Royals Gossip and Colonial Hangovers

Most people I know think the monarchy — any monarchy — is pretty ridiculous. And yet: most people I know also know a lot about Meghan Markle and followed the #whereiskate conspiracy theorists at least part way down the rabbit hole. They’re rich celebrities, sure, but they’re also embodiments of empire in decline — and I wanted to think through how royal fascination manifests differently depending on where you live, how you were raised, and identification (or lack thereof) with “your” generation of monarch. Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman are scholars, podcast hosts, and Canadians — and the perfect people to navigate all of your questions about colonial hangovers, misogynoir and Team Meghan vs. Team Kate, and when and how we’ll actually see an end to the monarchy. I loved this conversation, and I think you will too.

Show Notes:

• Listen to my appearance on the Athleisure episode of Material Girls and listen to Material Girls just generally! (Recent episodes include: Disney and Pinkwashing; Dirty Dancing and Nostalgia; Gilmore Girls and Normporn; Bridgerton and Reading the Romance, SO MANY GOOD ONES)

• Melody and I absolutely died when we found the Charles-as-Tampon on SNL skit; it’s even better than I remembered:

• My piece on #WhereisKate and the botched comms management around her decision to retreat from public life:

• Ellie Hall’s piece in BuzzFeed comparing headlines about Kate and Meghan

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• The upcoming “season” of Bama Rush

• Sydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)

• Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-house

• Trad wives, featuring a co-host who used to be one

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Contemporary ideas of self-care

• Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

For today’s discussion: What’s your current relationship to royal culture? What did we miss in our various explanations, and what did you want to talk about more? (And do you have any advice for our hobbyists in the AAA segment?)

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