(no subject)
Today is Oprah’s last show.
I saw something on Facebook which ticked me off: Oprah disparagement. Something about how she propagated “gullibility” and thus unfairly made all of her money. It sort of ticked me off. Here’s what I nearly posted:
“So 20 million daily worldwide viewers are just unusually susceptible hacks? And her estimated net worth of $2 Billion? Built on 25 years of pervasive general stupidity? She provided educational funding and/or an education for a documented 65,000+ individuals, most of whom have been minorities. Her charitable foundation raised and disseminated hundreds of millions of dollars to underserved communities all over the world. Her show provided invaluable information on innumerable topics to millions of people for 25 years, and all that good can be completely dismissed by calling her fans gullible? That statement speaks far more about you than it does about Oprah.”
It appears I’m an Oprah fan. And I am. I’ve vacillated in my support over the years, certainly more recently with what, at times, has been her turn to bold-faced consumerism on the show. It often seemed that many of the good things she was doing were entirely fueled by opportunities to plug corporate entities underwriting the episodes. Her “friends” at Lowes, Sprint, Chevrolet, Target and American Airlines have donated many products and services over the years, but in return have gotten incalculable value out of simply having “O” mention their names aloud on air. And as is often the case with nationally syndicated shows, not only have these corporate entities provided goods and services to the Oprah show, they’ve paid her and Harpo Productions for the pleasure of doing so. She is a brilliant entrepreneur--there are no two ways around it.
What I was most disturbed about was the sense that she was personally profiting off of the misery of her guests. Watching pre-adolescents cry on camera talking about how they felt when their mother left the family, or listening to burn victims--their features literally melted away--recount the horrors of permanent, disfiguring scars. Or the seemingly irreconcilable idea that hungry and orphaned children in Africa could be featured on Monday while Tuesday’s show centered on a privileged Hollywood celebrity offering rare access to one of his or her elaborately decorated, multi-million dollar homes.
We all want to make money. It’s the principal reason we all get up and go to work in the morning. And I’m struck at how so many of us feel that there is some imaginary figure that should be “enough,” especially for other people. That Oprah should have been satisfied with earning her first billion and thereafter been satisfied. That somehow her push for personal wealth and betterment is incongruous with simultaneously helping those in the States and around the world who have considerably less. It’s remarkably sexist, too--when was the last time anyone blamed Bill Gates putting out the latest version of Windows? We seem to have a hard time understanding that it’s OK to earn and have while still giving and providing. It’s like we all have to do one or the other. It’s the entire idea behind Social Entrepreneurship and its time, my friends, has arrived.
Recently, Oprah specifically invited James Frey back onto her show for a third and final time. The first time, she lauded him and his memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” as part of Oprah’s Book Club, an entity, by the way, that has been credited with selling over 30 million books since its inception back in the late ‘90s. The second time, after it was learned that his memoir was perhaps more fiction than fact, she publicly excoriated him for lying to both her and her viewers. The New York Times called it a “public evisceration.” It was not pleasant to watch--she literally called him a liar on national television.
But this third time, I was really--and finally--impressed. Over the course of two shows, Oprah re-interviewed James Frey, recovered the ground of the previous two interviews and finally apologized to him for treating him so badly. She explained how one day in the shower, she finally understood that her treatment of him lacked the single thing about Oprah that has made her such a welcome household guest for the last 25 years: empathy. Her ego had grown so large that she took his mistake as personally offensive. That somehow, he had slighted her by creating facts and situations in his book that weren’t entirely truthful. And one day in the shower, it dawned on her that she had not given to him the same grace and respect she has afforded to murderers and rapists over the years: human empathy.
It was that tiny bit of self-knowledge that she shared with all of us that really cemented for me her amazing abilities and brilliance. That someone so aware of herself and so respectful of others could ask for forgiveness while still retaining this immense power as one of the most important media moguls in the world was astonishing. It made her legitimate in my book. And frankly, allowed me to forgive her for what I once labeled crass consumerism masquerading as a daytime talk show.
This is a whole lot of effort dedicated to someone in all likelihood I will never, ever meet. But I’m not ashamed to call Oprah a bit of a hero to me. If a black baby girl born in rural, segregated Mississippi can grow up to be the most powerful woman in show business, there is NOTHING I can’t do.
And that, by the way, has been her intrinsic message all along.
Question of the Day: How do you feel about Oprah?