Oprah, dammit (Part One for Today)

Sigh...yes, I'm at it again. I've been watching Oprah, dammit. Oprah is someone I just love to hate, I guess. I think that she does a great job (obviously, an understatement) at, well, what she does primarily, which is interviewing and bringing issues to the forefront for her audience. She really knows (and has by now put together a team that helps her know) who and what is going on in the world around her, and what it is that is really on the minds (those nagging questions about health, fashion, LIFE) of her audience. I think most people admire her for that and understand that is how she achieved her primary success.

Then there's this business with her charity work and her own spirituality, the latter of which I sometimes am startled to find, seems to stand much in line with my own. I guess I don't expect to have ANYthing in common with her when I first see her, on TV or in a magazine or whatever: we're a different generation, a different race, a different economic class (shocker, I know!), etc. But somehow, I guess that's how she reaches people: everyone sometimes feels that she's Everywoman while still having achieved so much MORE on certain levels than many of us really will. Not that we aren't important and achieving at what WE do!! But I got off track ... The charity ...

I get pissed at her, because it seems like that for every good, wonderful, generous thing that she does ... whether it's starting a school or donating a generous amount of her money, or her perhaps-even-more-precious-to-her Time ... whatever it is, it seems like just when I think, Wow, That's an amazing, cool thing that Oprah did....SHE HAS TO GO AND BRAG ABOUT IT. And yes, to me and my sensibilities, it does come off as bragging and just telling the world how great you did, what great thing you did and how you're awesome because of it.

Once again, maybe it's because we were raised differently. I don't condone much about the Catholic Church or any of their ... I don't know, "mentality" would you say?...in which I was brought up. But I do think one of the values I learned there, perhaps one of the very few that I do carry with me -- and I know it isn't exclusive to Catholic belief -- is that when you do a generous or "good" or charitable deed, you don't go and tell everybody. There is a Bible verse that recommends that you don't even let your right hand know what your left is doing (I am paraphrasing, but this IS the topic of the verse). It's just an idea, a theory, that somehow it makes the "good" that you did nicer if you don't go and make it about YOU. You know?

Anyway, I always feel like I'm reading about Oprah and she's talking about herself and what's she's done, her charity, her opening of the school, her giving of money ... it's exhausting. And the business-trained person in me has to wonder if her aim isn't to get the word out about her Angel Network (oh, you're welcome, O, I'll take my check now) and those things, so that OTHERS will participate. But then I think, no, she's so talented at speaking and getting messages across in the right way, that she would know how to do this better if that was her aim. You know what I think? I think she just can't help bragging. I think we all have our faults, and that she is prideful sometimes. I'M NOT JUDGING as far as whether that makes her a bad person or something. I'm just saying why I roll my eyes when I hear Oprah. And why when I find myself liking her show, I say D'OH!

Or should I say D'Ohprah! He he....
Anyway, her show today did inspire my next post, so I hope y'all will read.