Making Black Motherhood (In)Visible: The Importance of Race, Gender, and Nation in the Mediation of Meghan Markle on Instagram

Abstract

This article examines Black motherhood within digital media and how the cultural mediation of Meghan Markle’s pregnancy and motherhood online can be understood. In considering the cultural meaning(s) attached to the Duchess of Sussex, this article uses visual semiotic and discourse analyses of @SussexRoyal Instagram posts to examine how the incursion of a Black woman into the British royal family reveals some of the anxieties that circulate around race, gender, and the nation-state in British popular culture. It also examines the ways in which these anxieties are, in part, managed by the illusion of intimacy or access constructed through social media, which obfuscates the bounded division between the British public and the monarchy.

Keywords:

• Black motherhood
• Meghan Markle
• royal culture
• social media

Notes

1 Given that Markle was the most googled person in the United Kingdom in 2018 (Copestake, 2018)—both the year of her wedding to Harry and the announcement of her pregnancy—I contend that the mediation of her within British popular culture is particularly revealing of national interests and perceptions.

2 From the very start of tabloid speculation about Harry dating Meghan, these anxieties can be clearly seen in comments such as “Meghan Markle is something of a departure from Prince Harry’s usual type” (Brennan, Ellicott, & English, 2016); “[Meghan’s] ancestry is a stark contrast to Prince Harry,” and she is “certain to have slave ancestors” from an article titled “Meet the family! How Harry’s American girl’s ancestors were a tailor, a teacher and a cleaner in racially-divided Jim Crow South while his were ruling the British Empire” (Bates, 2016); and “Miss Markle marks a change in Harry’s taste in women, as he tends to go for society blondes” (Hale, Ellicott, & English, 2016). The potential usefulness of the official @SussexRoyal Instagram account as a tool of remediation is also made clear when looking at more positive examples than these, such as the fact that the “official” announcement of Markle’s pregnancy came from Kensington Palace and the official Twitter account of Prince William and Kate Middleton, rather than from Meghan and Harry themselves (The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, 2018).

3 For more on this institutional control, see Clancy and Yelin (2018); for more on the possibilities for reclamation that digital platforms offer, see Sobande (2020).

4 All figures given here, and throughout this article, were correct as of February 25, 2020.

5 Without the presence of Harry as wedded partner, Meghan would have no claim on the Sussex title.

6 The potential withdrawal of this access, because of the nature of Instagram as a platform, could be done through making the account private and thus more closely regulated in terms of who can access it. Equally, this access is contingent upon the kind of content that is chosen for the account: This is a very deliberate form of access which is given.

7 This use of quotstion marks is in stark contrast to all of the other posts which use third-person pronouns to discuss the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, indicating a greater sense of intimacy or direct relationship in this initial post.

8 This is particularly important when thinking about the general understanding and perception of Britain’s colonial history: the TIDE-Runnymede report of July 2019 titled Teaching Migration, Belonging, and Empire in Secondary Schools noted that there is “chronic misunderstanding” of Empire and that the only progression within a curriculum that historically has “implicitly supported the merits of empire and remained evasive on its exploitation or violent realities for colonised people” has been to provide “some opportunities for migration and empire to be taught,” although these remain “optional modules” (Runnymede Trust, 2019, p. 3; emphasis added).

9 For more on this, see Clancy and Yelin (2018).

10 Gilroy’s mention of “the boundary” here ties in with the previous discussion of “the barrier” (seen in Figure 1).

11 The use of flowers here amplifies her femininity and constitutes an attempt to visually recuperate the Duchess of Sussex as an example of normative femininity at a time when the fact of her being pregnant, and thus producing a racialized child into the British royal family, is a cause for potential nationalist anxieties. This resonates with the historic use of flowers as a visual signifier of the womanhood of Black women, from Sojourner Truth to Beyoncé, a form of womanhood historically repudiated by white supremacy.

12 Other examples of the racially charged press coverage of Markle include The Spectator’s discussion of the “unsuitability” of Markle, which included the comment that “Obviously, seventy years ago, Meghan Markle would have been the kind of woman the Prince would have had for a mistress, not a wife” (McDonagh, 2017; emphasis added); Tatler’s (2017) tweet that “it is easier to go out with a foreigner than to find a girl from home with the ‘right’ background” (emphasis added); Daily Mail’s description of Markle as “straight outta Compton” from a “gang-scarred” home (Styles, 2016), the “niggling worry” that their engagement picture caused (Vine, 2017; emphasis added), or exclaiming “Now that’s upwardly mobile! How in 150 years, Meghan Markle’s family went from cotton slaves to royalty” (Wilson, 2017); and the BBC’s discussion of “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: The royal love affair with Africa” (Drury, 2017).

13 For more on Black female bodies having greater value through the production of children, see Roberts (2017), Rousseau (2013), and Hartman (2007).

14 This is part of a larger difficulty with trying to ascertain the particular economic “value” that the British royal family has. For example, when tourists visit attractions connected to the royal family, such as Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, they undoubtedly contribute to the British economy, but it is difficult to separate this out from general tourism to the United Kingdom; in other words, if the royal family were not a factor, the extent to which this economically profitable tourism would be impacted is hard to quantify.

15 The connection between Markle and Diana is one that has been evoked previously: In the official statement made by the Duke of Sussex decrying the treatment of the Duchess of Sussex by the press, Harry draws particular attention to the loss of his mother: “my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces” (The Duke of Sussex, 2019).