ROYAL GELATIN

The man who would never be king with the woman who
would never be queen.

For the last several months, American news programs tried unceasingly to get you to care that a divorced American actress you never heard of, who was the co-star of a TV series you never watched, that was on a cable network you couldn't find, was getting married to a member of the world's richest welfare family. It's a fairytale romance!

Professional journalism at its finest.

It didn't matter what network you watched. Come the day of the wedding, the news anchors and reporters followed the same script. Opening the broadcast with faux-British accents; wearing goofy hats even though none of them were invited to the ceremony; and interviewing royal-obsessed American tourists who apparently missed history class the day that the Revolution was taught.

If you flipped between networks, you might have noticed that all the anchors were women. This was because the news producers knew all too well that straight males not only didn't care about this event, they would openly mock the whole spectacle before the show was over. Because -- and I can't stress this highly enough -- a British wedding should qualify as news only in the UK (unless it involves one of the Beatles, and that was half a century ago).

Perhaps because the world is changing faster than many people would like, the word

OK, I admit that would have sealed the deal for me, too.

"tradition" was used a lot, and always reverently. Would any American woman put up with tradition that included the boyfriend's grandmother having to approve the bride-to-be, her wedding gown, and even her fiancé's beard? Apparently, if it meant arriving at the church in a 1950 Rolls Royce Phantom IV. 

Meanwhile, over in the UK, the word newspaper columnists used in excess to describe Meghan Markle was "exotic". Let's take a look at her background via Wikipedia:

Rachel Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981, in Los Angeles, California, at West Park Hospital in Canoga Park. Her mother, Doria Ragland, a social worker and yoga instructor, lives in View Park–Windsor Hills, California. Her father, Thomas Markle Sr., who lives in Rosarito, Mexico, is a retired television lighting director, whose profession resulted in his young daughter often visiting the set of Married...with Children. Her father is an Episcopalian, and her mother is also a Protestant. Meghan's parents divorced when she was six years old.

Before she married Harry, this was Meghan's
lap of luxury.

I don't know about you, but "Canoga Park", "television director", and "social worker" don't evoke visions of exoticism to me. Maybe it's the yoga thing, right? Or that neither of her parents belong to the Church of England. That must be it.

No? Is it because she was a C-list actress whose credits include The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down, and a one-shot appearance on the 90210 reboot as "Anonymous Girl Caught Giving Head to Guy in His Car"?  Really, what could those scone-munching Brits find so exotic about Meghan Markle? 

"I say, aren't they supposed to have
bones through their noses?"

The answer could be found at the wedding itself, when the royal family suddenly found itself in direct contact with more black people since the days of colonization. Harry and William appeared to be down with the whole thing, of course. But every Brit at that ceremony over the age 50 all the wore the look of "Dear God, the savages are taking over!"
 

The American news coverage, meanwhile, took a different tact, making sure to trot out African-Americans to give the black angle on the wedding. You won't see them on morning news again until the next time the black angle is required, preferably for an equally fluffy story.

Don't be such a Debbie downer -- Harry and Meghan are
getting married!

Yes, the coverage came off as expected, marred only by the ill-timed Texas school shooting the day before. NBC gave it a one-minute mention at 9:55 a.m., presumably in the name of "keeping things in perspective", before throwing it back to reporters gushing over the gift bags handed to the wedding guests. Ahh, that's better. 

And why not go all out for Harry and Meghan? There probably won't be another royal wedding for a long time, while the next "latest school shooting" is just around the corner. Let's keep things in perspective here, people. 

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