daytime or the morning. So the wedding is going to be followed by a wedding breakfast, it's called, which is more like a brunch in the U.S. And then there's a break and then there's the evening reception.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: Are American dignitaries going? I know the Obamas are close to the royal family. Yes, but unfortunately, they are not going to be at the wedding, supposedly because if they were invited, then Harry and Meghan would feel compelled to invite the Trumps. And they do not like the Trumps. Megan has talked openly about not liking the Trumps. Who else might make an appearance at this thing? There are rumors that George and Amal Clooney might be there, which would be fantastic. The Spice Girls may or may not be there. Elton John probably is going to be there. It's going to be fun to see all the celebrities. It's going to be this wonderful mixture of royalty and Hollywood all in one place. So that's exciting.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They're going to get married in a church, right? Yes. St. George's. And that's the Church of England? It is a Church of England. And Meghan actually converted to the Church of England. And the church took her even though she had been divorced. They took her in. They took her in and they love her and they're embracing her. But the wedding will also include a bishop from the Episcopalian Church in the U.S. Why is that? Because this is a multicultural affair for the world. It's not just for the queen. It's for the world. And there's going to be a gospel choir. There's going to be a gospel choir? Yes. This is a huge international event that's mixing of cultures, mixing of traditions. It's going to be the greatest day ever, Sean.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: How many people do we think around the world will be watching this? At least two billion. Wow. Yes. Wow. And how does that compare to like the Olympics or... It's going to be the most watched event in human history. Shut the front door. It is the biggest media event in world history.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You saved that for the end? You didn't realize it? I'm just heartbroken that you just went in to all of this not knowing that. I didn't know that. Everybody in the Commonwealth, plus people not in the Commonwealth, all over the U.S., everyone is going to be watching this. Everybody. And just to be sure, she's never going to be Queen of England, right? She will not be Queen of England. A lot of people would have to die tragically for that to happen. Like how many people? What's the running list? So Charles would have to die. Then Wills would have to die. And then George and then Charlotte and Louis, they'd all have to die. And this is why Prince Harry is the spare, not the heir. Correct. Because like seven people would have to die. A lot of people would have to die. For him to become king. He's not going to be king. She's not going to be queen unless something very tragic happens. Well, let's hope that doesn't happen. No, we hope not. It's weird to be rooting against them being king and queen of the United Kingdom. I think they're going to be the king and queen of everyone's hearts though.
--:-- Kristen Meinzer: Kristen Meinzer, host of the When Meghan Met Harry. Royal wedding cast. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Sean. Thank you. Thanks for listening to another week of Today Explained. It's our third month of shows. Thank you for all your support. And thanks to Mattress Firm for its support too. You can go to mattressfirm.com slash podcast and get 10% off a mattress using the discount code podcast10 before June 5th. Enjoy your weekend.
