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Oprah Winfrey, the Queen of Daytime TV.
Farewell, Oprah! America is singing your praises (literally) after 25 groundbreaking years on television. No one could deny Oprah her visionary status, not with all the money she has to prove it. Oprah Winfrey’s net worth is 2.7 billion dollars, she’s listed just below Lady Gaga at number 2 on the Forbes list of the World’s Most Powerful Celebrities and ranks 3rd on their list of the World’s Most Powerful Women.
The Oprah Winfrey Show started as a salacious gab fest back in 1986, when Phil Donohue and Sally Jesse Raphael were the reigning king and queen of trash TV. Geraldo Rivera joined the talk show fray in 1987, followed by Maury Povich, Jerry Springer and Montel Williams in 1991. Obviously, The Oprah Winfrey Show is the only daytime program to have risen like a phoenix from the ashes of smutty tabloid talk, thanks to the way Oprah revamped her show during the 10th anniversary season. 1996 saw the advent of Oprah’s Book Club, which gave the show some much-needed gravitas. In 2002, she started airing her “Favorite Things” episodes annually, and in 2004, Oprah infamously gave everyone in her studio audience a BRAND NEW CAR!!! (Taxes not included.) But most importantly, in 2005, Tom Cruise’s visit to the show taught children everywhere just how very bad it is to jump on the couch.
Yes, Oprah Winfrey has been probably the singular most influential voice in mainstream American culture for the last 15 years, so it would come as no surprise to me to discover that groups of middle-aged gals are gushing and crying about how much they’ll miss Lady O after the final episode of her show airs this afternoon. What does surprise me, though, is some of the things the group of 60 “Oprah Show Babies” said during yesterday’s two-part surprise farewell. These young women and girls – all under age 25 – really seem to believe watching Oprah has transformed their lives. Continue reading »
Nobody does it better than Oprah. No, really.
I have a little dish on a bookshelf in my bedroom that holds small but possibly critical pieces to various parts of my home. I have no idea from whence any of them came, but I know that in case I ever experience an emergency of any kind, I will immediately sort through the various screws, picture hooks, bolts and metal pieces to try and determine which will save the day. I have faith one of them just might.
I have come to think of The Oprah Winfrey Show as I do the contents of that little dish: I’m not exactly sure where it fits into my life exactly, but without it I fear I’ll be lost in the event of a crisis. I have always known she’ll come through for me when I need her most, but since she is essentially a talk-show host, I haven’t quite figured out what would qualify as the speaking catastrophe in which I might be required to pick up the Batphone and have her swoop in and save me from my own verbal self.
As I’ve watched the 25th season of her show faithfully since September (and off and on through the years) in anticipation of her saying good-bye forever (or at least until she announces one of what I’m sure will be many new shows in which she’ll star to boost ratings on her network, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network), I’ve tried to absorb as many lessons as possible. You know, just in case I need to bank a few more for after she’s gone for good (on network television, anyway) tomorrow.
Oprah's final bow.
The time has come. This is bigger than the apocalypse y’all. This is Opocalypse 2011!
As I tweeted earlier this week, I don’t think it’s any coincidence the end of the world and Oprah’s last show were scheduled for the same week. In fact, now that May 21st has come and gone without a lightning bolt, for many, the true end is today.
How will we live without Oprah?
Now, I’ve done my fair share of mocking The Big O, especially when she went on a cross-country trip with Gail that one time and realized she no longer remembered how to pump gas. That’s when I decided Oprah was no longer for me. Howard Stern is my guy. He asks better questions than Oprah, anyway. Oprah’s just a little too buddy-buddy with celebs for my taste.
That said, I still wonder about a future in an Oprah-less society. Continue reading »
At least, I still have O Magazine.
I have watched Oprah since I was a child. Even then, I had a desire to learn why people did the things they did and how I could be better at what I did. When I grew into adulthood, Oprah’s shows took on a whole new meaning for me. When my first daughter was born, I’d watch everyday at 4pm. Back then, I had a VCR and would tape the episodes that I couldn’t catch live. Thank God for DVR. Now, I try to scan the week’s worth of shows and tape the important ones since I very rarely get the time to watch them at their regular time. Honestly, I can barely fathom not having Oprah on at 4pm weekdays. I know it’s coming. I know she has a network but it won’t be the same. She will not be hosting her show on her network; the show as we know it will be over for good.
I’m not gonna lie, I will mourn her absence.
Continue to rely on Oprah?
Dr. Melvin Levine used to be considered a childhood education expert. Now many consider him a pedophile — a charge he will never be able to defend. Levine died on Friday from an apparent suicide the same day a class action lawsuit was filed against him for sexual abuse. Attorney Carmen Durso represents some 40 patients of his who have stepped forward to make the allegations. This is not the first time such charges have been levied against the doctor.
Before his death, Levine kept a busy schedule of lectures and appearances, some of them high-profile, including an appearance on the Today Show where he was interviewed by Katie Couric. But none of his appearances were more high-profile than a series of visits he paid to Oprah Winfrey as a guest on her show, a fact that now has some folks scratching their heads.
Should we doubt Oprah's credibility based on a few bad seeds over the course of 25 years?
When Oprah ends her daily talk show after 25 years this spring, more than a few tears will be shed in my home, and they’ll all be mine. While I don’t watch her every day, I enjoy knowing she’s there, and more often than not I record her programs to watch when I’m curled up in bed at night and in need of a good sob or chuckle, or I just want to live vicariously through those who get lots of really good, free stuff.
No one knows better than me that not every Oprah show is a home run, and not every guest is a winner. We were reminded of that last week when it was reported that Dr. Melvin Levine committed suicide a day after 40 of his patients filed medical malpractice and sexual abuse suits against him. Dr. Levine had been an occasional childhood education expert on Oprah over the years, and now at least one publication is calling the big O’s judgment into question because of guests like him.
Oprah and mom Vernita Lee carried shame surrounding their babies.
By now, most of the world knows that Oprah’s big secret was that she has a half-sister named Patricia who is the daughter of Oprah’s mom, Vernita Lee. The two met just this past Thanksgiving after Patricia, through a set of bizarre circumstances, figured out that she was indeed the daughter of Oprah’s mother.
Vernita Lee gave up her daughter Patricia back in 1963 with the hope of getting off of welfare. She also says she knew she could not raise another child adequately. While her reaction to finding her long lost daughter was not as affectionate as Patricia would have liked, Oprah that she had an aha moment after the two sisters left their mother’s house when she realized that her mother was still living in the past in 1963. Vernita was not allowing herself to fully embrace Patricia and the miracle that reuniting with her really is because she was stuck under the shame of what it meant to give up a child in 1963.
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