Lee Siegel: How Oprah Changed the World
[Lee Siegel is a senior editor at The New Republic.]
... In 1986, human nature in America started to change. That year, "The Oprah Winfrey Show," based in Chicago, became nationally syndicated, and the country entered the beginning stages of a quiet cultural revolution. It took awhile for the transformation to take hold, but, four years later, the effects were unmistakable. Do you really think George H.W. Bush, who presided over the spectacularly successful Gulf war, lost to Bill Clinton in 1992 because of a sagging economy? It was Oprah, stupid. It was Oprah behind Clinton in 1992 and also in 1996; and it was Oprah behind George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, electoral shenanigans notwithstanding.
It's safe to say that, with her parade of afflicted guests, Oprah helped along the perception of Clinton's childhood wounds as evidence of authentic character. With her emphasis on imperfect self-presentation as proof of genuine intention--she has appeared on the air in her bathrobe, without makeup--she also helped create an atmosphere that turned Al Gore, and then John Kerry, into fabricated con men who were too handsome (Kerry had his lanky Jimmy Stewart allure), articulate, and privileged to be trusted or true. Bush, on the other hand, was so inarticulate, awkward, and funny-looking that, when you thought of his own super-privileged background, you felt that at least he had something going for him. And all that unconcealed imperfection made him real--or at least electable.
It's ironic that O, Oprah's glossy monthly magazine, relies on the same formulas as potent arbiters of perfect appearance like Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Self. Like its founder and editorial director, O is on the very front line in the American struggle between tyrannical appearances and the ordinary, imperfect, mortal person. Not just the suffering, injured person, but the unbeautiful person. In our society, not measuring up to resplendent appearances can cause a deep psychic wound. Every sphere of life has its heroic moments, and, in the War of Ordinary People Against Ideal Images, this exchange between Oprah and Julia Roberts is the equivalent of that solitary figure confronting the tank in Tiananmen Square:
Oprah: Does the pretty thing ever get to ya? ... I'm wondering, I was having this discussion with my girlfriend the other day. I said, "It's a really great thing we were never, like, pretty women, because now we don't have to worry about losing that."
Julia: You can't really complain about being in a movie called Pretty Woman when you're the woman.
It's hardly a coincidence that Roberts has been one of Oprah's select circle of favorite guests. Her full mouth and large, lustrous eyes contrast with and echo Oprah's own features. Just 33 years ago, when a 19-year-old Oprah got her start in television, anchoring the news for a local Nashville station, society would not have been ready to acknowledge such a comparison. You can only talk about it now because Oprah has become so rich and famous--she attracts tens of millions viewers around the world, and her net worth is said to be about 1.4 billion dollars. But the way she orchestrates and manipulates appearances on her show is one of the sources of her success.
It is not hard to imagine that, for many middle-class black women in her audience, Oprah's dig at Roberts--"the pretty thing" fades, which is a tragedy when all you have is the pretty thing--is an affirmation of sorts. At that moment, the white movie star (the yuppies' very goddess) is diminished by the black host's humor, irresistible self-deprecation, and earthy wisdom--qualities that black women in her audience might identity with and that, in Oprah's inspiring case, helped her bypass the white standard of beauty on her sure-footed path toward power and riches. After all, Roberts is Oprah's guest, not the other way around. Oprah is the one asking the questions, and with all the self-assurance and astuteness of someone who knows the answers. With Roberts, Oprah's sharp tongue not only spoke a humble truth to powerful appearance; it repossessed, as it were, the black sensuality that collagen stole and gave to the white world. ...
