Something about Oprah Winfrey has always rubbed me the wrong way. Mostly it's the manipulative manner in which she serves as America's official self-appointed self-help guru despite having no credentials with which to qualify her for the post. (Prior to getting her own talk show she'd been a local news anchor and had acted in one movie.) Her reaction after being refused entry to a closed Hermes boutique in Paris last year is but one example of the abusive manner with which she wields her power. And that power has become so massive that even the once unflappable David Letterman was reduced to meek ass-kissing when Winfrey finally agreed to appear on his show last fall.

But in the aftermath of her cruel, self-serving public humiliation of discredited memoirist James Frey, more people are beginning to openly question Winfrey's role in American culture. One example of this is a lengthy story from yesterday's Boston Phoenix by writer Mark Jurkowitz:

The 52-year-old Oprah, who Forbes estimates has a net worth of $1.4 billion, has amassed almost unfathomable power and influence through a feel-good empire of confession, redemption, and self-help magnified through the multimedia megaphone that includes everything from her talk show and magazine to her film company. By touting anything, from books to bras, she can inspire mega-mass consumption and move markets.

One of her few public doubters, author and cultural critic Chris Lehmann, recalls the 2004 show when Oprah bought 276 Pontiacs for her studio audience (without telling them that they would owe up to $7000 in taxes). "At that moment," he says, "she could have given them an AK47 and told them to kill anyone." He attributes her incredible success to the idea that "she's cleared out this kind of therapist-priest space in the culture" and combined it with "a cult of personality."

And that's what's ultimately so scary about Oprah. She puts the "cult" in pop culture.

Jurkowitz also notes that Winfrey's double standards are sometimes glaring:

After winning a legal battle against Texas cattlemen who sued her after a 1996 show in which she observed that mad-cow disease deterred her from eating another burger, Oprah, according to news reports, rejoiced that "Free speech not only lives, it rocks." (In another example of her commercial power, Oprah's hamburger denunciation helped depress cattle prices.) But Oprah was on the other side of the free-speech issue when she waged a successful legal battle against a former employee who was trying to overturn a confidentiality agreement that bars her employees from writing about Oprah's business or personal affairs for the rest of their lives.

Even celebrities have begun offering critiques of Winfrey's behavior. In his February 10th column in Entertainment Weekly, novelist Stephen King offered the following observation about the Frey fracas:

Did Oprah come out of her bout with Frey unmarked? Each viewer will judge for himself, but I was made uncomfortable by how many times I heard her say he "embarrassed" her. In the book world, Ms. Winfrey is a person of great power. The unstated warning of her cool and methodical dismantling of James Frey seems to have been Embarrass the Book Queen and the Book Queen will get you back double, in front of millions... and your editor, too.

Surely there are more important lessons to be learned here.

What has begun to trouble me most about Winfrey is the recent franchising of her brand name. First, she gave Dr. Phil McGraw his own TV show in 2002, and now she's preparing one hosted by Food Network star Rachael Ray. Notably, the one thing Winfrey shares with her two proteges is a lack of any discernible expertise. While Dr. Phil does (remarkably) have a Ph.D. in psychology, he seems to spend a lot of time (and book chapters) telling people how to lose weight. Not only is he not a medical doctor or a dietitian, he's overweight himself. As for Ray, the so-called celebrity "chef" has never been to culinary school.

Fittingly, James Frey's own "expert" status was attained only after Winfrey promoted him as such on her show last year. In the end, one has to wonder: was she upset that he lied, or just that he got caught? After all, if one fraud can be exposed, so can the rest.

[thePhoenix.com] Attack of the 50-foot Oprah (via TV Squad)
[EW.com] The Pop of King: Frey's Lies

Dave Chappelle's heavily hyped interview from last Friday's "Oprah Winfrey Show" is now available online over at You Tube.

If you're hoping for straight answers about why he left his Comedy Central series or whether he intends to return, prepare to be disappointed. He talked about pressure from the show's producers and network executives, but didn't give many specifics. He also badmouthed some friends over the way they reacted to his abrupt departure from the show. Their typical reaction? Asking him to talk with a psychiatrist.

