The Big O

What can you say, really, about Oprah Winfrey's decision to back Barack Obama?

I mean it's not really surprising; if Oprah stands for anything, it's the vague notion that we should be better people who try harder to treat one another decently.  Obama's vague "agent of positive change" rhetoric dovetails so nicely with her own, you'd think she wrote it. As Ana Maria Cox - my favorite Wonkette - put it, Oprah emphasizes the promise of Obama's early speeches, when he seemed fresh and new, a world of possibility without getting pinned down on specifics, his "rock star" moment.  How that translates into the harder question of whether he's the right person with the right positions to become President... harder to say.

And that has everything to do with who Oprah is, not just who she represents.

I'm surprisingly leery of celebrities in politics - surprising at least to myself, given that I follow celebrity gossip more than I probably should. Like some conservaties, really, I find myself groaning when some actor or actress - whose greatest success comes from pretending to be someone else and reading lines written by others - claims deep knowledge of the issues of the day and feels best qualified to inform the rest of us. At best, this usually comes off as preachy and self interested, at worst, it seems dilettantish and ill informed.  The rare celebrity successes in politics underline that performers work best when they don't make themselves the center of attention on an issue, but usually as more humble presences who trade on their stardom without seeming like experts.

That, really, is where Oprah's involvement here is problematic.  Winfrey's role in American culture is an odd one, lately - a nearly High Priestess of some sort of Women's Empowerment movement conducted in daily presentations of her talk show, which tends to exhort the audience to become more... like Oprah... when it's not about interviewing celebrities promoting their upcoming projects (and often it's some hybrid of the two, as Oprah uses her "gurus" upcoming projects - like say a new decorating book from Nate Berkus - to exhort people to change their living spaces).

Oprah's power derives, in no small measure, from seeming very much above it all: she's the talk show hostess who transcends talk shows, the movie producer who seems more focused on good works (like last night's "For One More Day" adaptation that aired on ABC) than making money, the self help guru who makes it all look altruistic. There are limits to this kind of power, and lately, she seems to be meeting them.  Her South African school for girls, mired in a stunning, nearly unbelievable sex and abuse scandal, has significantly tarnished her Great Lady image by casting her as distant and out of touch with her own projects for Good Works.   Though she moved quickly and decisively to address the problems when they bloomed into a public crisis, clearly it should never had gone as far as it did, and in conjuring up echoes of her own horrific tales of abuse at the hands of relatives at a young age, it seemed like the one thing she, of all people, should have guarded against happening to anyone else, ever.

It's in that light that I keep considering her Obama role - I think, more than what it does for Obama, the question of her endorsement is what it does to her.  Because I think it makes her more "touchable" than she's ever been in the public media, a moment when she steps down from her lofty perch above our cultural life and becomes a more active participant.  Say what you will, but Oprah herself has just made appearing on her show for other Presidential candidates highly problematic - what Republican needs to appear on the program of a declared Democratic supporter; and what Democrat opposing Obama needs to appear on the show of a partisan host who has already made her decision?

Moreover, it becomes fair to ask - just who is Oprah anyway? What specialized knowledge or judgment does she bring to assessing the political scene that gives her viewpoint on the Presidential election process more weight than others? Here is an admirable woman who's made much of herself personally and professionally, sure... but she's a trained news reader who parlayed a local talk show gig into a national program, with some occasional forays into acting.  I don't mean to be crass... but how deep is that, really? One gets the impression that Oprah is an occasional voter who keeps up with what's going on, but isn't deeply focused on the issues of the day (she's done few if any deep discussions of political subjects; indeed, her "forum" on race after the Imus incident marked her return to a topic she avoided for years because she said she was extremely uncomfortable with the nature of the racial discussion in this country).  She's done almost no coverage of international issues, shows no real interest in foreign policy on her show, covers domestic issues largely with personal, anecdotal presentations of "real people" which emphasize the personal nature of triumph over adversity (which is pretty standard "woman's show" fare)... and yet she's sure Barack Obama is the best man for the job (i think he's very nice too, but as I've said, I have my own reasons for not supporting him).  Pardon me, but I wonder why.

These questions will not just go away, and if Oprah insists on making herself more central to the political process, they will only get louder and more insistent. They're also, I hasten to note, fair questions, that deserve an answer. My sense is that Oprah's a nice woman, who, like most of us, has a generally favorable view of a particular candidate and has not necessarily done a deep dive into every candidate and every issue of the day; I suspect her "endorsement"  of Obama was not necessarily ill considered, but sort of pleasantly naive; the initial foray of a well intentioned, but not necessarily deeply politically savvy, person who does not see the enormity of the leap she's making into the center of our political life. I'm not sure that's enough to justify the move she's made, and I would guess either she's going to turn out to be fairly unserious about the broader implications of her role (and thus, retreat very soon back into her comfortable perch on daytime TV) or she's going to get seriously burned down the road and take her toys and go home, sadder, and possibly wiser.

Either way, I find it hard to imagine that Oprah's foray into politics has legs much into next year; but the distortions she manages to introduce into our media and our politics in just a short time may well do damage enough. Not because she alone may be able to drag Obama into office on celebrity and little else (though I worry about that too), but because the questions she raises, and then fails to answer, will leave room for more quasi-celebrity involvement in politics that will make further mischief... and that won't come, necessarily, with Oprah's good intentions.

Comments

[Redstar]

Interesting analysis. I heard on NPR just a few minutes ago from an attendee to her/Barack's Iowa event last night that Oprah has the time and resources to do her homework on the candidates, so if she's supporting Obama that clearly indicates an informed choice that less resource-endowed Americans can follow.