The Oprah Conundrum

Update: Bubba's feeling better and is back at daycare. Hallelujah! And lucky for me, he never broke out into the seeping pustules I saw on the web, so I didn't have to live with that stigma. Whew!

This has been a crazy week, dealing with Bubba, trying to get my niece's scrapbook finished in time for her high school graduation party this weekend, buying her present(pink luggage, check it out, it rocks!)which took two tries via Internet and finally a trip to Dillards, and trying to fit work in there somewhere and pick up my meds and go a meet-and-greet with the new owner of Bubba's daycare tonight and watching the two-hour season finale of Lost and....well, you know the story.

But today, I'm here not to discuss the mundanity of my life.

The truth is, I need to talk about Oprah.

What, oh what, has happened to Oprah? And why, oh why, do I continue to care?

Oprah hit the big time when I was about 15. Everybody loved Oprah! She was so real, so caring, so approachable and compassionate, a "real sized" woman with bad hair days and a self-deprecating, humble style that sent her to the top. Many college afternoons were spent with Oprah, her presence comforting, almost like having a best friend there for you reliably at 3 p.m. every day. (Ironically, given the contentious relationship between the two, my other "friend in the TV" during those days was good old David Letterman, whom I still admire even though he's lost some of his edge. He is almost 60, after all).

During those years, Oprah's approachability, empathy and downright friendliness propelled her skyward, and now she's at the top. For many, many people the love affair has continued unabated to this day. I, on the other hand, have been left in a confused, messy state of befuddled annoyance and in-spite-of-myself interest.

While I graduated from college and embarked on Life, Oprah has undergone a steady transformation from "real woman" to "new age goddess/guru/champion." I believe the pinnacle of this transformation, the apex of this morph, was achieved on Monday night, May 22, with the airing of "Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball" on ABC.

I was aware of the ball, as ABC had been promoting it mercilessly for weeks, and we even got another week's notice as it was postponed due to Bush's televised talk on the war or immigrants or something (does anyone listen to a word he says?) Monday also happened to be Coxsackie virus day at our house, but luckily, LilCherie called me to let me know the show was on. I immediately tuned in and watched it through to the end, even thought J. was dealing with a crying Bubba in the back room and I had to turn on the closed captioning just to follow along. I'm sure that J. felt he got the better end of the deal.

The "Legends Ball," according to the ABC web site, was composed of Oprah's "personal archival footage" from this "historic celebration" that happened a year ago. Ostensibly, the purpose of the ball was to honor the contributions of "25 legendary women in the fields of art, entertainment and civil rights." Oprah's site is more clear about the fact that the ball was to honor African-American women.

The one-hour special was an Oprah gush-fest. Oprah's personal entertainment guru Colin Cowie told her "Oprah, you must wear red....to match the roses," she imparted to us. Oprah bought each of the women extravagant diamond earrings, but "still felt like it wasn't enough." The older women were "the Legends." The younger ones were referred to as "the Young'uns." Yep, it was a down-home, southern-style celebration, complete with minted pea soup, diamond earrings and the "sprawling lawns" of Oprah's Santa Barbara home, named, I kid you not, Promised Land.

The show gave Oprah the opportunity to read a poem (or "po-eeem" as she says), cry tears of gratitude, surprise the "audience" (since they were legends, they didn't have to look under their seats for the earrings), make her obligatory "the white folks didn't know WHAT was goin' on!" joke, drool in the presence of Maya Angelou, wear a big, gaudy, flowery hat at the gospel service held at Promised Land, and basically, celebrate not the Legends, but herself. The Thing That Is Now Oprah.

By holding this ball -- organizing it, promoting it and being the focus of it -- Oprah obviously believes SHE is a legend as well. And she probably is. But this is a far cry from the humble talk-show host we knew way back when.

Oprah's site says she sees each lives of "Black folk" before her as a bridge to her own life now. To get the point across, she specifically built a bridge in her backyard for the ball -- not some little garden bridge, but a BRIDGE. Yes, I'm sure all those who endured slavery, segregation and discrimination would feel it was all worth it if they could just see Oprah now!!

As I watched the ball, I was, as always, nauseated yet transfixed. Maybe it's just the desire to make fun of her. Maybe it's to keep an eye on her as she slowly turns into the ruler of the world. Or maybe, god forbid, it's because a part of me actually admires it, wants to be it, wants to be her!!! Oh god.

I could go on, and probably will at a later date, because I've been struggling with the Oprah Conundrum for years at this point. It's a fun pastime. But I think you get my point here and I don't want to go on too long because, hey, we all have lives right? Don't you need to get to your minted pea soup? Don't you need to go make sure the contractors are working on that bridge in the backyard? Sheesh.