taking it from oprah.

oprah winfrey. she's a lot like santa claus in that she's been known to get too heavy-handed on the chocolate-chip cookies and to sport velour sweatsuits. she knows when we are sleeping and when we are awake, for why else would her program be so snugly fit in-between that lazy, hazy post-work (and school) hour of physical and mental exhaustion? steadman and gayle form a collective mrs. claus while her dogs substitute reindeer. she chuckles and "hooooo!"'s and decides who has been naughty and who has been nice. her elves, the assistants/writers/videographers/make-up artists at harpo studios, are often recorded scurrying about, hurriedly making last-minute touches to oprah's eyelashes/shoe-placement/bum-crack situation. her "favorite things" special induces sound barrier-breaking yelps from audience members, making televised viewers both spurt steam with envy and recoil in auricular pain.



more about who is naughty and who is nice: the santa claus shtick is taken three steps further in oprah's "uppermiddleclassfamily-gets-help-with-(place straining issue here)-so-they-can-speak-in-full-sentences-to-each-other-again" shows. dr. phil, having moved on to greener (and sleazier) pastures has left winfrey alone in the dust to be the empathetic-but-tough disciplinarian to struggling americans searching for oprah's level of lifestyle normalcy. those who drink are video-recorded by oprah's camera crew and shocked into sobriety. those who shoplift are video-recorded by oprah's camera crew and disgusted into a life of buddhism. those who are adulterous are divorced and sad. those families who over-consume, baby-sit with electronics and take a paper coffee cup away from each cafe they visit are...subjected to OPRAH'S ONE-WEEK CHALLENGE! hOOOoooOOOoOOOO (that's my best textual oprah impression, sorry)! is YOUR family up to the challenge?



today's episode offered two families up for international scrutiny regarding the problem of wastefulness. granted, these families WERE wasteful, especially involving family meals and general eating habits. tonnes of (perfectly edible) food were thrown away monthly and money wasted. never-worn and never-to-be worn piles of clothes sat stacked in closets. no time to shop for a pair of reading glasses? might as well grab four pairs and decide which ones are best once home. unsupervised television watching and videogaming were once replacements for old-fashioned parenting UNTIL



OPRAH'S ONE-WEEK CHALLENGE! hOOOoooOOOoOOOO!



during this challenge, both families were asked to perform the obvious. electronics were turned off, heat was turned down, collective family meals were to be prepared and consumed smartly. "stupid" books hardly consoled one pining pre-teen longing for her cellphone privileges recently taken away. all members were sneaking in extra television and fast-food consumption. naturally and expectedly, the family at weeks end felt inspired by their new nearly-monk lives. thanks to oprah and televised exposure, two families may be forever shamed into constant reconsideration of needs and wants. millions of families, too, may have viewed this program and felt terribly enough about themselves to make safer consumption decisions in their households. that's awesome.



what is not so awesome is oprah's placement as all-knowing waste-manager of north america. believe me, i'm glad the show was televised and that oprah exists. she's worked hard to get to her current position, endured an excess of struggle in her youth, she's helped and inspired millions of people around the world and, lastly, the volume of entries underneath "goodwill" on her resume boast more time and effort than few other celebrities i can think of. she encourages reading, self-sufficiency and optimism. she's pretty awesome in lots of ways, i hardly dislike her...but is she ever seen wearing the same thing twice as host of a talk-show? the talk-show set itself is in a constant state of renewal: shiny new furniture, screens, audience seating, up-to-date sound and video equipment...you get it.



oprah occasionally splashes interviews with tidbits about her personal life and preferences: "italian cotton sheets, please". "my favorite restaurant is: (name)". "my home is (place 1) is more comfortable than my dwelling in (place 2)". for someone with a hefty income and impressive resume (literary critic, magazine publisher, talk-show host, academy award nominee...), it seems fair for luxuries to exist and thrive in such an environment. she does, after all, donate large sums of green to various charitable organizations, funds and foundations (she's even founded her own). she has a family - mrs. claus, reindeer and elves...but santa claus never had any children.



i do not agree with raising children on poptarts and videogames, especially now that i see the results of such parenting every day that i walk into my place of employment. i also think it's unfair for someone without child bearing-and-rearing experience to look down their nose and wag uninformed fingers as teacher (and healer) of the big mistakes in parenting life. i agree that everyone should try a little harder to consume less on a daily basis but to hear the wastefulness gospel from one who has her own tour bus seems somewhat hypocritical to me.



what's ultimately important about the oprah winfrey show are the viewers who may find potentially life-altering tidbits of advice/suggestion/quotation/examples to live by and not oprah herself. her program has proven itself capable of life-altering abilities (the destruction of james frey's reputation, the infamous tom-cruise-jumps-on-sofa-shtick, my mother cutting out the word "joy" from various magazines and sticking them on the refrigerator), it's true. but hearing good advice from one who may not take it so seriously, or have so much experience in the subject advisable kind of makes me queasy. it's a lot like santa telling the general public that he knows what is best for them. come on, man. you apparently fly around the ENTIRE GLOBE in ONE NIGHT, squeeze your jolly self down-and-up millions of chimneys, making countless children smile come daylight and every year you still manage to forget about the malnourished and homeless. i'm not sure that santa or oprah are the best people for offering universal advice. then again, it would be difficult to track down one person available for the task. i'm not sure if any thousand year-old, time-travelling, globe-trotting philanthropists are still kicking. if you know of one, consider writing a letter to harpo studios.