# How did Oprah become so powerful? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 20, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590 "2011-05-20T16:48:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/41 "2011-05-21T03:56:50Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > I have always marveled at how she has been able to get a pass for her past bad behavior, the exact same kind of behavior that she made a career of calling other people on the carpet for. > > She has admitted that she smoked crack cocaine heavily for a couple of years, back when she was in her mid-20’s, and she also told the world that she had a yearlong affair with a married man when she was younger (in her late 20’s-early 30’s?) as well, but that hasn’t stopped her from telling her various guests how to live their lives and be their “authentic selves”. Wow, does that mean she’s going to run for office next? She started out swimming with the other daytime sharks and abandon her show style for something more uplifting. She became the cream that rose to the top. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/42 "2011-05-21T04:06:14Z")
As a woman, I hate, hate, HATE when somebody tries to sell me on something by saying, “This is Oprah’s favorite…” or “Oprah recommends this…” or “This was on ‘The Oprah Show’!” My response was blind rage and an urge to vomit. But I suppose that Oprah pitch must work enough for people to use it. It used to happen to me more in the past, when I wasn’t unemployed and I was shopping more. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/43 "2011-05-21T04:31:25Z")
I went out and bought Jonathan Franzen’s _The Corrections_ after he rejected Oprah’s attempt to make it one of her book club selections (I don’t believe she ever reads any of those books, by the way). I used to watch Oprah way back in the day before she got too full of herself. The thing that really turned me off of her and made me stop watching was an incident that occurred when Tom Cruise was a guest. It wasn’t the Katie Holmes episode, it was years before that. Cruise was on the show to promote _Interview with the Vampire_. The movie was screened for the audience. Oprah made a big, grandstanding show of walking out of the movie like 20 minutes into it because she said it was evil and Satanic and reflected “dark forces.” She got her entourage of sycophants to walk out with her and have a big prayer circle outside the theater. Cruise still did the show anyway, and Oprah gave him a big, retarded, self-righteous sermon about how he shouldn’t do movies that promote “forces of darkness.” After that incident, I no longer had a shred of respect for Oprah. That was such an over the top demonstration of stupidity, sanctimony, raging egotism and attention whoring I could never watch her show again. Also, Maya Anjelou writes overwrought, pretentious crap, has just as big an ego as Oprah’s, and watching the two of them together, kissing each other’s asses, is all but unbearable. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/44 "2011-05-21T04:38:34Z")
I am very ambivalent about Oprah. I respect her enormously for the fact that she survived a very difficult childhood . . . not merely survived, but evolved and flourished. But at some point she shrewdly learned how to pander to a specific segment of society, and climb to the top, using that population as a ladder. She very cleverly cultivated an “everywoman” image and hones it as expertly as anyone in history. She is superb at telling people what they want to hear and showing them what they want to see . . . before they even know what they want to hear and see. But they do know, after she tells them. For this reason, I have very little respect for the women (and men) who idolize her, and sit there quietly nodding their heads, every time she pontificates her “woo-woo” philosophy. It kind of reminds me of “The Stepford Wives.” Not a pretty picture. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/45 "2011-05-21T05:20:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > (I don’t believe she ever reads any of those books, by the way). :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/46 "2011-05-21T05:24:33Z")
Roll eyes all you want. Maybe she reads some of the easy ones, but I’ve seen her try to talk about books she obviously hasn’t read. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/47 "2011-05-21T05:25:04Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I went out and bought Jonathan Franzen’s _The Corrections_ after he rejected Oprah’s attempt to make it one of her book club selections FTR: He didn’t reject her. He made a comment about his concern that because Corrections was in fact going to be an Oprah pick that men would be turned off (because of the same incorrect assumptions being made here) Oprah was offended and changed her mind. He wasn’t happy about it and he was very happy she made Freedom a pick. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/48 "2011-05-21T05:26:15Z")
He said he didn’t want the sticker on his book. I don’t blame him. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/49 "2011-05-21T05:26:20Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Roll eyes all you want. Maybe she reads some of the easy ones, but I’ve seen her try to talk about books she obviously hasn’t read. No you have not. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/50 "2011-05-21T05:27:22Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > He said he didn’t want the sticker on his book. I don’t blame him. This is what he said: “So much of reading is sustained in this country, I think, by the fact that women read while men are off golfing or watching football on TV or playing with their flight simulator or whatever. I worry — I’m sorry that it’s, uh — I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience and I’ve heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say ‘If I hadn’t heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it.’ Those are male readers speaking. I see this as my book, my creation.” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/51 "2011-05-21T05:29:59Z")
