A little for the camera, and more for herself
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Oprah seems to be going back to her sensationalism style of the 80s. This must mean that she's hard up for ratings. In fact, they have gone down since she disappointed all those women when she cast her support publicly and actively for Obama.
Well, I recently managed to catch the tail end of her interview with Mike Tyson, and thank God - who wants to go through a whole hour of the creepy man, with a tattoo across his face, no less. Tyson has just had a documentary about him, and supposedly was with Oprah to talk about this.
The part I caught has Oprah talking about hearing Mike Tyson say in the documentary how all he wanted was to live a better life, be a better person. Oprah said this made her cry.
Now, Oprah cries much more than expected. Ellen Degeneres, the Crown Princess of talk shows, hardly ever cries, except when it was to have a break down on air when her adopted dog was taken away from her. Martha Stewart never cries, but then her shows are sane, pleasant moments and often with beautiful things like her own flower arrangements.
As I've written in a previous post where she interviewed Whitney Housten, Oprah delves into the dark side of people, and has her moment when she makes them out to be weak and pathetic. This is something Whitney resisted during her time with Oprah.
Of course, the genuinely pathetic Tyson just loved all this, and the attention too, and broke down crying himself during Oprah's interview. I didn't get to watch this, but it is all over the internet.
Why does Oprah cry? I don't think she cries for the people she interviews. I really don't think she's an empathetic person. I actually think it is two layers of things going on: one is to make herself look good on T.V. – somewhat; and the other is that she's crying for herself. As I mentioned in the Whitney episode, I think these journeys and probings into the dark sides of people she interviews are really ways to understand her sad and violent childhood, something I think she has never gotten over, and something that she keeps returning to with her strange collection of guests. I think she cries to alleviate that pain. But she does so in this detached, unconnected manner, as though it is the little girl – distant and faded – who's crying. Hence, her crying looks a little forced, and disconnected from her guests or the stories she's portraying. Of course, being the narcissist she is, Oprah cries a little for the camera as well.
It is during these moments that I feel sorry for her, except that I resume my original view that she is the most dangerous woman in the media now, and needs to fight her own inner demons alone and away from the millions of impressionable viewers.
