Oprah Winfrey has been responsible for introducing several of the most toxic monsters of our era to society. But is she a bastard? Robert sits down with Bridgett Todd and Andrew Ti to investigate. (Six Part Series)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who are the guests discussing Oprah Winfrey?
I want to say it like Oprah does. Thank you for having me.
You know how she has that thing? I just knew you were the right person for this job. I was so excited.
Y'all don't even know.
I do. I was going to say, Bridget is the host of There Are No Girls on the Internet.
That's right.
And also just one of my favorite people in the entire world. That's right. That's right. She is here and we are so lucky. Who is our second guest today? Because we couldn't have just one for Oprah.
For Oprah, you got to bring out that you got to have a double barrel. You know, if you're going if you're going for a grizzly bear and and our second round of buckshot this week is Andrew T. Thanks for being here, Andrew.
Andrew is the host of Yo, Is This Racist?
What's up? How's it going? We're going to need to ask that a lot in these episodes. And the answer is always going to be, yeah. Oh boy. There's a lot of stuff to discuss there.
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Chapter 2: What is Oprah's influence on American culture?
Oh, I mean, I have to say I'm really glad that you framed the Oprah conversation the way that you did, because I almost have like a love hate with Oprah. Yeah, you can't. First of all, you can't be a black woman and not have some deep admiration for Oprah. And I would say it's only been recently that I have really had to have my come to Jesus moment of some of the.
bad actors, charlatans, hucksters, and just like bastards that she has made famous and now are sort of stuck with. So it's sort of a love-hate Oprah thing. I did a report on her when I was in fifth grade where I had to dress like her. Yeah.
You're weirdly enough not the only friend of mine who did a report on Oprah when they were in school.
Yeah.
I think there's like an element of like, it's a little bit like Obama where you're like, It's good that there is a different type of like like like a black person being able to achieve the highest ranks of whatever.
The wealthiest. She's the wealthiest person in media, period. Like wealthiest, purely media star to two billion, something like that.
But there's also like some version of like having to. So you're like kind of grading on a curve. It's like for a billionaire, she's probably pretty good, you know, relatively speaking. I mean, but she has, you know, she has all the trap. It's the same with Obama where you're like every president has committed crimes against humanity. That's just the job.
But like so for a while, you're like, it's sort of nice that he's like, you know, he is who he is. But then you're like. I just wish you weren't doing all these terrible things.
As we'll talk about one of the complicated things about Oprah, there's a bunch of stuff that really is very sinister about her impact. And then whenever you're reading the books and stuff, the critical bios of her, the things they choose to go after her for are always like, well, actually, I don't think she did anything wrong there. There's a lot of- Very weird.
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Chapter 3: How did Oprah's childhood shape her later life?
Oh, God, I remember that clip like it was yesterday when you as soon as you set it up, I closed my eyes and I can like I remember it crystal clear. Like what a moment in culture.
Yeah, and she does look great in that video. No one can deny that. And it's interesting to me, first off, that this is this is such like a especially in like the critical reading on Oprah. This is such like an epochal moment, right? Like how toxic this was with a bad thing.
moment this was in terms of inculcating toxic attitudes in American culture vis-a-vis weight loss and how tame it seems, honestly, in a lot of ways, considering where we are now, just in general with TV, how much worse shit there is every single day. But it's also interesting because this is an easy moment to hang on as toxic. I actually don't... I have trouble...
blaming Oprah for this, even though she's definitely contributing to some really ugly aspects of diet culture. As we'll talk about, the way she gets attacked and focused on in the media over her weight is probably unique. I don't know that anyone else's personal weight has been obsessed over to the same degree that Oprah's has. It certainly was in the late 90s.
So, yeah, as we'll talk about, I don't see this as like a low point for her, but this is probably what she would name as like the absolute worst thing in her career.
Wait, and maybe I'm missing something. And she would say that or she has said that because it's just like a crass stunt?
It's crass and she has started to talk about the degree to which she thinks that diet culture and our obsession with fat and weight loss is unhealthy and that she was a big part of that, right? Got it, I see, got it. Now, she started talking about that in participation with Weight Watchers. So I don't know how much credit you want to give her, right? Clearly done in good faith.
Yeah, maybe not totally done in good, maybe more of just a pivot.
I will just say as someone who is like a little more outside of the Oprah sphere, I think compared to everyone else here, I feel like I didn't particularly perceive... I hear what you're saying about she was one of the faces of, but it was so pervasive everywhere.
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