Meghan Markle dropped the first episode of her podcast Archetypes today, featuring Serena Williams. The Duchess of Sussex kicked off her new venture discussing The Misconception of Ambition, and together the two women spoke about “the double standard women face when they are labelled ‘ambitious’ and the ripple effect this has on other aspects of their lives”. To promote the episode, Spotify released a short video of Meghan introducing her new venture. Express.co.uk asked body language expert and voice analyser Judi James to give her thoughts on the clip and the episode.
In the clip, Meghan explained: “People should expect the real me in this and probably the me that they’ve never gotten to know – certainly not in the past few years where everything is through the lens of the media as opposed to ‘Hey, it’s me!’
“I’m just excited to be myself, and talk and be unfiltered and yes, it’s fun.”
Judi watched this and commented: “It’s a common phenomenon for people who have been seen in public and in the media frequently and regularly, like reality stars, to still have a burning desire to ‘let people see the real me’, as Meghan states here, with a dramatic ‘Hey. It’s me!’ that suggests this is the authentic or ‘true’ version of Meghan who has been hiding there all the time.
“For most people ‘real’ might mean being filmed in slippers and joggers as they slouch around at home, but Meghan’s version of ‘real’ looks as elegant and smartly groomed as ever, sitting cross-legged and poised at the end of a sofa with a microphone dangling in front of her torso.
“She uses two areas of body language to suggest or illustrate the real ‘Hey it’s me!’ Meghan,” the expert noted.
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“Firstly there is the double-handed, thrown-open gesture with her arms apart and her palms upward in what is almost a shrug.
“And then, and most powerfully, there is her facial expression. Suddenly smiling and playful, her eye-smile suggests friendly, fun charm and her mouth smile looks almost sweet.
“Taken separately from her actual body position we are shown a rather modest and non-royal-looking woman, although the body pose retains a more high-status elegance,” the expert suggested.
As for Judi’s thoughts on the podcast episode, she listened to it and summarised: “Snappy in tone, wise in sentiment and with a deep, rich story-telling delivery, Meghan’s podcast is set to funky music that seems to make it a blend between the spoken word and a dance track.
“The intro is full of Meghan and her history when it comes to female stereotypes.
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“The star of the intro is her eleven-year-old self who appears as a recorded voice as a bit of a child prodigy when it comes to campaigning at the highest levels.
“Having heard an ad suggesting only women washed the pots and pans she ‘reached out to the most powerful people of the time’ and successfully lobbied the soap company to alter their reference. ‘Thank you Meghan Markle’ reads her eleven-year-old self.
“This story-telling delivery, with pauses to tempt interest and vocal shifts from a mature, slow speech to the higher voice of a child then on to a dramatic whisper at one moment is of course showing us and teaching us the parallels between the child campaigner: shocked by and instantly calling out sexist terminology, and the global campaigner she is today.
“It makes her sound remarkable and exceptional,” the expert suggested.
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“She refers to her own ‘experiences’ with a rather knowing tone and reveals how she will use them to ‘help other women’.
“It shows us her destiny has been linear before she spreads the scope of the podcast to bring in her guests.”
As for what Meghan hopes to achieve with this podcast, she explained to listeners: “My podcast about the labels and tropes that try to hold women back.
“Over the course of the next dozen episodes, we’re going to live inside and rip apart the boxes women have been placed into for generations – boxes like diva, crazy, the b-word, slut.
“Some of these words – these labels – are harsh; they’re abrasive.
“And I want to get to the bottom of where they come from, why they’ve stuck around for so long, and – importantly – how we can move past them.”
She continued: “To do all this, I’m going to sit down with some of the smartest, funniest, strongest, most passionate women and people I know. And some that I’ve never met before; I’m making friends along the way, too.
“I’ll be talking to household names, experts, cultural commentators. And they’ve all, in some way or another, borne the brunt of the labels we’ll be picking apart.
“And of course, I know a thing or two about those labels myself,” Meghan added with a slight laugh.
“My hope is that my own lived experience will help other women open up. To reveal the layers that thrive within all of us. And the truth that none of us are alone in this world. That the future is something we get to write together.”
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