NEW SMITHSONIAN EXHIBIT LOOKS AT OPRAH
Oprah euphoria. You know it. You’ve felt it. You’ve studied the faces of those folks in the studio audience. It’s the ecstasy of anticipation.
Is she about to give me a new car? Will I also get to be a better me, have a better body, enjoy spicier conjugal relations? Be better read, happier, more productive and less crushed and deformed by my past? Oprah euphoria — that feeling you seek, with all your soul — is defined by the realization that the answers to these questions might actually be “yes.” Proof ? Here comes the new car! We’re all going on a trip to Australia, too? Those other items on your wish list may prove elusive. But Winfrey’s power to make at least some of them come true is a testament to that most fundamental of American creeds: the possibility of personal transformation. Watching Oprah, a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture, also is a testament to Oprah and her extraordinary story. But also to the rest of us, black and white, American and otherwise. It’s a testament to our culture’s transformation, to who we have become.
Is it strange that a woman who is the biggest single donor to this museum should be treated to an exhibition, and so soon after its opening ? You bet it is.
Yet it’s hard to argue that Winfrey is undeserving of such an exhibition. She had the highestrated talk show of all time. It aired all over the world for 25 years. No African-American woman has had a bigger effect on the culture over the past 30 years.
Like few others, Winfrey has used her celebrity to do good. She got people reading again. She established a school in South Africa. She funded scholarships at historically black universities. She helped house people after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Her donations come to more than US$400 million.
More than that, she’s encouraged people to think and care about important issues.
The exhibition has been nicely done. You walk from the first section, which evokes the America Oprah grew up in, her upbringing and her early career, into a mock- up of the Chicago set of The Oprah Winfrey Show, replete with couch, camera, production notes and green room. There follow displays about fashion and dieting, Oprah’s Book Club, her work with Hollywood, the Oprah Winfrey Network and her philanthropy. The exhibition doesn’t ignore criticism she’s faced: for neglecting black issues on her show and privileging the concerns of whites; for promoting unhealthful diets; and of course, for “Oprahfication,” which the Collins English Dictionary defines as “the perceived increase in people’s desire to discuss their personal problems, attributed to the influence of confessional television programs.”
But inevitably, as the museum show shifts from examining how culture shaped Oprah to how Oprah shaped culture, it begins to feel like a triumphal march, a sort of biographical bubble bath. I predict there will be bottlenecks around the screens. A Smithsonian display with judiciously edited wall texts and interesting memorabilia is well and good, but it can’t compare with watching Oprah in action. Should your view of the montage of clips from her show be temporarily blocked, use the time to scan the list of topics Winfrey covered over the show’s 4,561 episodes. It covers an entire wall.
Like many transcendently famous people, Winfrey has the aura of a freshly hatched superhero. Her actual story is more incredible. She was born in rural Mississippi in 1954. Her ancestors were slaves, her grandparents farmers. She was raped by a cousin at age nine, molested repeatedly, sent to a juvenile detention home at 13, made pregnant at 14. She gave birth to a premature baby who died. She would later speak forcefully about the long-term effects of trauma. Her honesty gave people around the world courage to speak up about similar experiences, similar struggles. The #MeToo movement is hard to imagine without Winfrey’s precedent.
As a child, Winfrey spent more time in church than any place besides home. She read spirituals and sermons in front of rapt congregations. She was a big reader. Growing up, she saw few black people on TV. Those she did see weren’t hosting prime-time shows on major networks. Winfrey built a career not just as a trailblazer in the fight for racial equality but also as one of the greatest TV personalities in history, and as an entrepreneurial genius, to boot.