'Cause you know that bitch is positively wet with the prospect of all the poor, pathetic, tragic victims of Katrina she’s going to be trotting out on her show, making them relive the horror, make them cry on TV for our vicarious & perverse viewing pleasure, then give them a free “slimming” makeover & new car.
Most of the pathetic tragic victims will be women of course. Although, I suppose at some point she’ll haul out some token, pathetic male victim as long as she can get him to cry for us on TV too.
I hate you in advance Oprah, you exploitative bitch.
…And, not for nuttin’, she seemed to blend right into the crowd, with her hair pulled back tight, and no make up. Certainly nothing like the ‘star’ you see every day on the tube where she looks…dare I say it…positivly white.
Pittings from the future is just another way to stretch a flimsy premise.
I have never understood the froth at the mouth loathing of Oprah, when it seems to me the way to avoid her annoying personality (all that goodwill and concern) is to NOT TUNE IN.
Believe me, I avoid her as much as possible, but you see, my roommate loves her. He’s got the DVR programmed to record her show everyday. As hard as I try to avoid her, every so often I’ll have the TV on, say for instance, listening to the news in the background, keeping up with events in New Orleans and then the TV auto tunes to Oprah. If I’m busy in the kitchen doing something, it may be five or ten minutes or more before I get around to walking over and muting the TV.
Other times, it’s also unavoidable. I’ll go outside and putz in the yard while he’s watching it. But jeezus, I can’t always hide outside when the damn show is on. I can hear the TV clearly from most of the house, and if I’m cooking or cleaning in the kitchen, I more or less have to listen to the show.
She’s there. On the TV. I can’t just “not watch.” So I rip on her instead.
She’s going to have a parade of Katrina victims on, and I’m going to get subjected to it, whether I want to or not.
I’m not a daytime TV guy, but I can’t fathom why Oprah Winfrey inspires such bile.
Exploitive? I’ll tell ya what – wait until after the fact, and honestly ask yourself if she’s done more harm than good.
Generally speaking, the woman is a force for good in the world. I would be extremely surprised if she ends up delivering anything less than an astonishing amount more than most people with similar means pony up.
Fuck. How petty can you be?
I used to resent having her name plastered all over a large percentage of quality literature that I wanted to buy – and then I, you know, turned 19, stopped hating her because she’s got a TV show that doesn’t appeal to me, and applied that whole “by their fruits” test. Which she passes without much controversy, if you haven’t noticed.
The only thing I truly dislike Oprah for is her book club. That thing has pushed so much drivel that most people who read the books she pushes have forgotten what a real novel should read like.
Then again, that’s my literature snob side talking, so take it with a grain of salt.
I will. If it wasn’t for Oprah, a lot of people would not be reading anything. I think that’s worse than reading “drivel” (which is a matter of opinion, of course, because I think she routinely has some quality choices on her list.)
Hating on Oprah for something she hasn’t done yet is weak.
A few days ago, I was watching CNN and a woman and her nineteen-year-old daughter were being interviewed after being rescued. I only remember two things about the interview: 1) The mother’s main concern was making sure that her daughter’s education wasn’t interrupted any more than absolutely necessary. 2) The daughter said that when they were thinking that they would likely die, she told herself that she wouldn’t because there were so many things she hadn’t done, and the first such example that she offered was “I haven’t met Oprah yet.”
You might dismiss something like that as the effect of a personality cult, but I think it’s way beyond that. Oprah is a spectacular human being, and she is rightfully an admired role model for many, many people.
She’s done a lot with and for her celebrity. Nobody frets that they haven’t met Jerry Springer when they’re faced with the prospect of death.
I dislike the side of Oprah (alright, make that I can’t abide her) as she has, more than once, had “expert” guests (along the lines of psychic healers) on who have done grave disservice by pronouncing that, along with other ailments, lupus and other autoimmune disorders are a physical reaction to childhood abuse. It’s frightening to think of how many people may be refusing treatment because if they saw it on Oprah, it must be correct.
