‘Calling someone crazy or hysterical completely dismisses their experience,’ says Meghan Markle in her strangely throaty professional podcast voice. ‘It minimises what they’re feeling. And you know it doesn’t stop there. It keeps going to the point where anyone who has been labelled it enough times can be gaslit into thinking that they’re actually unwell. Or sometimes worse to the point where real issues of all kinds get ignored. Well that’s not happening today.’
Cue the intro music – ‘I am woman, I am fearless, I am sexy’ etc. – to the latest episode of Archetypes, the Duchess of Sussex’s Spotify series.
‘I feel pretty strongly about this word crazy,’ says Meghan. She does. As usual there are about nine minutes of over-edited blather and loosely connected etymological observations – the word ‘hysteria’ comes from the Greek word ‘womb’, didn’t you know? – before Meghan starts a conversation with one of her guests. First up is the actress Constance Wu, who is famous for playing the lead in Crazy Rich Asians (although the use of the word ‘crazy’ in that context isn’t discussed, which is odd.)
Meghan talks briefly about having been an actress, too – her ‘past life,’ she says twice, in a slightly, er, manic way.
It’s perhaps facile to point out that the ‘crazy’ Archetypes episode is crazy. But it is.
Wu has a memoir out, Making a Scene – ‘we’re taught that ladies don’t make scenes!’ She starts crying as she talks about being sexually abused and trying to end her life. Listeners by now understand why, at the beginning of the show, Meghan said that they should ‘tune out’ if the content gets too much.
Wu berates herself for crying. ‘Why do I still cry about this?’ she says. ‘Because this is part of your healing process!’ interjects Meghan, the wise hen. ‘If you weren’t crying, I would be worried.’
She pivots effortlessly back to herself: ‘I would love to cry this much. But I’m conditioned to still have a different kind of composure.’
‘I want to feel so deeply it’s like an Adele album,’ she adds. Which is an archetypal Archetypes remark.
Wu is gently despatched and the conversation moves on to the ‘huge, real problem’ of ‘medical gaslighting’. Meghan brings on an ‘expert, someone who I have tremendous respect for’: Dr Nadine Burke Harris, the former Surgeon General of California. Meghan reveals that Nadine, a friend, once sent her a Christmas present of essential oil from her home which came in a mesh, paper bedding. ‘In the card, she said: “I just want you to know that to make that mesh and that bedding for the gift I shredded tabloids because that’s all they’re good for.”’
Nothing crazy about that! Nadine then explains that women aren’t taken seriously when they report medical symptoms and, worse, they then internalise ‘the societal mistrust of women’s emotions.’ This, says Nadine, ‘leads us to mistrust our own voices.’ Trust is a big theme of the episode.
It’s perhaps facile to point out that the ‘crazy’ Archetypes episode is crazy. But it is. Barking mad, in parts. Meghan’s self-absorption is dizzying. The subtext of every female story ends up actually being Meghan’s own struggles. You just have to listen. Or not, if the subject gets too ‘heavy’ for you.
Meghan’s last guest is Deepika Padukone – who, the Duchess patiently explains, ‘may not be a household name all over the world … [but] she is one of the most famous actresses in all of Bollywood.’
Deepika talks rather candidly about her mental health difficulties only for Meghan to chip in helpfully about herself again: ‘At my worst point, being finally connected to someone that – you know, my husband had found a referral for me to call – and I called this woman. She didn’t even know I was even calling her. And she was checking out at the grocery store. I could hear the little “beep, beep”… and I was like “hi” and introducing myself.’
The podcast sound engineering team at this point add a little supermarket checkout beeping noise in the background, in case the listener cannot imagine this scene of a therapist in a shop being rung by Meghan Markle.
Meghan ends by reading a poem, Breathe by Becky Hemsley, and signs off with ‘as ever, I’m Meghan. And I can’t wait to be with you next week.’ Cue the Exit Music – ‘I am woman, I am fearless, I am sexy …’ – as another woman reads out the credits: ‘Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, is our executive producer.’
The slightly delirious listener can’t help wondering: who is gaslighting whom, here?
