Meghan at glitzy launch party

[Twistybrancher]

Meghan in LA this week at some fancy launch party. Think these are her friends who own a high end salon.

The wavy hair has made a return, I’m guessing this is the new look she’s going for, for the rebrand. Jury is out out for that particular style- mid parting, flat waves. Thinks she suits a side part, with full waves. But hey!

Personally I like the paired down eye make up look. I always thought the heavy lashes and dark shadows were a bit much for royal duties (I feel Kates is far too heavy on the smokey eye too!)

But it sure does make her look different. I do think ita just make up and not surgery…but other posters are better at spotting these things.

Harry not there. They are her friends, so no real reason but when it’s a social event, doesn’t look great that they aren’t together….again

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14090659/Meghan-Markle-dances-friends-glamorous-launch-party-Los-Angeles-without-husband-Prince-Harry.html

I’d be really shocked if the show does good numbers tbh

I'm not disputing that, Floofpaws. So I don't know where your "no" comes from.

I'm just saying that Drizzle would have been in early pregnancy, not late pregnancy. She would have been no use to Harry had she passed the sixth month of gestation, is my guess.

I am agreeing that Harry rode her against express advice/instructions not to.

I am just saying that saying the use of the term "heavily pregnant" may be slightly exaggerated. For effect.

Thank you @hepsitemiz for your detailed explanation. I know less than zero about the Way of Horse and was literally just going off posts made in recent days by animal rights activists and animal lovers about the Polo trailer. I had also previously heard rumours about Harry's track record of cruelty, in this instance and others.

Thank you also @jouxlake for explaining about what Peta have to say about Polo. From what I can glean from the trailer, the main characters in the show live in UAE and Southern US, with one man flying to Argentina twice a week for the sport. So what you say about hot temperatures makes sense.

Completely alien world to me - I'll stick to city living and PR I think! The biggest animals round my way are urban foxes all fattened up on KFC and McDonalds remnants lol. Speaking of PR, it does seem as though Netflix have potentially got a bit of a reputation-destroyer on their hands. @OneTealSloth your question about why polo is even allowed to continue is an excellent one. I think as with so many things, the lives of the uber-privileged are carried on at a level totally above and beyond ordinary people. Harry certainly adores the game and I have no doubt will want to present it in the best possible light; we'll find out.

But ironically, the sport he adores may well shrivel under the heat of the public outrage which this documentary may bring. The public discourse around Harry is about to get....interesting, I think.

@OneTealSloth - you're very combative- can't see the wood for the trees or are you particularly fond of animal abusers? Even someone as stupid as Harry should know polo is too much for a pregnant pony, it's hard enough for the top polo ponies, the body is not the same during pregnancy

Having learned what I know now about the animal cruelty in polo, I'm more surprised than ever that Netflix went ahead with it. It really doesn't fit with their overall stated corporate values

@GiveMeSpanakopita I know little about horses and even less about polo so wasn't aware of this, but many have wondered if Netflix are merely fulfilling what remains of their contract

If that's true, maybe they're not so bothered about a programme which few expect many to watch, and they'd have been hard pressed to find anything else since the RF tattle thing's busted, ARO isn't ready and various other "initiatives" have come to little or nothing

Am I the only person who thinks "very unserious people" sounds positively Trumpian?

I don't think anyone is "pretending" to care about animal cruelty.

There's a reason why neither Polo, nor Jump have been dramatised, and IIRC Riders was sanitised.

Yes, there is a cognitive dissonance in the horsy community. That won't extend to the general public

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies ‘serious person’ is something I hear Rory Stewart say quite a bit on his podcast. I’ve often wondered what it means- clever, studious, contemplative? It’s a new descriptor but I think becoming common by those with a gentle sense of superiority.

I obviously don't know the terms of the contract with NF but normally the network/platform will want to retain a lot of creative veto power - especially they can refuse to platform something that they think might damage them reputationally. I appreciate that when H+M signed the deal, their brand value and public goodwill in general was far higher than it is now, but even so I would be flabbergasted if they had been able to dictate terms to such an extent that they didn't have even this get-out clause. So no I don't think NF is unwillingly fulfilling a contractual obligation. If they're platforming it, it's because they think it has at least a chance of doing numbers.

I won't be watching Polo (like most of us here, I don't have enough me-time to watch all the stuff I WANT to watch, ain't no time for idle spectatorship here!) but I'll definitely be following the public discourse around it, as I'm professionally interested in how H+M will respond to the criticism they're going to get.

