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She's recently gotten her due in the media.
Posted by harbor boy on 2002-April-17 20:27:47, Wednesday
In reply to For the US readers posted by Eeyore on 2002-April-17 12:55:02, Wednesday
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Hi, Eyeore:
It doesn't surprise me that Oprah would be doing an another hysteria filled program on children and sex. She has done it for years. She likes to portray her program as bieng more elevated, conveniently ignoring how she was the one who introduced the concept of trash interview television, paving the way for Maury Povich, Geraldo, Jerry Springer, and other sleaze-for-profit hucksters.
Phil Donahue pioneered the concept of interview, audience interaction, with quality guests and topics. Oprah turned the television talk show format into a cesspool. And after 10 years of maintaining the topics on her show largely at a sewer-level, she suddenly decided to "elevate" her program, with more "refined" areas of discussion.
She's also trading on the American public's short term memory...
She's recently come into criticism in the media for her largely closeing up her book club, costing publishers a considerable amount of anticipated loss in the process. But her book choices were considered amatureish...there was an article about them recently in the editorial pages in the L.A. Times. I was going to post a link about them at the time, but I decided not to. (However, I have changed my mind, and will do so shortly).
The L.A. Times television critic Brian Lowry has written numerous times about the her arrogance, and the arrogance of her program advertisments, such as "Change Your Life TV." He has rightly pointed out that NO ONE can watch a television program, much less a daytime talk show, and ever get adequate therapy. She's making claims neither she, nor her talk show, can fulfill.
She has done numerous programs on self-esteem, and not bieng hurt by the comments of others. Yet when David Letterman parodies her name in public, such as at the Academy Awards a few years ago (the Oprah/Uma name game in his monologue), she refuses to return his calls. (She's apparently above taking her own medicine). Letterman has recently taken on his own personal campaign to be a guest on her show, doing nightly satire on her. An example bieng his supposedly reading the titles from her magazine, "O": "You Succers Don't Know What It's Like To Live In A Solid Gold Mansion", an obvious referance to her recently purchased $50,000,000 home in Santa Barbara, California. He has done it so much that TV Guide did an article about it recently "N'Oprah", relating, among other things, how he has offerred to buy her a used car, if she will let him be on his show.
Letterman knows a self-important, ego-driven contemporary in the entertainment industry when he sees one, and is not wowed by the fascination the media creates for her. He is a part of that media, and he sees a lie for what it is.
Oprah Winfrey is a very vindictive woman, which is why she has done so many programs about the "horrors" of pedophilia. Supposedly, she was molested at 11 by a cousin, but she has never revealed who he is. "He knows who he is" is supposed to take care of it. But it is not this person who has had to answer for it. It is people like us, who are attracted to children, and who love them, but who do not harm, hurt, or rape them, who are all painted with the same simplistic broad brush.
In the past, she has not been content to just do one program on the "horrors" of pedophilia at a time. She has devoted an entire week of programs to the subject, on several occasions. She only allows one point of view on her program, and only guests who will tell her what she agrees with. If she was molested, every one of us, regardless of who we are, has to be condemmed, judged, and punished in the worst way possible.
She drinks in all the praise much of the media unquestioningly annoints her with, yet there are those in the media who see her apart from her self-created image, or that of her publicity department. David Letterman is by no means the only one.
The cracks in her armour are now showing more than ever. Her vindictiveness is returning to it's route cause.
I think it's safe to say Judith Levine's book will not be on any of Oprah's book club listings, however they show up, in the future.
harbor boy
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