That is not everything he said, and that’s not what he said initially. I remember it. I don’t need to rely on a wiki cite. He explicitly said he didn’t want the sticker because “that indicates a certain kind of book.” The stuff you’re quoting is backtracking stuff he said later. I remember seeing the interview at the time and remember him saying he didn’t want that sticker. I wouldn’t want it either. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/52 "2011-05-21T08:00:08Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That is not everything he said, and that’s not what he said initially. I remember it. I don’t need to rely on a wiki cite. He explicitly said he didn’t want the sticker because “that indicates a certain kind of book.” > > The stuff you’re quoting is backtracking stuff he said later. I remember seeing the interview at the time and remember him saying he didn’t want that sticker. I wouldn’t want it either. For a guy whose purported problem with Oprah is how full of herself she is, it’s kind of strange that you think Franzen’s rejection of her is so impressive, cuz he’s pretty damn full of himself and was in 2001 when he hadn’t accomplished much of anything and made the remarks that caused the problem: > [@](#): > > “I feel like I’m solidly in the high art literary tradition, but I like to read entertaining books and this maybe helps bridge that gap, but it also heightens these feelings of being misunderstood.” The words “high art literary tradition” got a lot of play – “a phrase he’ll ironically be linked with forever”, Verlyn Klinkenborg opined in an editorial in _The New York Times_ (30 October 2001). > Franzen tried to excuse and explain himself. In _The New York Times_ (29 October 2001) he is quoted as acknowledging: "Mistake, mistake, mistake to use the word ‘high’ ". (Note that he acknowledges not choosing his words carefully, but does _not_ distance himself from the substance of what he said. His statement here suggests he believes he merely expressed himself badly.) > Elsewhere he puts a different spin on his words. It is unclear whether Franzen is referring to the statements quoted in _The Oregonian_ when he wrote in _The New Yorker_ piece, “Meet me in St. Louis” (24/31 December 2001; now available online as [Ducking Out](http://books.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4374097,00.html) at _The Guardian_): … in a moment of exhaustion in Oregon, I conflate “high modern” and “art fiction” and use the term “high art” to describe the importance of Proust and Kafka and Faulkner to my writing. Ew. Oprah is humility itself compared to _that_. And success isn’t everything, that’s sure: especially for authors like Franzen, the child of Proust and Faulkner :rolleyes:. Although he apparently likes it more than you do, since he apologized. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/53 "2011-05-21T11:23:48Z")
I like Oprah, for many of the reasons **cmyk** cited. She overcame a great deal of poverty and oppression, she is a highly intelligent, driven, and competent individual, and she strikes me as genuine. She’s willing to lay all her own shit bare and I respect that. I kind of grew up with Oprah, watching her after school, and I’m a total sap so I always end up crying during her emotional shows. When I was very young, it was her show on fostering children and adoption that made me feel compelled to adopt myself someday. I was heavily into her stuff when she was big on self-improvement, because I’m big on self-improvement, and I love that she kind of leads people on the path to making positive changes in their lives. The older I get (or she gets), the less I really connect with what she’s doing. I haven’t watched the show in years and every time I actually sit down to watch it, it turns out to be Celebrity Day and I could give a shit less about most celebrities. I’m also not into the woo, but I’ve never actually seen an episode of the woo that everybody accuses her of pushing. I am disappointed that she gave any credence to the autism/vaccine thing… she’s a powerful lady and that has been both a positive and a negative thing. So I guess I really don’t care for her show anymore, but in the 1990s, when I was a teenage girl, I loved it. She was selling Make Yourself a Better Person and that’s the kind of stuff I love, and I’ll always admire her for being that role model at that time in my life. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/54 "2011-05-21T12:49:20Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I went out and bought Jonathan Franzen’s _The Corrections_ after he rejected Oprah’s attempt to make it one of her book club selections (I don’t believe she ever reads any of those books, by the way). The book was released with the sticker and is still listed on [Oprah.com](http://Oprah.com) as being part of Oprah’s Book Club. He never rejected it. So please roll the credits on this episode of The Dio Show because you are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/55 "2011-05-21T13:00:38Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > What’s the difference between her and Montel, or Sally Jesse Rafael, or Ricki Lake, or any of them who’s come and gone over the years? You’ve never watched any of these shows, have you? Montel is still on the air afaik, and it seems to be mostly paternity tests–every time I have randomly turned on his show in the past ten years, that’s been the topic of the day. Sometimes it’s a fresh crop (“You say my man’s your baby’s daddy, but he’s not!”), sometimes it’s a follow-up on someone who had paternity proven on a past show, sometimes it’s a batch of people who have been on multiple previous times trying to prove paternity of a single child. Yeah, Oprah started out as just another talk show host squabbling for the same market share as hosts like Montel and Jerry Springer. There are two main differences that set her apart from that pack and made her the media powerhouse she is today–her format and her personality. Pretty early on her show evolved into something more than alien abductions and who’s sleeping with whom, and in doing so she captured an entire market that she didn’t have to split with anyone. Whether something within her changed and she felt a personal need for something more uplifting, or she simply was smart enough to see an opportunity and go for it, the end result was the same–she created an afternoon talk show that you didn’t feel stupider and vaguely dirty for