Are you a Meghan or a Dolly? A serious question for our times

It goes without saying that most Australians spent more time in the past week mourning country icon Dolly Parton, and debating the motives behind the return of the marital pair known as “the Sussexes” to the United Kingdom, than they spent worrying about the speeches given at the Business Council of Australia’s annual gala dinner. Fair play.

I know which is more interesting. Business and political types should probably also spend less time contemplating their own glorious leadership and more time doom-scrolling. It’s in our modern fairytales that the values which animate us are revealed.

Dolly Parton’s folksy tunes and gigawatts of rhinestone cladding weren’t everyone’s thing; but with or without them, Parton had a certain something that drew people to her and caused them to love her. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, on the other hand, who married the now former Prince Harry (also now formerly popular), has a knack for attracting widespread ire. Antipathy towards Meghan is so strong that an acting role she was to take up in the UK has reportedly been withdrawn following intense public backlash.

Meghan has advanced many reasons as to why she is so disliked. Naturally, none that would implicate her. She’s a victim of racism or there’s a social prejudice against ambitious women. It’s the British tabloids, who see in her a new Princess Diana and must draw blood. So many theories, all self-serving.

Parton offered very few ideas as to why she was so loved. But there’s one thing she said of herself that seems to sum it up – “I may look like a show pony, but I’m a workhorse”. Her work ethic was famous. She didn’t believe the world was obliged to adore her, or owed her a living. She put her shoulder to the rhinestone and produced a great gift to the world.

Modern fairytales aren’t so different to the old ones. I am reminded of the stories I consumed avidly as a child – the Grimm ones, in which stepsisters slice off their toes to fit into a shoe (and are outed by birds), stepmothers cook their stepchildren into a stew (and are accused by birds – there’s a theme here), and Death loses patience with his godson cheating him.

They are cautionary tales, which inform people how their actions will be received by others. They express an enduring truth about what we value in other people – what we consider good and admirable, and what contemptible and deficient – that is deeply ingrained in our psyche.

For all the ways Meghan has tried to tell her own tale, her fairytale archetype emerged despite it. As did Parton’s. The public response repeated the lessons of Aschenputtel – the unsweetened version of Cinderella – and Mother Holle . We admire hard work and scorn laziness. We value contribution and dislike entitlement. We admire the horse in George Orwell’s Animal Farm , not the pigs who lead the revolution only to put themselves in the master’s place.

Meghan wants to be a star, but she mistook the golden cage of monarchy for a stage. While superficially spoilt, the royals are really a combination of zoo animal and corporate drudge.