This article examines the attitudes of state-school educated girls under contexts of neoliberal austerity at a moment when discourses surrounding inherited privilege and race intensified in popular culture. Using interviews with 50 girls aged 13–15 at the time of the wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, we examine attitudes to Meghan as a public figure, institutional royalty as a concept, and Meghan's symbolic ability to bridge tensions of progression and regression around the royals. In so doing, we shed light on how girls respond to and internalise ideas about power, work and inheritance. We offer new understandings of monarchy and celebrity; and girls' negotiations with popular discourses of meritocracy and privilege. We address a dearth of empirical analyses of public perceptions of royal celebrity, and provide insights into the mediation and reception of Meghan as a new member of the monarchy and the broader inter-penetrations of race, and gender she represents. The girls' feelings about Meghan are viewed alongside celebrities who the girls also discussed through royal rhetoric of queendom and bloodline: Oprah and Beyoncé. Around Meghan's celebrity dynamism the girls construct economies of royal ‘work’ and related meritocratic ideas of ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ royals. Consistently the girls' discussions disrupt ideas of hereditary power, ultimately, calling to rescind public funding of the monarchy.

本文考察了在流行文化中围绕继承特权和种族的论述日益增多的时刻，在新自由主义紧缩背景下，接受公立学校教育的女孩的态度。在哈里亲王和梅根·马克尔举行婚礼时，通过对50名年龄在13-15岁的女孩进行访谈，我们考察了梅根作为公众人物的态度，机构使用费作为概念以及梅根具有象征性的能力来弥合进步与衰退之间的紧张关系皇室成员。通过这样做，我们阐明了女孩如何回应和内化关于权力，工作和继承的观念。我们提供了有关君主制和名人制的新认识；和女孩们用精英和特权的流行话语进行的谈判。我们缺乏对公众对皇家名人的看法进行实证分析的方法，并提供有关梅根（Meghan）作为君主制新成员以及种族与性别之间更广泛的相互渗透的调解和接受的见解。女孩们对梅根的感觉与名人一起被观看，女孩们还通过皇后和血统的皇家修辞来讨论女孩：奥普拉和碧昂丝。围绕梅根（Meghan）的名人活力，女孩们构造了皇家“工作”的经济体以及相关的“应得”或“不当”王室成员的精英主义思想。一直以来，女孩的讨论打乱了世袭权力的观念，最终呼吁废除君主制的公共资助。人们对梅根的感受与名人同时得到关注，这些女孩还通过皇后和血统的皇家修辞来讨论：奥普拉（Oprah）和碧昂斯（Beyoncé）。围绕梅根（Meghan）的名人活力，女孩们构造了皇家“工作”的经济体以及相关的“应得”或“不当”王室成员的精英主义观念。一直以来，女孩的讨论打乱了世袭权力的观念，最终呼吁废除君主制的公共资助。人们对梅根的感受与名人同时得到关注，这些女孩还通过皇后和血统的皇家修辞来讨论：奥普拉（Oprah）和碧昂斯（Beyoncé）。围绕梅根（Meghan）的名人活力，女孩们构造了皇家“工作”的经济体以及相关的“应得”或“不当”王室成员的精英主义思想。一直以来，女孩的讨论打乱了世袭权力的观念，最终呼吁废除君主制的公共资助。