A new wrinkle: Age, race and writing Meghan Markle

This article analyses Vanity Fair's reference to Meghan Markle's biracial identity as a ‘wrinkle’ as part of a broader tendency to discuss that identity in terms of a dynamic of crisis and resolution. The article contrasts Andrew Morton's biography, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess (2018) with two texts by Meghan, a 2015 essay for Elle magazine, and her guest edited issue of British Vogue (2019). All endeavour to manage the ‘wrinkle’ of Meghan's biracial identity, for very different purposes. The Vanity Fair article and Morton's text attempt to ‘smooth out’ her biracial identity by displacing it through discussion of some other aspect of identity (such as age, illustrated by the term ‘wrinkle’), or they preserve the ‘wrinkle’ by maintaining an understanding of her biracial identity as problematic and disruptive. In contrast, Meghan's acts of self-representation refuse to ‘smooth out’ her biracial identity, and also reject an understanding of it as negatively disruptive.