As a human being I admire her for overcoming a rough start in life and for many of her accomplishments. Her book club does indeed have people reading who otherwise wouldn’t. As far as inspiration to hold on to life because one hasn’t met Oprah, well, lots of people have questionable choices of who they aspire to meet before they leave this world, and that in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. (Stephen King is one of my top ten) However, I, too, expect that she will exploit survivors of Katrina, and that is just wrong on so many levels.
I wouldn’t take a new car if it was given to me (now, an old classic you’re talkin’), I’m way out of her demographic being white and and older, albeit female. And I dislike her show, A LOT. Though not for the same reasons you do it seems.
But, I still think that she’s an amazing person. She has made a huge success despite humble and challenging beginnings and even though the shows are silly and let’s-all-sing-Kumbayah-Amway-ish in tone, she is a very generous woman. One who does a lot of good from what I’ve seen.
Though I dislike the shows, I don’t think that the whole point of the “here, we’ll help out this disadvantaged person and give them a car and makeover” thing is so that the audience can be entertained by the crying.
That is just a side effect of women in that situation. We do tend allow our emotions to show, this isn’t a bad thing. And to share in someone’s triumph or good will even if it means to get all choked up oneself isn’t necessarily exploitive. That is just the way we girls are sometimes.
Having people air out family secrets and fight on camera is exploitation. The international sex trade of involuntary slavery is exploitation. Gangster rap culture, political pandering over religious, racial, environmental and sexual differences is exploitation.
So somebody explain to me how having first person interviews with willing Katrina survivors who want to share their experiences is exploitation.
I can’t stand Oprah because of her enormous ego. She just always seems to think she has ALL the answers, that she’s the end all and be all, that everyone should just bow down and kiss her ass.
Plus her whole hissyfit over being turned away from Hermes after they were CLOSED, describing it as the most humiliating experience of her life-bitch, please. You were sexually assaulted, abused, admitted a drug problem on national tv-and being turned away from some chi-chi boutique in Paris AFTER HOURS is the “most humiliating experience of your life?”
Humiliation is a funny thing. It’s one thing to be abused/assaulted/snubbed when you’re a nobody, powerless and broke. But when you’re many times rich and famous and can insulate yourself from that kind of pain, and somebody still manages to snub you in a manner with racial overtones – that is humiliating, if you let it get to you.
Maybe, but it was never proven that she was turned away because of racism. The store WAS closed, and they were setting up for an event for the following day. Now, it very well COULD BE that they turned her way because she was black. But it’s equally likely that they turned her away because they were closed and they’re a snotty Paris boutique.
Either way, I can’t feel too sorry for a billionaire not being able to shop after hours.
I’m literally gaping that someone would resent Oprah for pushing literary “drivel”.
Let’s look at recent book club selections. This summer’s drivel is William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August. Before that was Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. Before that? Anna Karenina. And not too long back, she even featured my personal favorite novel of all time, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Before that was John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. From memory, I can remember her covering Isabel Allende (as with the García Márquez selection, I have to have some gratitude for anyone pushing magical realism) and quite a number of things by Toni Morrison.
Man, if you consider Faulkner, Tolstoy, Morrison, and Gabriel García Márquez to be “drivel”, I’d love to know what your reading list is. I’ve been continually astonished at Oprah’s efforts to popularize classic literature. I don’t think anyone would question that Faulkner or Steinbeck is part of the American canon, and Morrison certainly has a deserved spot in the quote-unquote modern canon. I would consider most of the above books great literature; they have perennial places on college reading lists.
So tell me, dear, since these pieces of indisputably classic literature are “drivel”, what have you been reading lately?
No, not racism: discrimination. Oprah has always stuck me as pretty truthful and a pretty good judge of someone’s motives, which makes me think it very likely it happened the way Oprah’s people said it did.
Discrimination? Every time I’ve tried to get into a store 15 minutes after closing the best treatment I’ve ever received was maybe an employee walking by and silently mouthing the words “we’re closed” and walking away without the slightest interest in whether I had some special circumstance.
Wasn’t there security footage showing a security guard politely informing her the store was closed, handing her a card and inviting her to return when they were open?