When asked about the show's future, Chappelle claimed that more of the show's proceeds would have to go to charity before he'd consider returning -- a demand you'd think Comedy Central executives would meet in a heartbeat if it meant getting back their cash cow.

[You Tube] Dave Chappelle On Oprah Winfrey Show - 2.3.06 (via TV Squad)

Former sketch comedy host Dave Chappelle is scheduled to appear on this Friday's episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Here's the capsule from Oprah's website:

He was the hottest comedian in the country. Then he mysteriously disappeared. Why did Dave Chappelle walk away from $50 million? He addresses the widely reported rumors in his first television interview. And the big question...will he go back to his show?

I'm betting the answer to that last question is "no."

(via TV Squad)

In case you haven't heard, Oprah Winfrey recently tried to do a little after hours shopping at a Hermes store in Paris, but was refused entry. Oprah believes she was denied admittance because she is African-American.

As accusations of racism fly about, one aspect of the "Hermes affair" that is consistently ignored by Oprah's army is the fact that the shop in question had already been closed for several minutes by the time Ms. Winfrey arrived. Perhaps, as has been reported, there were other shoppers inside the store at the time. But perhaps, unlike Oprah, those shoppers arrived before closing time. And perhaps the boutique's employees were doing their best to speed those shoppers along. The truth is, we know very little of the exact circumstances surrounding this event. Given the lack of information, perhaps inflammatory accusations don't make for the best resolution strategy.

I am white. As such, I don't have to deal with many of the ugly realities faced daily by minorities. But as white as I may be, I have never been granted access to a business 15 minutes after closing, nor have I ever expected that I would be granted such access.

I suspect that the current controversy has little to do with racism, but instead simply reflects the unquenchable sense of entitlement possessed by today's American celebrities. Completely incapable of relating to the workings of the everyday world, Oprah opts to assign random irrational motives in a wholly rational situation.

If Mel Gibson arrived on the set of Oprah's television show 15 minutes after the end of the day's taping and demanded that she and her crew shoot another episode just for him, would she oblige? What if she had other plans for the evening? If she refused, would it be safe to automatically assume that Ms. Winfrey is prejudiced against Aussies? Or Catholics?

In the end, we may come to discover that the store clerks were indeed racist. And if that occurs, I'll be the first to condemn their actions. But until Oprah can provide stronger evidence than that currently offered, bigotry simply isn't the logical conclusion. In the "real world," hours of business actually mean something, regardless of race. And logic should lead one to assume that if you arrive at a store outside of business hours, and you haven't made special arrangements with the store's manager, then you probably won't be allowed inside.

Maybe she wasn't admitted into the shop because (gasp!) she's American. After all, it's common knowledge in most of the world that the French-American relationship has been a bit strained in recent years. And stereotypes that pre-date the current struggles suggest that the French have never cared much for us Yanks, black or white.

None of this is intended to diminish the problem of racism in the world today. Minorities in America have to deal with unpleasantries on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. From police behavior to employment decisions to general civility, bigotry seems to pervade every aspect of our nation.

Yet, all Oprah can think about is herself. For once, not everyone bent over backwards to provide her with special treatment, and as a result, she's describing the Paris incident as one of the most humiliating of her life. Forgive me if I fail to see her struggle to shop after hours in a Paris boutique as providing much of a contribution to the larger cause.

[Yahoo! News] Oprah Gets Empathy After Boutique Rebuff

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Some may claim that my stance on this issue disqualifies me from calling myself a progressive anymore. As a progressive, however, I feel that I have a duty to discredit those who seek to take advantage of liberal issues merely for personal gain. Fighting racism should be of paramount concern to every progressive, but when a rich celebrity attaches herself to that fight with specious claims, she only succeeds in weakening the cause. And when the fight for racial equality is defined by Oprah's desire to shop at Hermes after closing time, how can we really expect anyone to take it seriously?