Can we critique With Love, Meghan, without unfairly critiquing Meghan Markle?

Meghan Markle has just released her latest venture: a lifestyle talk show for Netflix titled With Love, Meghan. 

Although the series debuts today, there's already been a ton of backlash from viewers and internet onlookers alike about the quality of the program. But is the negative response earned, or is it reminiscent of the media firestorm the Duchess of Sussex endured in her early years of royal life?

Today on Commotion, Etalk senior correspondent Lainey Lui and royal reporter Ellie Hall join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to explain why some people are so mad about the program — and whether any of their anger is warranted.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: I take the point that Lainey was making, that there's only so many tropes, there's only so many ways you can pose in a kitchen, only so many titles you can give your lifestyle show, and there's bound to be some overlaps…. What do you make of that criticism of, we could have done a little bit more to distinguish this from what Pamela Anderson put out?

Ellie: Well, I'm going to reveal myself as someone who reads Lainey, because this is a throwback. But when Meghan guest-edited Vogue — I think about this all the time — you wrote something that said that it's so hard to talk about rational criticism of Meghan because it gets drowned out by all of the irrationality and by the racism. And when you do want to criticize Meghan … it's hard to be rational because you have people who have an industry, who make money only criticizing Meghan Markle and only attacking her, and that's what gets them the views….

There is so much hatred that people, from the very beginning, were and are looking for reasons to hate this show. People were going to go looking for things to compare it to, and I think Pamela Anderson's show just happened to be there. I'm not a lifestyle show viewer. They all kind of look alike to me…. There's only so many ways that you can do a show about cooking and hosting and gardening, in my opinion. You're going to see some of the same shots…. But with all the Pamela Anderson criticism, you really need to understand that the loudest voices here are people who have made an industry out of hating Meghan. And you need to accept these YouTubers, these people on Twitter, all of this crazy mad criticism — you need to look at it in that context.

Elamin: Okay. I take your point, which I suppose is Lainey's point — this is a bit of an attribution circle happening here … that the criticisms of Meghan Markle are landing within a context and landing within a history of really vicious racism. And so under all this context, Lainey, when we watch a show like this one, what are the avenues of criticism that are available to us, that don't feel like they are retreading that racism that made them leave the royal family in the first place?

Lainey: I think that it is fair to criticize Meghan, and Harry too, based on their work. I think what Ellie was referring to is when Meghan Markle guest-edited British Vogue and she wrote an editor's letter. I think what I criticized was her writing. You know, if you're going to write an editorial letter, I think it's fair for me to criticize the writing and what she was trying to say. I didn't care for her writing. I thought it was too flowery, and she did that whole thing where it was too much alliteration…. And so to me, that's a fair criticism, criticizing her writing. So to go back to your question, when is it fair? I mean, it's always going to get lumped in with the unfairness. But I do think it would be fair to criticize this TV show, the way I criticized Harry's show Polo….

So if we're criticizing Meghan's show, then you have to consider it in the context of its library, which is Barefoot Contessa, Martha Stewart, Pamela Anderson. And, is it well produced? Are the recipes and the ideas being presented in a way that's fresh? Is there chemistry between the players? Meghan seems to do better when she's with experts. There's chemistry there because she's presenting herself as a novice, or at least someone who's learning. The chemistry with her friends, if it's not landing for whatever reason with the audience, it must mean that there's something to the way it's filmed, how these friendships are being performed, that doesn't quite capture the viewers' expectation, interest, whatever. I think those are things that are fair to criticize. However, all of that criticism ends up getting into the bigger pot of hate against Meghan, and so it's hard to separate what's true, valid and legitimate criticism.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.