There, I said it. The Unthinkable. I’m glad to see Oprah leaving her show. My only regret is that she is going to take so long doing it.
I realize I’m running against prevailing public opinion here. So popular is Oprah that I’m likely to get the same response as I did when I (very nicely) accused Mr. Rogers of perpetuating the shameless promotion of undeserved self-esteem through his programs directed at American children.
But I digress…
I won’t launch my attack on Oprah without noting her positive traits. First, she seems to be honest, sincere, straightforward and likeable. To her credit, she has allowed the public to follow her continual battles with weight gain, when she could have tried to cover them up. She has also humbly shown her fans what she looks like without makeup and casually garbed in less than designer outfits.
And, she has admitted her mistakes, like backing that abominable liar/writer James Frey, and the laxness she exhibited in funding an African girls’ school where student abuse subsequently occurred because staff members there were not subjected to adequate vetting. (Remind me to write a future piece on how much I loathe the term, vetting.)
The point is that I don’t dispute Oprah being genuine and likeable. Then again, so is Ed Begley Junior, and that doesn’t stop him from being a certifiable nut. The problem with Oprah is that she has the uncanny ability to reflect all that is abhorrent and imbecilic about modern popular culture.
Think about it. It was on Oprah that we first learned all about the inate intelligence of superstar Tom Cruise. It was Oprah who called Herman Rosenblatt’s Holocaust tale “the single greatest love story” ever. Only to find out later that it was a complete hoax. And it was Oprah who urged her viewers to all go home and light candles for spiritual completeness and inspiration. Which prompted an elderly Chicago woman to light her nursing home on fire.
But, people will protest, wasn’t it also Oprah who introduced us all to such contemporary spiritual gurus as Depok Chopra and Eckhart Tolle? Yes it was. And your point is?
Popular culture is a curious mix of crass entertainment, conceit-driven fads, class envy, and blind allegiance to one absurd “spiritual” movement after another. Oprah’s guests have so neatly reflected all the wildly fluxing elements of American popular culture that one could almost picture the Big O and her staff coming up with guests by working off a list of stupid things that people in this country do and believe.
As international branding expert Rob Frakel has written, “Nobody has contributed more to the dumbing down of America and its increase in mediocrity than Oprah Winfrey.” The Wall Street Journal agrees, blaming Oprah for America’s obsession with self-help techniques and addiction to confession. The paper even coined the term, “Oprahfication” which means the practice of employing public confession as a form of therapy.
Oprah is not alone, of course. From insipid sitcoms that rely on fart jokes to shameless instant psychoanalysis displays on the Dr. Phil show, to so-called “Reality Shows” that feed our collective need for sex, violence and voyeurism—all from the comfort of our living room sofa, of course—there are ample ways in which we can sit on our asses while our collective grey matter is sucked from our skulls.
But Oprah has been the queen of modern popular culture, the only one who took our schizophrenic fascinations, misguided aspirations, and dysfunctional lifestyles and made them all seem acceptable rather than deplorable. This has been done through a neat series of one hour segments featuring “experts” and philosphical spokespersons who made all the weirdness of popular culture seem normal and even desirable to emulate.
Thanks in part to Oprah, we now have our first popular-culture president, elected largely because his inspirational, if vacuous, speeches made a majority of the voters “feel better.”
When Oprah’s reign is over, some will no doubt believe that she represented some positive development in the progress of television entertainment, much as others have touted Playboy creator Hugh Hefner for freeing society from backward moral standards. Thanks Hef. Or people who at one time called Rod McCuen the world’s greatet poet. Snicker. And leisure suits were the ultimate designer statement, defining men’s clothing styles for decades to come. Not.
Suffice to say, each generation makes mistakes in its declarations as to what is significant and what is not; what will last and what will not.
What is perhaps most interesting is that Oprah is also the queen of modern consumerism, offering a confusing dichotomy with the more spiritual stands she has taken. In one episode, she and her guest will ask viewers to consider a healthier, happier life living closer to nature, then she will segue into a guest touting a new line of beauty products. She has featured guests on her show who preach the benefits of enduring hardship, adopting personal responsibility and shunning mindless possessions in favor of a more spiritual life. Then she announces that under every seat in the theater are keys to a new car!
As Oprah nears her retirement in a little over a year, some people are saying she will go down in history as one of television’s leaders over the past 25 years.
Others, like Rob Frakel, have remarked that “if she has any leadership ability, it lies in her self-gratifying sustenance via mindless consumerism.”
But at least she’s been honest and sincere about it.
