Opinion – Lúcia Guimarães: Harry wants to make biography of palaces, yachts and private jets look like heroic saga

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We need to talk about gaslighting. The word of the year 2022, chosen by the editors of the venerable Merriam-Webster dictionary, has no translation into Portuguese, which does not exempt loquacious Portuguese speakers from using it. Gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of someone, usually prolonged, to make them question their perception of reality.

The term comes from a 1938 British play that was shown twice. Anyone who believed that there was only the second version —”À Meia Luz”, from 1944—, which won actress Ingrid Bergman an Oscar, can be said to be a victim of gaslighting. The first, from 1940, was filmed in the United Kingdom and is vastly superior to the Hollywood one, directed by George Cukor. But the American studio MGM launched an aggressive gaslighting campaign and tried to destroy all existing copies of the British original.

The verb gaslight has been voted one of the most useful verbs among American linguists over the past decade, but has become far more popular under Donald Trump’s “alternative facts” presidency.

This week, there is only talk of gaslighting on both sides of the Atlantic because Prince Harry accused the British crown, that is, his father, his brother and the royal environment, of “institutional gaslighting”.

Harry and Meghan, whose lack of irony about their own bubble of privilege is almost admirable, think they live in America. But they do, in fact, inhabit the country of Oprah Winfrey, their businesswoman next door in an enclave of zillionaires in California. In Oprah’s republic, there is no factual truth, but “her truth of yours”, usually sealed after much therapy. A dialect full of psycho nonsense is spoken there, and the world is divided between traumatized villains and good guys.

Thus, “Harry & Meghan”, which Netflix announces as the most watched documentary in its history in its opening week, is not exactly a documentary, but, as the couple says, “our truth”, no matter if several untruths have already were denounced in the first episodes.

“Harry & Meghan”, in addition to being a never-ending syrup, is a window beyond the intimate life ridiculously shared by the couple. It shows a characteristic of these times in which economic security and status are acquired at the expense of companies or institutions. Netflix wouldn’t have paid $100 million (R$528 million) to the neurotic and uninformed Englishman and the mediocre actress who wrote self-help blogs to tell their stories if they didn’t have the stamp of monarchy that has lasted a thousand years.

In this economy of perpetual branding, success is not measured by work or talent, but by selling a performing identity. It’s no coincidence that the couple are favorite punching bags for reactionary British tabloids, as the contemporary right specializes in using identity dog ​​whistles to attack the “globalist left”.

While accusing his relatives of gaslighting, the whining prince wants to convince a gullible public that a biography of palaces, yachts and private jets is a heroic saga. Without the papal king’s allowance, it is this alternate reality that attracts millionaire remuneration in the attention economy.

Harry has exiled himself from the country he accuses of gaslighting. And he became a citizen of the country that rewards another practice, also without translation in Portuguese: bullshiting.

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