Like Oprah herself, Winfreyism has an equally fraught countermotion. The reverse side of a democracy based on exchangeable feelings is the creation of a kingdom of mere sensations, in which no experience has a higher--or different--value than any other experience. We weep and empathize with the self-destructive mother, we weep and empathize with Sidney Poitier, we weep and empathize with the young woman dying of anorexia, we weep and empathize with Teri Hatcher, we weep and empathize with the girl with the disfigured face, we weep and empathize with the grateful recipients of Oprah's gift of a new car to every member of one lucky audience, we weep and empathize with the woman burned beyond recognition by her vicious husband. In the end, like the melting vision of tearing eyes, the situations blur into each other without distinction. They are all relative to your own experience of watching them. The fungibility of feeling is really a reduction of all experience to the effect it has on your own quality of feeling.
In fact, Oprah's universal empathy has an infinite flexibility. When critics complained that she focused too much on stories of physical and emotional horror, Oprah quickly responded, in the early '90s, by mocking that very format. Publicly vowing to start diversifying her show, she immediately incorporated lighter fare more frequently. Several months after Jonathan Franzen dissed her Book Club, an incident that gave rise to a heated debate over its true function and value, Oprah disbanded it. (It has returned, but in a more peripheral and occasional way.) The Frey incident sent her spinning in appeasement yet again.
One of Oprah's most powerful visual metaphors is how she utterly transforms her appearance--her hairstyle, mode of dress, type of jewelry, even her manner of speaking--from day to day. It is her clever, dramatic embodiment of the possibility of personal change and growth. But ability to change is also a capacity for accommodation. It hints at a personality that will "stretch" itself in any rewarding direction, unconstrained by truthfulness or consistency. Unconstrained by the constraint of character, you might say.
The name Oprah gave to her production company--her business--is Harpo Productions, which is "Oprah" spelled backward. That is exactly right. Winfreyism is the expression of an immensely reassuring and inspiring message that has, without doubt, helped millions of people carry on with their lives. And it is also an empty, cynical, icily selfish outlook on life that undercuts its own positive energy at every turn. On her way to Auschwitz, sitting in her hotel room in Krakow, thinking about the masses of people who were murdered in the death camp, Oprah wrote in O, "I have never felt more human." Her empathy and moral growth seem to require human sacrifice. Yet watching Oprah does fill you with hope. It also plunges you into despair. She has become something like America itself.
Read entire article at New Republic
... In 1986, human nature in America started to change. That year, "The Oprah Winfrey Show," based in Chicago, became nationally syndicated, and the country entered the beginning stages of a quiet cultural revolution. It took awhile for the transformation to take hold, but, four years later, the effects were unmistakable. Do you really think George H.W. Bush, who presided over the spectacularly successful Gulf war, lost to Bill Clinton in 1992 because of a sagging economy? It was Oprah, stupid. It was Oprah behind Clinton in 1992 and also in 1996; and it was Oprah behind George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, electoral shenanigans notwithstanding.
It's safe to say that, with her parade of afflicted guests, Oprah helped along the perception of Clinton's childhood wounds as evidence of authentic character. With her emphasis on imperfect self-presentation as proof of genuine intention--she has appeared on the air in her bathrobe, without makeup--she also helped create an atmosphere that turned Al Gore, and then John Kerry, into fabricated con men who were too handsome (Kerry had his lanky Jimmy Stewart allure), articulate, and privileged to be trusted or true. Bush, on the other hand, was so inarticulate, awkward, and funny-looking that, when you thought of his own super-privileged background, you felt that at least he had something going for him. And all that unconcealed imperfection made him real--or at least electable.
It's ironic that O, Oprah's glossy monthly magazine, relies on the same formulas as potent arbiters of perfect appearance like Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Self. Like its founder and editorial director, O is on the very front line in the American struggle between tyrannical appearances and the ordinary, imperfect, mortal person. Not just the suffering, injured person, but the unbeautiful person. In our society, not measuring up to resplendent appearances can cause a deep psychic wound. Every sphere of life has its heroic moments, and, in the War of Ordinary People Against Ideal Images, this exchange between Oprah and Julia Roberts is the equivalent of that solitary figure confronting the tank in Tiananmen Square:
Oprah: Does the pretty thing ever get to ya? ... I'm wondering, I was having this discussion with my girlfriend the other day. I said, "It's a really great thing we were never, like, pretty women, because now we don't have to worry about losing that."
