A feature on Kate Middleton has social media netizens abuzz as it tried to mock up the Duchess of Cambridge as the revolutionary Argentinian guerrilla leader Che Guevara.
The piece, published on The Sunday Times, covered aspects of how Middleton has been the royal revolutionist after she quietly joined a vigil for Sarah Everard, a young woman who was murdered by a cop in London. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick defended the Duchess of Cambridge for her presence at an "illegal" mass gathering while a lockdown was in effect in the United Kingdom.
According to Jennie Bond, a former royal correspondent, Kate Middleton has grown to be a widely admired public figure because she is in touch with the mood and the pulse of the public. Her political statements, such as the vigil for Everard, would have turned into a disaster if she made a fuss about it in the press but, apart from her security, she did tell people that she would be there and made her presence as inconspicuous as possible.
The story also dubbed the Duchess of Cambridge as the "Queen of Zoom" amid the pandemic lockdown because she conducted most of her meetings and royal work in the virtual platform. Her work on the landmark early years survey, the largest survey conducted in the U.K. that took five years to facilitate, was also hailed as "revolutionary."
The piece also touched on Kate's role in the royal family, where it's been said that she's careful not to steal the limelight from her husband, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. In a sense, the article pointed out that Kate doesn't have an ego, and knows when to be subservient to William unlike other members of the royal family, such as Meghan Markle.
But the coverage received backlash on Twitter for depicting the Duchess of Cambridge as an "effective activist." One commenter wondered why Kate is receiving praises for her "laziness and mediocrity" while another netizen laughed at the doctored image of the duchess as Guevara. The netizen said the comparison seems way off the mark because Guevara was a "homicidal maniac."
Other comments compared the coverage on Kate to a 2018 piece on Meghan, who was also mocked up as Guevara. Except Meghan's story painted her in a negative light and "demonized" her for an issue that was not even remotely connected to her.
Meghan has said in her interview with Oprah Winfrey that the communications team in the royal palaces likes to carry on with the narrative of hero versus villain between her and her sister-in-law. Kate Middleton has never addressed Meghan's claims.
