Oprah Who?

For some years now, I've been trying to figure out why I don't watch Oprah anymore. I guess more truthfully, I should say that I don't want to watch Oprah anymore. There are only so many subjects to cover in a talk show, right? However, I have thought there were some other--deeper--reasons, I just couldn't quite put my finger on any of them. Today, The New Republic (TNR) helped me figure that out.

Oprah has again been had by the author of a book that is touted as fact but is purely fiction. This time, however, the subject is surviving the Holocaust. Oh sure, it's a love story, but what makes this story truly heart gripping is the setting. And the near impossibility of the events taking place. That's what really grabs your heart. The Rosenblats have become quite the cause celebre by spinning this yarn:

Herman entered a competition in a newspaper to award the most romantic story. Not surprisingly, he won. His story then made its way to the pages of Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul. Oprah Winfrey featured Herman and Roma on a special 1996 Valentine's Day show, and again in November 2007. (A spokesperson for Oprah had no comment about whether they fact-check guests' stories). Herman signed with the Ambassador Speaker's Bureau, a conservative agency that represents clients like Alan Keyes and Stephen Baldwin (the evangelical brother of Alec and Billy). He also signed with literary agent Andrea Hurst, and in December of last year, sold the rights to his memoir to Berkley Books.

There is also a movie in the works...

I am not Jewish, nor do I have any close relations who experienced the Holocaust. However, there is something about that horror that all humanity shares. Thus, all humanity should be outraged by such deception. Anyone who tugs at a person's emotions just because they have the sheer power to do so, is sick. A child of the authors say as much about his own parents:

Gabriel Sherman writes: "When I asked Ken [Rosenblat] how his parents could have lived a double life for some 15 years, he explained that for his mother, who survived the Holocaust as a child by hiding as a Polish Catholic, living with an assumed identity was almost natural. 'My mother lived a life of hiding. It was natural for them to lie, to cheat, and this is something that they lived with,' he told me."

And that is a big part of why I really don't like Oprah anymore: she loves to tug at the audience's emotions because she can. (There's also the weird new age religiosity stuff, but that's for another time.)

I used to watch her show with my college roommates. We even scheduled classes around the time the show aired! Later when I was a young mother home with two babies, I hoped I'd get a chane to see the Oprah show and fold laundry. On the days when I did, it was great. What I have realized, is that there is a common thread in the times in my life when I watched that show. In college I was a teenager and young adult with lots of hormones, emotion, and not a lot of brains. As a young mother, I was sleep deprived, and really just a pool of emotions. The Oprah show fed my desire to wallow in feelings and to not think seriously or critically about ANYTHING.

Thankfully, I am growing in those areas. Yet sadly, a woman old enough to be my mother is not. And even more sadly, her iconic status among women remains. That's where the comments of a TNR reader finalized my understanding of it all:

Add to this the mindless elevation of victimhood in this country, the mindless celebration of victimhood on talk show after talk show after talk show--the proclaiming of one's wounds, of being praised and respected for the mere fact of one's wounds (not for the manner in which one has responded to them)--add this into the mix, and the credulous celebration of the Rosenblats' fabricated suffering (like the credulous celebration of James Frey's fabricated suffering) seems as much a reflection of the corruption of our culture as of the liars themselves.

I would refer you to a line from Norman Manea (who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp as a child, and then, as an adult, was a dissident under Ceausescu):
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"Suffering. . .corrupts," writes Norman Manea, "and suffering peddled publicly corrupts absolutely."

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The issue here, frankly, is reality. We are so corrupted as a culture that reality has no bearing on things. Feelings trump all else. This is dangerous territory in that we stand to lose sight of the realities of the Holocaust, and every other real thing that happened if we as a culture prefer to deal only with feelings.

The TNR writer tried over and over to get real answers--truthful answers--from those affiliated with the Rosenblats. He and others were excoriated for doubting the words of someone who had endured such suffering. The feelings about the story had trumped the reality of it.

You'd think there'd be a long list of embarrassed folks, right? WRONG. Oprah is still supporting the story. The movie will be made. And the ability to determine truth from fiction will be whittled away all the more.

Strange times, folks...educating ourselves and our children is all the more important.

If you want to follow the TNR story start here, then go here, and here. It's long but a fascinating look at the ethics of those who shape our culture.