In The Blogs

Oprah and America

| Mon Jun. 1, 2009 12:43 PM PDT

I didn't exactly wake up this morning thinking, "what I need to read is a brutal, almost overwhelming, takedown of the pseudoscience and snake oil that has come to define a large chunk of Oprah Winfrey's show and brand." But I'm sure glad I did.

Really? I've popped out of bed on many mornings thinking exactly that. And this week's cover story in Newsweek delivers.

In fairness to Oprah, she's not really any worse than the thousands of other purveyors of freak show voyeurism, inane pop psychology, and pseudoscientific nonsense that practically define the modern media universe. But she's by far the most influential. Anyone who's responsible for foisting even more of Jenny McCarthy on the world deserves whatever Newsweek can dish out.

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Comments

What about the Obama-Oprah Connection?

Submitted by Mitch on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 1:06 PM PDT.

I agree, the Newsweek article was excellent. I also agree that her track record (in terms of the people and crackpot theories she's promoted) is atrocious. But then she's also responsible for Obama. Here is my question: Given Oprah's batting average, does this not given you pause for concern regarding how Obama's presidency is likely to play out? In the same vein, Obama is by far the most high-profile, successful person, product or theory which Oprah has ever promoted. Why not use a picture of Obama to illustrate your point? Mitch Guthman

" Anyone who's responsible

Submitted by raff (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 1:08 PM PDT.

" Anyone who's responsible for foisting even more of Jenny McCarthy on the world deserves whatever Newsweek can dish out." I'll second and third that. Watching McCarthy murder comedy is painful to behold. But nothing compares to introducing Dr. Phil to the world. There can be no forgiveness.

It's worse than comedy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 10:36 PM PDT.

Jenny McCarthy may have been moderately amusing at one time, but ever since she became the US spokesperson for the anti-vaccination movement she has actually become dangerous and Oprah giving her a platform to spread her falsehoods is repulsive. For more information check out http://www.JennyMcCarthyBodyCount.com

Have hated her for years.

Submitted by Tilli (MojaveDesert) (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 1:23 PM PDT.

Have hated her for years. ever since she ambushed my friend (one of the NEA 5. Yeah. Way back in the 80s) who'd been invited to explain performance art. How was he introduced? "And, now we have a man who peed on stage. Ew." Lovely. What a phoney.

Oprah is "responsible for

Submitted by Tilli (MojaveDesert) (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 1:27 PM PDT.

Oprah is "responsible for Obama"? Any empirical evidence of that?

Jenny McCarthy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 1:43 PM PDT.

tagged as:

result

Who is Jenny McCarthy?

let me get this straight

Submitted by junebug on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 1:46 PM PDT.

You felt stupid for lowering yourself to the discussion of bogus charges about racism against Sotomayor, and you follow that with a post about the dubiousness of daytime television? Is this all of a sudden worthy of discussion because Newsweek printed it, or because the Blogfather commented on it? Go take a shower & call it a day, Drum.

PMOY

Submitted by Linkmeister (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 1:51 PM PDT.

"even more of Jenny McCarthy" Yeah, now you say that. But when she was Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1994. . .

Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas

Submitted by tpx on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 2:24 PM PDT.

Blame Phil Donahue, not Oprah, for daytime television's pseudoscience and pandering to housewives' platitudes. Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas had nice afternoon entertainment talk shows with the occasional intellectual or social activist, but Phil ushered in the era of afternoon television pop psychology that enabled Oprah to succeed. Tom Snyder knew that pseudoscience was meant for late night viewing.

Phil Donahue never

Submitted by gyrfalcon on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 6:33 PM PDT.

ever did the kind of pseudoscience crap Oprah traffics in. The fact that he was unwilling to is one of the reasons he lost his audience to her. For one thing, Phil Donahue was the first guy on TV to talk about AIDS, and he started before it was even called AIDS. He did many,many shows on the subject, exploring the state of the research and repeatedly, over and over again, busting the myths and fears that were so prevalent among the public during the early years of the epidemic.

It may be hard to believe,

Submitted by jimBOB on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 3:11 PM PDT.

It may be hard to believe, but in the freakshow that is daytime broadcast television, Oprah is one of the less dodgy choices. Springer and the parade of losers on the judge shows (not to mention Dr. Phil) are even sadder than Oprah's temple of vanity, which at least proffers the occasional idea, even if it's a bad one. Considering how hard daytime teevee works at extinguishing any remaining gray cells in its audience, it's not so astounding that Sarah Palin was once considered executive branch material.

Daytime was trash time long

Submitted by Altoid (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 6:01 PM PDT.

Daytime was trash time long before Oprah or Donohue. Once upon a time there was Queen for a Day, which serenaded women who'd had hard lives but played it as full of treacly hard luck as it could be played. Then there was Dr Joyce Brothers, long before Dr Phil. And there were countless locally-based panderfests. Over time the kind of spectacle has changed and so have the ringmasters' names, but it's largely been schlock from the start. The exceptions were shows like Merv Griffin's, unusually classy for the time and among the first to be widely syndicated, I believe. I first encountered Oprah as a weekend sports anchor in Baltimore probably 25 years ago. There was no sign then what she would later become.

Mind you...

Submitted by QMF (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 7:52 PM PDT.

What do you expect from a person who publishes a magazine, named after her, with her portrait on the cover, and filled with pictures of herself. Every. Single. Month.

What's frustrating about

Submitted by godoggo (not verified) on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 8:58 PM PDT.

What's frustrating about people who push these quacks is that there really are techniques out there that very few doctors know about, which are much better for things like chronic pain than the staples of chemicals/surgery/pt/weight lifting that the vast majority of doctors depend on for dealing with pain. But if you want something beyond those techniques, you having no guidance but your own research and judgement.

One of my buddies and his

Submitted by Luther on Mon Jun. 1, 2009 10:12 PM PDT.

One of my buddies and his roomate were on the Ricki Lake show and the Okra show. I didn't have a chance to see the shows, but they must have been two of the most inane shows of all time as they just talked about how they fought as roommates. People who saw they show figured they were gay. Gotta hand it to ol' Dave for chutzpah--never shy about getting his picture taken with politicians and movie stars.