I'm sorry, with love is meghan is awful

[Tricho]

I tried.

I really did.

But JFC it's absolutely awful.

"Come and watch me make the most basic of crafts while telling me how much you admire me, and I gently patronise you"

Really awful.

But the defining characteristic of trad wife culture is that endeavours and housekeeping are done with the husband/his benefit in mind. Hence the name.

Whereas what Meghan is predominately presenting here is hosting for friends. Yes Harry features, but not very prominently as far as I can see. And he isn't the focus at all.

Equally the kids are not shown.

So I don't think the label is accurate. Someone else described it as a TV version of The Tig, which makes a lot more sense to me.

I don't for a minute think Meghan Markle is a trad wife, however that is the aesthetic of her show, the vibe is very much Trad Wife influencer type, just look at any of their instagram accounts and you will see reels and reels similar to Meghan's show..

That is why a lot of viewers see it as staged, stilted and inauthentic.

She can no longer be an actor because she has become the story

Of course she could still act if she wanted to! Hollywood is full of stars whose private lives have hit the headlines, and it always has been.

Influencer yes, but Trad wife is a distinct subset of that, which doesn't make much sense to me as a comparison point.

I think it's more the American take that people find alienating rather than anything else. The tone is totally different to what the uk are used to.

I do find these observations weird.

I am a working mum with a busy life. My days are hectic. However, despite leading a busy life I do enjoy hosting.

I take pride in elevating my environment with small things such as buying fresh flowers from the local supermarket, table scaping, flower arrangement. Even though my husband does must of the cooking during the week, I do enjoy getting in the kitchen on the weekend and cook a more elaborate meal. It is my love language. Not talking about kids birthdays, Ohh I love organising the little bits(balloons, games, having the other kids and their parents over). I think millions of women have a similar lifestyle to mine. This is just being a multifaceted modern woman that juggles work, kids, home life(not saying that is easy, but I do what I can). I wouldn't define myself as a trad wife. Are women not allowed to be multifaceted now? Very bizarre.

• most

Yes it seems Americans (not all) have a very different taste palate to the UK. They like things super sweet and saccharine whereas we are a more cynical bunch.

The only reason two quite mediocre people have been extremely successful in monetising themselves is because of the royal link, absolutely nothing else. If they had no ties whatsoever to the RF they couln’t possibly have this lifestyle or these platforms by their own merits. She would at best be a jobbing actress and he would be in some kind of manual trade (nothing wrong with either of those professions). We know it, they know it. I don’t see their success in getting rich and super famous as any kind of nod to talent or hard work. Anyway, she has a second series, although not quite the coup it was made out to be yesterday, but its better than nothing for her.

Of course she could still act if she wanted to! Hollywood is full of stars whose private lives have hit the headlines, and it always has been.

Ha, there is no way MM can be compared to Hollywood stars whose private lives have 'hit the headlines'. Unless she was to play herself in The Crown, maybe. What role do you think a casting director would give her? She would totally get in the way of any story, so comprehensively documented has her life - Royal and otherwise - been.

I think she is doomed to inhabit these wilderness years with tat and banality, until such time as she becomes 'ironic' or develops a 'cult' status. A la Macauly Culkin*

Then, she might snag the role of 'matriarch' or 'ex- first wife' or 'straight-talking aunt', or..herself.. in some alternative film directed by Jesse Eisenberg or Noah Baumbach. She is still young enough, her career may yet take off again.

*Edited to add, whose wilderness years were admittedly filled with hard drugs, but you get the gist

Yes we will!

The timing of the “leak” just prior to the Oprah interview was very strange indeed.

The fact that it was leaked in the first place seemed highly convenient!

And Jason Knopf is now a trustee of Earthshot I believe and was given some personal award by the RF; so hardly unbiased!

All this talk of NDAs without any acknowledgment that the RF itself is a closed shop!

The Royal Family themselves often insist on very strict NDAs according to the Business Insider.

And when the periodical went on on the hunt for current employees of the royal family,

“it was difficult to find staff who weren't hesitant to speak up for fear of the palace’s tightly reined press machine.

And also no acknowledgment of their own issues about the way they treat staff?

What about the appalling wages and the chefs having to go on strike?

What about the recruitment agency that went on record saying it was a nightmare to find staff for them?

But no, we ignore all of that, and focus solely on what Meghan has supposedly done!

I do.

Hope that helps?

Also telling me I lost you on the final and most irrelevant sentence of my point isn't the hurtful "Oh no!" You think it is

Good post.

I've read a few reviews and it all sounds a bit too trad wife for me.

I couldn't even look. That crap makes my head explode.

If a woman wants to take on traditional gender roles, that's her business. So long as both partners have discussed it and are in agreement, fair enough. None of my business.

I saw a few videos by that woman called Nara Smith. All talking like you're chained to the underside of the counter and on heavy tranquillisers. Grinding your own flour type stuff while wearing frilly frocks with a face full of slap. If it's anything like that shite, I'd want to pluck my own eyes out and feed them to the dog.

