The Beginning of Oprahtown, Part I

I’ve been following Oprah for years, ever since I was in high school, doing physics homework at the kitchen table while my mom watched Oprah in the living room. From my seat, I could hear people like Gary Zukav discuss things like “spirit”, “the light” and “Jesus”. I was an obnoxious teenager, that’s documented, but my hatred for all that shit was well-founded.

You see, around this time, Oprah had turned sort of New Age. She was on the cusp of realizing her full earning potential, and was about to be named Newsweek’s “Most Important Person”. For all the women sitting at home (or at work with their VCRs set), finding a light and discovering an all-knowing intuitive being inside of themselves sounded pretty damn good. So, she trotted Zukav out once a week and spent some cash on an elaborate angel-laden backdrop for the occasion. Before we knew it, she was advertising something called her “Spirit Network”, a ‘network’ of people willing to send in money to buy toasters for poor people. Whenever Oprah did something miraculous for the needy with this money, she threw her arms up in the air and thanked the Spirit Network, thanked all those millions of wonderful spirits who created miracles every day for people in need.

Excuse me if I sound flippant, but I’m a Southern girl, and I like old-fashioned language. So let’s just call it what it is, mkay? We were talking about people who sent in money, not spirits who created miracles. If all it took was a spirit to create a toaster and a new coat of paint over the ghetto, do you really think she’d stay in business?

Most of the time, my Oprah tirades are met by at least one person who wants to dissuade me by explaining, “Well, she does a lot of good. You can’t argue that!” Sure, and David Koresh gave all those young girls a roof over their head, and Jim Jones gave his followers “paradise on Earth”. What of it? Horrible people writes checks for good causes all the time, it doesn’t mean shit.

“But Oprah actually goes to the places, Oprah actually holds the sick babies and Oprah actually went to fucking Auschwitz!” Yes, don’t fret, I totally Tivo’d the brilliantly surreal “Oprah Does Auschwitz” episode and the O Channel’s after show show (I’m serious, there’s an after show show). And yes, I watched as Oprah tenderly touched the wire casket full of victims’ shoes, lamenting, “I wonder how many Nobel Peace Prize winners were in these shoes.”

I watched, and I vomited a little. Not in my mouth, either. I let that shit go.

There are few things more disgusting that planning a television event which strives to be a feel good story about an undoubtedly feel bad experience, but Oprah pulled it off without a hitch. Crying audience members, crying guests, reunited loved ones, teenagers reading letters they wrote to Oprah about their trials and tribulations, cheeks wet with tears as they look the Holocaust survivor in the eye and imagine their brief encounter with racism at the lunch table is somehow relevant to the short film they’ve just watched about the concentration camps.

No doubt they’re all in need of some serious spiritual healing, some meditation and soul-cleansing. Is this sounding cult-ish enough for you yet, or is my subtlety too effective for its own good? Laugh if you want, but all the signs are there: weird spiritual / religious aspirations and motivations, world-wide legion of dedicated and slightly off-kilter followers who maintain normal lives but turn into absolute whackos when in her presence, millions of dollars, and no pesky family or loved ones to hold her down (or talk her down, as the case may be). Yes my friends, I do believe we have a cult leader on our hands.

But she’s smart and savvy, and knows when to back off and pretend she’s just a chat show host. She knows when to speak carefully and she knows when to sit back and give us a good ole ‘You go girl’. She thrusts herself on us, with her sequined jacket and chinchilla fur for Auschwitz, and then tops herself with the so-called Legends Ball, and then goes bam! right back into “I Can’t Forgive My Husband For Cheating on Me, Today’s Oprah”. She’s sneaky, manipulative and self-obsessed - what else does a good cult leader really need?

That’s for next time.

i think you are totally onto something. who else but the brainwashed would spend $100+ to come see oprah tell them how to “live your best life”? check this out:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/09/AR2005050901015.html

i know someone who went to this! fucking INSANE. oh, and i’ve always hated oprah, too. it’s a powerful hate.

You have Oprah pegged, Paige. The way the audience hangs on to her every word, and takes everything she says as gospel, up to and including diet advice, is absolutely frightening and on par with the worst of TV evangelists. All she needs to do is say the word and the minions are ready to send a check!

“Oprah presides over something grander and more significant (than a cult). It’s more like a church.”

Wow. Just wow.

I think we might have even had a discussion on this. I think I’ve seen 15 minutes of Oprah in the last 10 years, but it involuntarily came at a Sears automotive waiting room. I am not shitting you: she was telling a family who had lost their child that she understood their pain; after all, the movie Beloved (which was like her child) was a flop.

I thought they were filtering crazy gas into the Sears air vents. But then again, it goes to prove my point, which is also proven by the success of Dr. Phil and the $22 million opening weekend for the Wayans Brothers’ new movie: Vast swaths of people are fucking stupid and natural selection is not doing its job.