"Harry & Meghan" is streaming on Netflix. Image Source: Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Liz Garbus speaks out in defense of "Harry & Meghan".
Liz Garbus, the director of Netflix's popular six-part docuseries "Harry & Meghan" about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, decided to come out against the claims of Buckingham Palace in an interview with Vanity Fair.
During the interview, the Oscar-nominated director stated that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's involvement was in revealing their romance from their viewpoint, rather than the love tale told by others, and in having shared their archive to give viewers a glimpse behind the curtain.
Liz clarified that, as the daughter of a famous First Amendment lawyer and a mental health professional who has dedicated her professional life to social justice initiatives and nuanced portraits of complex people, the docuseries needed to move beyond the royal couple's love story and woes of a fragmented fairy tale.
She described that what was most crucial to her was connecting the dots too much larger events that happened by mentioning storylines about racial prejudice, colonization, and the significance of white supremacy to the British Empire monarchy. Speaking about Harry and Meghan, Garbus tells that they were extremely flexible and willing to journey down a few of the paths that they may not have initially considered. The love story serves as the spine, although it was always essential for her to... make connections between the personal narrative and the greater historical background.
The British crown, according to the filmmaker, is not immune from this type of investigation. Liz stated that she does not take into account questioning the monarchy to be a cardinal sin, just as she does not recognize questioning the American government to be sacrilege. Liz Garbus adds that it is their duty as narrators and thoughtful people to raise these concerns.
Garbus knew the docudrama would be her most expected project to date. They knew exactly walking in there was going to generate a great deal of interest, she said. The Harry and Meghan docuseries was a portion of a notified $100 million production deal signed by Harry and Meghan with Netflix. Liz asserted that simply being aware of the film's microscope was a challenge.
The documentary 'Harry and Meghan' was released on December 8 and quickly became a historical moment, breaking Netflix's audience numbers record for impromptu content with 81.55 million hours watched within the first week. Viewing time increased to 97.7 million hours in the second week. Liz Garbus stated that she found it thrilling that people are stuck with it, despite the negative viewpoint she attempted to bring to the story.
The director stated that she does not comprehend why individuals are content to read everything there is about Harry and Meghan when it is written by somebody else, but when Harry and Meghan would like to tell their story using their own words, it becomes an area of concern. People are not obligated to view a documentary, she adds.
It will not be necessary for school. What they binge on and what they don't binge on is entirely up to them. More documentaries and journals have been written about Harry and Meghan than they've produced themselves. According to her, it's advantages and drawbacks of pearl-clutching do not quite match the public's hunger for reading about them.
Garbus claims that trying to make the docudrama a surreal immersive experience exercises into the accusation palace mind games described to her by Harry and Meghan. She tried to explain that Buckingham Palace, for example, stated that they did not reach out for a remark on the dossier when they did, adding that they did so to delegitimize them, and by trying to discredit them, they can delegitimize the show's content. Liz characterized some of their personal experience as being similar to "Alice Through the Looking Glass."
Another pivotal moment occurred shortly after the premiere of the second half of the series when British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson wrote an utterly despise column for The Sun, highlighting the critical and unfair media attention of Meghan. "Constantly thinking of the day when Meghan is made to march naked on the streets of every town in Britain while audiences chant "Shame!" and throw globs of excreta at her," Clarkson said. According to Garbus, it was a severe illustration of the kind of media attention they've been receiving, and she lived through it.
When Liz was asked about her and Meghan's decision to collaborate on the dossier, she said there was already some trust there. She explained that they had conversations early on and they comprehended things that were critical to her, and she acknowledged how evident they would have to be about those other things so that they were not misinterpreted.
A palace source told PEOPLE shortly after volume one of the six-episode docu-series was released on Netflix that neither the members of the royal family nor the Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace was asked for comment on the series' subject matter that they were sure will attract the attention of the audience. Harry and Meghan starts with a title card that states that the members of the Royal Family have declined to discuss the content within the series. According to a Netflix source, the information and communication offices for King Charles and Prince William were notified in advance and allowed to respond to claims in the series.
During a conversation, a royal source confirmed that Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace did receive an e-mail reportedly from a third-party production house via an unidentified organization's email account. The royal palaces received no response when they tried contacting Archewell and Netflix to verify the source. The e-mail content, according to the royal source, did not cover the entire series.
According to Netflix data, the first three episodes of the docuseries Harry & Meghan recorded approximately 81.55 million browsing hours within a week of their debut, with almost 28 million people around the world viewing at least a small part of the series.
