The Oprah Phenomenon

Introduction: Oprah Winfrey as Subject and Spectacle

1 Introduction Oprah Winfrey as Subject and Spectacle Jennifer Harris and Elwood Watson For a brief moment in 2002, President George W. Bush faced one of his most savvy media opponents to date: Oprah Winfrey.According to the White House,Winfrey declined to join an official U.S. delegation scheduled to tour the schools of Afghanistan and draw attention to the subordinate role of Afghani women, claiming “she didn’t have the time.”1 The news item was quickly disseminated, as befitting anything that tied together so many newsworthy elements: refusing a request of the U.S. president, rebuilding Afghanistan, and Oprah Winfrey herself. The attempt of the White House to draw on Winfrey’s cultural currency to galvanize public sentiment is telling; although the mission was ostensibly a gender-based humanitarian one,officials candidly admitted that the “Winfrey strategy” was intended to “dampen images of global violence.” Photos of Winfrey extending her ubiquitous open-armed embrace to the citizens of Afghanistan would undoubtedly advance the notion that the Untied States had succeeded in a mission that was really about embracing the people of Afghanistan, welcoming them into the loving fold of democracy and liberty. That an alliance withWinfrey and her audience was primary, and the actual humanitarian mission secondary,was evident from the cancellation of the tour—which was to include Karen Hughes and Condoleezza Rice—afterWinfrey declined the invitation. In some ways, even more interesting than the choice of Winfrey as a revamped Statue of Liberty is the way the White House chose to “leak”this information,and the aftermath of its revelation.Announcing  Jennifer Harris and Elwood Watson the failure of an event that had never been public knowledge in the first place seems pointless, yet that is exactly what happened. Seemingly a conciliatory gesture to the group of Americans most alienated by “the constant talk of death and brutality in the war on terrorism”—namely, women—the reporting of the failed overture to Winfrey had an unintended result. Instead of advancing the profile of the Bush administration by linking the president’s name with the nation’s most important media arbiter of female sympathy and liberal humanism, the critique of Winfrey implicit in the announcement—“she didn’t have the time”— caused the subject herself to speak out in dissatisfaction, ultimately stating that she “felt extremely used by the Bush administration.”2 Remarkably,Winfrey chose not to answer the administration’s implicit criticism directly; she has remained studiously bipartisan through multiple elections, so an overt counterattack would have been uncharacteristic . Instead, she defeated Bush’s accusations through the medium of which she is master (or perhaps mistress)—the networks of women who watch female-centered daytime talk shows.Thus, it was not Winfrey but Star Jones of ABC’s highly rated talk show The View who answered the implicit charge that Winfrey, known for her philanthropic and caring persona, did not in fact care enough. The Chicago Tribune broke the story on Friday, March 29, and the Associated Press immediately picked it up; on Tuesday morning, Jones announced that she had received a call from her friend Winfrey, who had explained that the proposed trip conflicted with other charity commitments. According to Jones,Winfrey was unaware that her inability to participate would result in the trip’s cancellation and was displeased with the administration ’s representation of her as indifferent. By the end of the day, the story had effectively been “killed,” and any criticism ofWinfrey’s refusal effectively muted—not by a published or even firsthand rebuttal,but by the power of women’s daytime talk. “Quiet as it’s kept,”Toni Morrison writes, a phrase that precedes the telling of some outrageous story or publicly traded gossip.3 “Quiet as it’s kept,” Jones’s version of Winfrey’s words effectively undercut all the more“official”and“serious”media coverage.4 Moreover,Jones’s rebuttal onWinfrey’s behalf demonstrates the authority that many female viewers invest in the power of women’s friendships as mediated by the talk-show format. It was “enough” to hear Jones’s version because both Jones and the viewer are friends of Winfrey—indeed, such friends that Introduction  her last name is redundant, if not entirely absent, when thinking about her.5 Jones merely completed the circle of information trading that is common within women’s friendships. It is clear that although the Bush administration understood the...