Is it that kind of thing or is the very upper class, "ooh, look. I've invented toast", sort of thing.

If a woman wants to take on traditional gender roles, that's her business. So long as both partners have discussed it and are in agreement, fair enough. None of my business.

If you'd actually watched any of it, you'd see that she's doing this stuff for herself and her friends. So how is that about being a 'trad wife'? If she wants to make cocktails and canapés for people, why is that about gender roles?

Meghans not a trad wife. She’s a woman and mother who works, who likes to spend time with, and host, her friends. That’s not a trad wife.

Nara Smith is a trad wife in that she’s only in her early 20s and has 3 little children already and cooks and makes everything from scratch including toothpaste and sunscreen and little balls of cereal to look like the manufactured stuff but a healthy version. It can take her about an hour to make the cereal and then add milk. She and her husband are Mormon or LDS (and they know and spend time with Hannah Neeleman and her family)
However, Nara Smith is also an in demand international fashion model who wears designer clothes to cook in - Chanel Dior made to measure etc. level of fashion. When Nara started out on Tik Tok she spoke normally but she quickly adopted that flat hushed voice - more soothing or something. I suspect she has a lot of home help as she travels overseas to fashion shows. Her husband was married before. He’s about 26 or 27 I think, and has two children from a previous marriage I read. A comedian named Hannasaur on tok does wonderful impressions of Nara and of her husband Lucky Smith.

Hannah Neeleman is the epitome of trad wife. She’s in her early 30s and has 8 children (and no apparent home help) and does everything including baking her own bread and milking the cow. She is so tired she sometimes has to go to bed for a week because of exhaustion. I found it very disturbing. Her husband is very wealthy and his dad owns an airlines. They promote their farm business on Hannah’s Ballerina Farm website. Also Mormon. She doesn’t do her ballet on social media videos nearly as much as she used to. She looks hollow eyed tired. Last year she was Mrs Americana or something, all dolled up - it’s an old style beauty contest

Trad wives are a thing in Mormon society.

I’ve seen more than one trad wife on Tik Tok sitting in their car crying because their husband has left them - with a horde of kids, and having never been encouraged to work outside the home, they have no marketable skills and are now struggling to feed and house their kids. They were told by their husbands that they would always be looked after.

Trad wives want to pretend they are living in the 1950s.

Meghan is not a trad wife.

Edited to add: there are a growing number of trad wives around where I live. Semi rural. Very into Christian religion, heavy make up and that highly groomed look. Approx nearly 50% marriages end in divorce so these unskilled undereducated women are going to have a shite time when husband leaves for a younger version. It seems to me that a lot of these men don’t value women for anything much - other than their looks and what the women can do to care for their needs and wants.

I've watched only a couple of minutes so far. I'm not going to slam her at all, as I have no feelings either way.
But by God, this is SO American.

You do remember she is American right?

Comments like this make no sense to me.

She is an American living in America, shooting a show in America and yet some of you expect her to be something that she’s not and then would easily be negative if she was more “British” and say she was once again “fake”.

Some of you sound like some of the Americans that you moan about.

I have literally no comprehension of why someone would spend over an hour making cereal balls for their kid's when there's 1000s of other choices that take minutes and are healthier... or hand washing everything in hand made soap when things like washing machines exist... It's fucking insane.

Shocking news just in ... American woman makes a show for American TV for Americans... Early reports are it's so American...!

Well, I'm seeing it being panned by lots of Americans too.

i do like the charity work meghan has done. i also enjoy calming and beautiful "lifestyle content" so was really looking forward to it but i cringed! watched it with my 11 and 14 year old and we couldn't get past how scripted and forced it seemed. great idea but no to the way it was done. not sure we'll watch episode 2, let alone the rest of the season.

Uhmm actually she did with the tig.

Obviously not the kind of platform that a Netflix would provide, but nothing to sneer at.

Had she not met Harry who I'm sure is the love of her life, she would still have been a successful individual ( Hollywood actresses don't need to reach Julia Roberts status) with a successful series in her portfolio, a successful blog, well connected and would probably have snagged another rich husband moving in the type of circle she was moving in.
Meghan is not mediocre and has never been.
She was always going to be more successful and accomplished than many of the people here sneering at her will ever be.

I’m a bit baffled by all this talk of H&M being ‘successful’. Not a single project seems to have gone the distance yet - there’s been a lot of fancy announcements followed by not very much, then another announcement. What have they actually been successful in?

To be fair, I think it depends on the side of the algorithm you are at.
I've seen many enthusiastic reviews of people who have watched and are eager to buy into her brand. Again, what the algorithm pushes depends on the content we choose to consume.

Fair point, @LipglossAlly

I've only watched a clip of it as not my thing, but it looks 'Stepford'. The floral 50s' dresses and all that chintz. Bit creepy really...

@Ionut
@phoenixrosehere

Don't be obtuse. I'm well aware she's American. My point was that this won't go down well with a British audience because it's too - in her words - joyful.
And even though we know she's American, we're not used to seeing such massive doses of it in one show. Unless we're watching the Stepford Wives, perhaps.