Sibelle, In fairness to Oprah, I’m probably not ‘qualified’ to make broad judgments about her because I’ve rarely watched her shows. I have a few friends who love Oprah, and who tell me that she often has very entertaining programming. And also, I’m told that she has shows featuring many well known celebrities. However, the few times I viewed Oprah, I ‘tuned in’ when she either talked on and on about her personal life and about her relationship with ‘Stedman’, or when she had guests on who were coping with some type of extraordinary crisis. In the former, I always thought she was ‘over the top’. Then when her magazine debuted, I pondered the psychological implications about her need to be on every cover of her magazine. Yet, it is the latter aspect of her shows, which were most disturbing. Simply put, I recall feeling ‘turned off’ (and even horrified) by the method Oprah used to delve into the fragile psyche of the guests, and the manner in which she seemed to lurch forward with prodding questions, evoking a bloodshed of raw emotional outburst from her ‘victim’. I suppose what bothers me about Oprah is her ability to trigger that puzzling aspect of human nature, which aroused our morbid curiosity - similar to our ‘sneak and peak’ reaction to tabloid news journals ( at supermarket checkouts) depicting repulsive headlines, or the weird fascination we display when we slow down in our cars to glimpse at gruesome accidents. More often, our innate morbid curiosity is fueled by psychological factors, which are not easily understood. Nonetheless, we often experience a sense of underlining ‘guilt’, or shame when we ‘give in’ to these feelings. I’m not sure if I’m ‘right’. But, it troubles me when ANYONE postures themselves to profit off of the cruel, traumatic, and devastating misfortunes of others - whether Maury, Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, or … Oprah.

I haven’t watched her discuss this directly; I’ve only read the media reports, so the bias I mention might be me reading into the way the story is being reported. And if that’s what I’m reading into it… isn’t *that* interesting? Maybe it’s MY issue I’m projecting on her. Having just returned from the gym where I was able to compare my body with many others in much, much better shape, it’s clear that I have plenty of my own work to do on the body image issue :-)