Julia: You can't really complain about being in a movie called Pretty Woman when you're the woman.
It's hardly a coincidence that Roberts has been one of Oprah's select circle of favorite guests. Her full mouth and large, lustrous eyes contrast with and echo Oprah's own features. Just 33 years ago, when a 19-year-old Oprah got her start in television, anchoring the news for a local Nashville station, society would not have been ready to acknowledge such a comparison. You can only talk about it now because Oprah has become so rich and famous--she attracts tens of millions viewers around the world, and her net worth is said to be about 1.4 billion dollars. But the way she orchestrates and manipulates appearances on her show is one of the sources of her success.
It is not hard to imagine that, for many middle-class black women in her audience, Oprah's dig at Roberts--"the pretty thing" fades, which is a tragedy when all you have is the pretty thing--is an affirmation of sorts. At that moment, the white movie star (the yuppies' very goddess) is diminished by the black host's humor, irresistible self-deprecation, and earthy wisdom--qualities that black women in her audience might identity with and that, in Oprah's inspiring case, helped her bypass the white standard of beauty on her sure-footed path toward power and riches. After all, Roberts is Oprah's guest, not the other way around. Oprah is the one asking the questions, and with all the self-assurance and astuteness of someone who knows the answers. With Roberts, Oprah's sharp tongue not only spoke a humble truth to powerful appearance; it repossessed, as it were, the black sensuality that collagen stole and gave to the white world. ...
Like Oprah herself, Winfreyism has an equally fraught countermotion. The reverse side of a democracy based on exchangeable feelings is the creation of a kingdom of mere sensations, in which no experience has a higher--or different--value than any other experience. We weep and empathize with the self-destructive mother, we weep and empathize with Sidney Poitier, we weep and empathize with the young woman dying of anorexia, we weep and empathize with Teri Hatcher, we weep and empathize with the girl with the disfigured face, we weep and empathize with the grateful recipients of Oprah's gift of a new car to every member of one lucky audience, we weep and empathize with the woman burned beyond recognition by her vicious husband. In the end, like the melting vision of tearing eyes, the situations blur into each other without distinction. They are all relative to your own experience of watching them. The fungibility of feeling is really a reduction of all experience to the effect it has on your own quality of feeling.
In fact, Oprah's universal empathy has an infinite flexibility. When critics complained that she focused too much on stories of physical and emotional horror, Oprah quickly responded, in the early '90s, by mocking that very format. Publicly vowing to start diversifying her show, she immediately incorporated lighter fare more frequently. Several months after Jonathan Franzen dissed her Book Club, an incident that gave rise to a heated debate over its true function and value, Oprah disbanded it. (It has returned, but in a more peripheral and occasional way.) The Frey incident sent her spinning in appeasement yet again.
One of Oprah's most powerful visual metaphors is how she utterly transforms her appearance--her hairstyle, mode of dress, type of jewelry, even her manner of speaking--from day to day. It is her clever, dramatic embodiment of the possibility of personal change and growth. But ability to change is also a capacity for accommodation. It hints at a personality that will "stretch" itself in any rewarding direction, unconstrained by truthfulness or consistency. Unconstrained by the constraint of character, you might say.
The name Oprah gave to her production company--her business--is Harpo Productions, which is "Oprah" spelled backward. That is exactly right. Winfreyism is the expression of an immensely reassuring and inspiring message that has, without doubt, helped millions of people carry on with their lives. And it is also an empty, cynical, icily selfish outlook on life that undercuts its own positive energy at every turn. On her way to Auschwitz, sitting in her hotel room in Krakow, thinking about the masses of people who were murdered in the death camp, Oprah wrote in O, "I have never felt more human." Her empathy and moral growth seem to require human sacrifice. Yet watching Oprah does fill you with hope. It also plunges you into despair. She has become something like America itself.