having watched, and sadly that was a unique product. The thing about finding an untapped market is that you can establish yourself as _the_ name in it pretty damn fast, so when other people launched feel-good talk shows a couple years into Oprah’s rise they had to be quite a lot better than her to get anything like her ratings. And nobody was ever able to pull that off because they just…well, they just weren’t Oprah. It’s hard to explain to someone who never watched fairly early Oprah side by side with, say, Sally Jesse Raphael or Rikki Lake (summer vacation can be pretty dull in the middle of nowhere with no cable), but even when they had the same sort of topic and guests you got a totally different vibe from her than you did from them. She seemed so much more human and engaged with her guests; I always got the feeling she was really _listening_ to what someone was saying, rather than just looking serious and nodding sympathetically in the appropriate places. And she was fun, because she’d ask the questions you were wondering but would be afraid it was rude to ask, like whether Kurt Russel was ever gonna marry Goldie Hawn or what, and do it without sounding mean or rude or pushy. Then too, there was her ability to reference her own issues with them becoming a schtick or getting wedged into discussions where they weren’t relevant. Her weight struggles, her race, her financial status as a child, her love life, she could and would talk about them openly and honestly with a roomful of strangers without anyone ever thinking “Oh gawd, she’s starting up the When I Was a Poor Black Child/It’s Hard to be Fat/I’m Still Single stuff again.” Leaving everything else aside, that by itself is a pretty remarkable ability. What it all adds up is a persona that reminds you of your favorite aunt: someone who’s not so different from you but is still worth looking up to, who will listen kindly and empathetically to your problems and then call you on your shit, but in a nice way. If that’s genuinely who she is, she’s a remarkable woman and I salute her. If it’s all an act, it’s a remarkable achievement and I still salute her. ---
**Author:** ![JuliaSqueezer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/82dd89/32.png) [@JuliaSqueezer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JuliaSqueezer)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/56 "2011-05-21T13:09:03Z")
I have the same take on Oprah as Olives. Loved her show for years… when I was younger. I don’t know if it was when \*\*she \*\*became a celebrity and embraced all things celebrity or if my preferences changed, but the show seemed to sort of veer off into a land of soft, gushing, “You’re so fabulous. So are you!!!” interview stuff that I just sort of wandered away. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/57 "2011-05-21T13:17:52Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > And success isn’t everything, that’s sure: especially for authors like Franzen, the child of Proust and Faulkner :rolleyes:. Although he apparently likes it more than you do, since he apologized. You’re clearly distraught over seeing your sacred bovine receive some gentle prodding instead of the unwavering adulation she demands, so it’s forgivable that you failed to understand that Franzen was citing Kafka, Proust, and Faulkner as his _influences_. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/58 "2011-05-21T13:39:10Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I used to watch Oprah way back in the day before she got too full of herself. The thing that really turned me off of her and made me stop watching was an incident that occurred when Tom Cruise was a guest. It wasn’t the Katie Holmes episode, it was years before that. Cruise was on the show to promote _Interview with the Vampire_. The movie was screened for the audience. Oprah made a big, grandstanding show of walking out of the movie like 20 minutes into it because she said it was evil and Satanic and reflected “dark forces.” She got her entourage of sycophants to walk out with her and have a big prayer circle outside the theater. Cruise still did the show anyway, and Oprah gave him a big, retarded, self-righteous sermon about how he shouldn’t do movies that promote “forces of darkness.” What a load. By all accounts she DID walk out of a screening because the amount of blood wigged her out. The rest of the stuff you wrote’s just made up. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/59 "2011-05-21T14:37:08Z")
Not wanting a certain sticker on your book because it might turn off males is pandering to sexists, IMHO. That might be how you have to play the game. But that doesn’t mean the game don’t suck. And that’s why Oprah has fans. She blows the “game” out of the damn water. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590/60 "2011-05-21T15:02:16Z")
It’s hard to understand because you’re looking at her NOW, instead of what she once was. When she started out, Oprah was the common woman. She was cool. She was funny, she was above all, normal. She was fat, she got awed by celebrities, she asked questions without being worried about whether they were right. I watched her in the late 80s/early 90s and every question in my mind, Oprah also asked. She came out and said it. I recall one time they did a show from a women’s prison. One of the inmates had a beard. They showed her and Oprah, came right out and said, “You’re a woman right?” The lady said, “yes.” And Oprah says “So you’re a lady with a beard?” Unfortunately as her show grew, she became less and less like her self and more and more a celebrity in her own right. To me, this hurt her. As her wealth grew she stopped being in touch with the common people. To be fair, she acknowledges this. I remember she did a show where her and Gayle stayed in some low class motels and she was like, “I can’t do this anymore.” She started going over board with the suit brought by the beef industry. I think she was right and she won. She should’ve won too, but after that, Oprah seemed to gain a myth of invincibility. Also not everything Oprah has touched or involved with has turned to gold. It’s just her successes have been so huge they overshadow her failures. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-oprah-become-so-powerful/582590.md?page=4)