Oprah is finishing up her long run of daytime television that has been the mainstay of suburban moms for over two decades. The question is how did an African American woman named Oprah get white middle class and upper middleclass women to listen to her? She did it by a very simple method...she let the audience decide who was right and who was wrong and she just guided the horse. In this way she broke new ground.
Oprah Winfrey takes complex people or issues and knocks them down to a single emotional question :how could you do that? The moral underpinning of Oprah is a middleclass morality. Even when she has on every freak that every walked the planet she takes that morality and that guides her questions and her reactions.. It is a simple: Johnny don't you feel horrible about leaving your kids? Don't you feel remorse for beating your wife? Or it is the feel good story of overcoming adversity. Oprah becomes the come from behind queen...here is someone who was locked up and beaten for ten years and now she is a brain surgeon.
These type of simple stories have a clear good guy and bad guy. In this case it is circumstances that conspire against all of us, but Oprah pitches it into an us against them. Them being alcoholism, bestiality, criminality. Even her experts are simple concepts. Dr. Phil. When we were in kindergarten we had teachers who were named Teacher Angela, Teacher Marcia. Dr. Phil. Oprah understands her audience. Dr. Phil is a good doctor who helps people. He speaks in generalities. He breaks situations into morality plays. Don't you feel bad about lighting cats on fire?
Television is really only capable of simple concepts. Good guys, bad guys. Oprah understood this and the drama of right and wrong and she let her audience decide, then she just went along for the ride.
William Elliott Hazelgrove writes in Ernest Hemingway's attic. His latest book is Rocket Man.
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Comments
Oprah has been a positive guiding light for women and we never had a truer and more dedicated woman that makes us feel grateful about being born a woman a male dominated society. I stay happy when I watch Oprah. She gives you faith in mankind and she gives us hope for a life that is blessed and fulfilled with pure joy. Angel sent.
I posted this earlier, but it seems to have magically disappeared. This piece is incredibly condescending.
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