It was still very possible to continue to support and admire H+M when they confined their criticism to their respective families - many think the RF deserves criticism, and I suppose it was just about possible to excuse Meghan's treatment of her father by saying that he deserved it because he's a horrible person (for obscure reasons I've never really been bothered to parse out, but that's what online Meg Stans say anyway). It's a completely different ball game when the cruelty is aimed at innocent animals, and much, much harder to construct plausible-sounding excuses for it..

Both H+M seem to really take criticism personally and Harry in particular seems to struggle with it - I've heard rumour that he was apparently shocked and upset by the derision with which Spare was met in the US, and couldn't understand why all the liberal late night talk show hosts were mocking him in their skits. That, apparently, is the chief reason why he refused to agree to an updated version for the paperback which came out recently and is currently languishing in the charts (well, that and the fact that he's now apparently regretting some of the things he wrote about his brother and sister-in-law, and fears he may have gone a tad too far). So it'll be fascinating for me from a professional perspective to see how they respond to the backlash once Polo is aired. (Of course, the best thing they could do would be to ignore it.)

In my experience (which is only one experience), 'serious person' is a phrase used by posh people and it means 'a person I want to suck up to for career advancement reasons'.

'Unserious person' is common now online and as far as I can tell it means 'person whose argument I can't/won't engage with, but I still want to dismiss them, but also I want to sound cool and unbothered whilst I'm doing it'.

Sounds reasonable about the Netflix contract, @GiveMeSpanakopita, and not being a media contract specialist I could easily have been wrong

I'm still surprised they chose this particular topic though, but then as I mentioned what else is there?

I heard a rumour, I read…it’s funny how these things always suit what folks wish H&M are feeling. Any regrets about his book could have been updated in the paperback, he kept it all and that says enough.

I do think they should have pivoted to scripted content when the contracted started out. A hit show or movie would have been nice.

@GiveMeSpanakopita

In that case we have plenty of unserious people on mumsnet especially on AIBU 😂😂

I think they probably just chose it because Harry's passionate about it. Probably no more than that.

If I were advising Meghan I'd have told her to keep her name well away from it tho. It plays really badly with her humanitarian endeavours and with what she seems to be hoping to do with ARO. Silly, needless brand damage - she could have stayed well out of it and come up roses.

"Did you mean to be so rude?" 😂

No, she shouldn’t. They both produced it.

Like I said we’ve seen this faux outrage every time, the show will come out, the fakes will cry and that’s be the end of it lol

Harry's been playing polo since boyhood, and will know everyone on the circuit (directly or mate of a mate) so it's a subject where he has good access.

Netflix does have a lot of sports documentaries - not all of them are ratings grabbers though. I doubt this one will be either. It could however do perfectly well, but I don't think anyone bothers to publish the detailed figures that show how the more niche shows are doing

I am pretty sure it means "conscientious".

I think the use of the term has crossed over from the way the French use it... to mean careful, sticking by the rules, committed. A lot of the English-to-French "faux amis" have become, over time, "vrais amis" and it has worked both ways.

But I don't think you can say "unserious", and agree with a pp who said it sounded trumpian.

Polo is something Harry is genuinely interested in, that’s about it IMO. I really don’t think it was that deep a choice. It would be disappointing if H&M never manage to produce scripted content tbh.

Netflix now do their weekly Top 10, globally and by country, although the way they measure it is apparently a bit controversial and it is claimed they massage some of the numbers.

I just watched the trailer and actually wasn’t as bad as I feared. In fairness though, my expectations were very low so that’s not saying much! I think the thing is, if people don’t know how desperately cruel polo is - even by the general shitty low standards of most equine sports - then this will be a glamorous slice of posh life… There have been PP on this thread who were unaware of how awful polo is, and why.

So it is possible that it might find an audience? Maybe? This isn’t the kind of TV that I enjoy so there’s nothing that would induce me to watch it, regardless of Harry and Meghan’s involvement. But maybe for those looking for a juicy inside look at an aspirational lifestyle?

Having said that, the stats on YouTube so far seem pretty dismal. Lots of comments about the cruelty of polo too so I don’t think it’s “haters” just skewing stats. 92% downvoted - will be interesting to see if the viewing stats are similar.

I could understand a one- off programme but 5 episodes ?
I do think it could end up being a talking point for the wrong reasons when people realise how cruel it is to horses.

Perhaps the cruelty won't be shown and we'll just get touchy-feely My Little Pony set ups??

That isn't the point though. The point is he was told by somebody who knew better than him not to ride the horse. He went ahead. It's the story of his life.