As much as she would like me to, I don’t watch Oprah every day. Sometimes I’m not home, or sometimes I am engrossed in an important activity, like marinating meat, cleaning my combs or organizing my recycling. But whether I watch Oprah or not doesn’t matter. The fact is that Oprah is taking over the world.
It all starts with her daily talk show, which, if you miss it or don’t Tivo it, you can catch when it is repeated in the wee hours on ABC. Daily she delivers entertainment as well as information and experts on health, psychology, fashion and style and just about every aspect of modern life. After all, where else would you find Tom Cruise jumping on a couch? Each December, we get to see “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” a show devoted to the best tasting, coolest products her staff can find that she reviews and approves. Just in case we need to know what to buy and where to shop, Oprah is there to guide us. If you miss any of this information, you can find it on-line on her oprah.com website. I just downloaded a meatloaf recipe by Billy Joel’s wife. Now if I could just get one of Oprah’s cooks to make it for me…
Oprah’s book club, featured on her TV show, has encouraged millions to read and has made best sellers out of books we might not otherwise have considered reading.
Her magazine – which has a picture of the Oprah herself on every cover – features many of the same topics as those on her show, just in case we have extra time between reading Oprah books, doing Oprah workouts, listening to Oprah on satellite radio (where she has her own network) or going to see movies like “The Great Debaters,” produced by – you guessed it – Oprah. That’s right, her Harpo productions produces movies, Broadway shows, television programs, and, of course, the ubiquitous flagship TV show. Her latest TV program, “Oprah’s Big Give,” taught people how to give away money and help strangers, a kind of televised generosity we haven’t seen since “Queen For A Day.”
Oprah recently announced plans to acquire Discovery Health, a TV channel that fits within her mission of making us all healthier and better people. So, in case you miss Dr. Oz on her daily TV show, you can watch all-health, all-healthy things Oprah, all day. Her trainers and cooks can have more of a forum to encourage us to eat right and lose weight. Like the rest of us, Oprah works at these goals, with varying degrees of success. Just makes her human, I guess.
Oprah recently took to the Internet to promote a series of on-line classes about her new favorite book, Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth.” I think that Oprah might appreciate the guilt I felt for neither having read the book nor signing on to Oprah classes.
It’s not that I don’t admire Oprah. In fact, I admire her enormously. She is a true humanitarian, doing so much more than simply giving away cars and great prizes at random on her show. She supports education and more charities than I could possibly list. She has risen from an impoverished background, dealt with incredibly challenging personal issues and built an empire just on the power of her persona. She has encouraged us to be generous of gift and deed, to read, to eat right and exercise and get healthy. If she ever tires of her long-time best friend, Gayle King, I’ll gladly apply for that position.
In addition to all of the above, Oprah is now telling us to vote for her candidate, Obama. You can bet that many people will do just that, because Oprah told them to. I’m wondering if there are many (or any) aspects of life left where Oprah does not get to have her say. Let’s face it, it’s an Oprah world. She’s just letting us live in it – and telling us how to do that better.
Any day now, I expect to hear the news that Oprah has bought a sports team. Why not? She owns everything else. Can you picture Oprah handing the Super Bowl trophy to the New York Harpos next year? You know, it could happen.
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