In the new Lifetime TV movie “Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace,” which premiered on Monday, an early scene played out where the character of Prince William, played by Jordan Whalen, and Prince Harry get into an argument about the racism that Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle, suffered as a biracial woman at the hands of the British press. 

However, William was seen soon decrying the claims of racism as he said, “What causes problems isn’t colour, it’s culture.”

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The Duke of Cambridge then goes on to say, “Meg (Meghan Markle) is American. She acts more like a celebrity than a royal, and she doesn’t seem to appreciate the difference.” Furthermore, William can also be seen tagging the couple as “the most woke bloke and his feminist bride” in the film.

Although William’s comments are likely to attract a lot of scrutiny and criticism, the executive producers say that they were not trying to make William and his wife, Duchess Catherine (played by Laura Mitchell), the villains of the story.

“If we saw a villain in the story, the villains are the press and ‘the Firm,’ which are really the players behind the scenes of the actual family,” said executive producer Merideth Finn, referring to the nickname for the palace as an institution, according to the Washington Post reports.

“The people born into this family are in an impossible situation. They really don’t have choices. … The intention was never to make William seem like a villain, it was more to see him as a person in kind of an impossible conflict.”

It is important to realise that the filmmakers have carefully noted that certain dialogue and characters have been fictionalised.

In March, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, in a tell-all interview with American TV host Oprah Winfrey, revealed how members of the royal family were worried about their son Archie’s skin colour before his birth. However, Markle did not name anyone.  

Meanwhile, the third instalment of the network’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle biopics will depict “what really happened inside the palace that drove Harry and Meghan to leave everything behind in order to make a future for themselves and their son Archie.”

The first, in 2018, focused on their romance; the sequel the following year showed Meghan adjusting to life in the palace.