Critics are slamming Meghan Markle’s new Netflix series — but do they dislike the show, or her?

The Duchess of Sussex will star in a new Netflix series, but so far, With Love, Meghan, isn’t getting much love.

Meghan revealed the trailer for her new Netflix series on Instagram on Thursday after ending a five-year social media absence.

The eight-episode series, filmed in Montecito, Calif., will drop on Jan. 15, according to Netflix. With Love, Meghan, “reimagines the genre of lifestyle programming,” the company says, as Meghan, 43, shares her personal tips and tricks for cooking, gardening, crafting and more.

“I have been so excited to share this with you! I hope you love the show as much as I loved making it,” she wrote on Instagram alongside the video, which Netflix also released on YouTube.

WATCH | The official trailer for With Love, Meghan: 

Online, however, the reaction was quick and scathing, with many critics calling out the show as “entitled,” “tone deaf” and “tasteless” for promoting an upscale lifestyle most people can’t afford.

The online reaction isn’t surprising given the growing sense of class struggle and resentment emerging in the U.S. right now, said Shana MacDonald, the O’Donovan chair in communication at the University of Waterloo, who researches feminist, queer and anti-racist social and digital media.

“It’s a kind of wrong time, wrong place moment because there is such a large conversation around class and income disparity emerging online right now,” MacDonald said.

That said, some people are predisposed to interpret pretty much anything Meghan does negatively, as they have done since her courtship and engagement with Harry, she added.

“She’s in a pretty unenviable position…. I don’t think she’s ever going to do something that’s fully embraced.”

Sharing, but on her own terms

In the trailer, set to The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Do You Believe in Magic, Meghan is seen chopping fresh vegetables, decorating a cake, tending to a beehive, kneading focaccia, sticking labels onto candles, sprinkling edible flowers on doughnuts and freezing them in ice cubes, and arranging peonies.

“We’re in the pursuit of joy. Love is in the details,” she says in the 90-second trailer. “I’ve always loved taking something pretty ordinary and elevating it.”

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, appears in one shot of the trailer, where he embraces Meghan as the two hold drinks. It’s not clear how much he will appear in the series. Netflix lists the guests as Roy Choi, Mindy Kaling and Alice Waters, as well as “additional acclaimed chefs and special friends.”

The show, which Meghan also produced, is a co-production of Archewell Productions (Meghan and Harry’s production company), and The Intellectual Property Corporation, a division of Sony Pictures Television.

It appears to build on some of Meghan’s previous projects before her marriage and after stepping back from her role as a senior member of the Royal Family, said Toronto-based royal author and historian Carolyn Harris. Those include her Tig lifestyle blog and her 2024 efforts to establish the American Riviera Orchard lifestyle brand.

As far as some of the online criticisms of Meghan’s return to the spotlight, Harris points out that “Prince Harry and Meghan never appear to have aspired to complete privacy.”

“Instead, they have shown an interest in sharing their story on their own terms, without working with journalists from the British royal rota who traditionally cover royal events for the media in Britain.”

‘Utterly tone deaf’

But on X, Meghan McCain, daughter of the former Republican senator John McCain, called the trailer “out of touch” given the current turmoil in the U.S.

“There have been two terror attacks in two days, major wars raging and Americans can’t pay for groceries. We are a country in rage, uncertainty and intensity right now,” McCain wrote Thursday.

“This is why the world doesn’t like you, nothing else. Just completely and utterly tone deaf to the moment.”

Speaking to the Daily Mail, royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams called the trailer “an exercise in celebrity at its most superficial.” 

“It’s clearly all about ‘me, me, me.'”

Zorianna Zurba, an adjunct communications professor at Trent University, told CBC News she’s of two minds about the series. On the one hand, she hopes the trailer could signal a positive valuing of women’s domestic work, and the effort that goes into maintaining a home.

But on the other, using the language of “wonder” and “magic” to describe that work — as the trailer does — erases the time, labour and cost that really goes into it, she said.

“The labour that happens in the kitchen isn’t magic. It’s painstaking, detailed, process-oriented work.”

A white and wealthy space

That said, in a sphere dominated by women like Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, and in the past, Julia Child, it’s positive to see a Black woman hosting a lifestyle series, Zurba said.

And as the University of Waterloo’s MacDonald points out, a lot of the criticism about Meghan is — and has been since she started dating Harry — about race. She points out that other lifestyle influencers tend to be upper-class, too, yet we don’t hear these same criticisms about them.

For instance, mom-fluencer and homesteader Hannah Neeleman, known online as Ballerina Farm with some 10 million followers, is an heiress. And popular interior designer and lifestyle influencer Shea McGee’s recent holiday shopping list for House Beautiful included a $670 US crystal candle holder, $200 US tablecloth and an $80 US bottle of hand soap.

“It’s very hard to admit a racialized woman into that space, and there’s no reason why Meghan Markle shouldn’t be showing what her luxurious lifestyle looks like and what brings her joy,” MacDonald said.

“There’s a million millionaires out there. Why aren’t people going after people who are actually hurting society with their wealth as opposed to someone just like, ‘I’m going to bake a cake with flowers’?”