by Robyn Okrant
I freeze. My husband and I are in the midst of robbing Peter to pay Paul to cover health-care expenses, and I am up to my eyeballs in student loan debt. I struggle to pay my bills and often create artwork at grad school based on the materials and time I can afford. Oprah seems to genuinely think she is helping us, but when she utters those words, all I hear is “Let them eat cake.” In my world, the best investment I can make is staying healthy, getting a better education, and traveling to see my family.
I’ve already received comments through my daily blog and e-mails from my handful of readers who are upset by the divide between Oprah’s world and their own. I speculate that it isn’t a matter of jealousy due to her wealth. Folks are mainly irked that she continues handing out advice while they believe she has no idea what it means to live in their reality.
On the other end of the spectrum, I also hear from women who believe Oprah can do no wrong. They share their opinion that because of her philanthropic work and generosity to her audience, she is above reproach. While I don’t believe anyone is above criticism, I can’t disagree: Oprah does make a positive impact in the world and inspires many others to do the same.
Everyone who writes in is passionate about her or his point of view, and I feel energized by all the enthusiasm. I add poll questions to the blog each week to gain more insight about their perspective. And while it’s challenging, I consider it my job to remain as neutral as possible. Although, truth be told, fence-straddling is not an event for which I’d win Olympic gold. I’m floored that anyone is even reading my blog, to be honest. As of today, I have 738 visitors checking out my website. Where have they all come from? I’ll never question the power of a forwarded e-mail again, as my friends and family must have dispersed the announcement of my project to everyone in their address books. I feel like I’m hosting a coffee klatch on my computer, and I get a thrill every time I see I’ve received a new comment or e-mail.
January 14, 2008
Reruns are mercifully over. New topics, new guests, new obstacles to overcome. I’m like a kid in a candy store — which is ironic because this morning’s episode is about how Americans are getting fatter and fatter. Oprah and her fitness expert, Bob Greene, are traveling to Mississippi, the fattest state in the country, to kick off their 2008 Best Life Challenge. They are encouraging the denizens of the town of Meridian to tackle their personal demons and take care of themselves, and the at-home viewers are asked to do the same. We are told to download and sign our Best Life contract today.
While my heart goes out to the obese guests, I am distracted because Oprah looks disengaged. Is it because of her own weight struggles? This can’t be an easy topic for her. I wish I weren’t so strongly inclined to mention “Oprah” and “weight” in the same sentence, because I usually wish everyone would just leave her alone and allow her body to be her own business. I think the trouble is that Oprah has always invited us into her weight loss celebrations and has spoken with such certainty that this time she has it beat. When she does this, she gives an already overly nosy celebrity-watching culture a free pass to speculate on her dress size.
I have always felt empathy for Oprah because of her public battle with weight. It’s because I’ve been in the same pain, had the same frustration, allowed my weight to yo-yo in an extreme manner. I’ve been fat and I’ve been thin. I’ve used food to numb the stress in my life. I’ve had trouble with my thyroid and wondered if my metabolism was on permanent vacation. I’ve felt inferior when I was heavier and on top of the world when I slimmed down. I’ve known logically that I should be able to love my body at any size, but struggled to do so. I can imagine that my humiliation factor would have gone up exponentially had my entire weight history been witnessed and judged by millions, frequently used as a punch line by late-night talk show hosts.
While Oprah might live in a glamorous world, beyond my imagination, she is also a painfully public display of a dangerous epidemic to which many of us can relate. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control statistics, 63 percent of Americans are overweight. We can see ourselves reflected in Oprah’s struggles. Sadly, I think many judge her without understanding her life-threatening problem. And I have to wonder if her detractors get a smug satisfaction from seeing someone who lives a life of luxury be repeatedly defeated by a lifelong battle. Oprah’s years of riding the weight roller coaster have been a lesson for me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought that if I just had enough money for a personal trainer, chef, dietician, and stylist I could have a great body and always look terrific. Well, Oprah has access to all this and more, and she still struggles. This is proof that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the TV screen.
I’m in pretty decent shape these days, but I’m curious to see how this Best Life Challenge will impact my eating habits and exercise routine. I’ve downloaded my contract. It states:
Get on board and make the commitment. Sign the contract — hang it wherever you need that extra bit of motivation. You’re on your way to living your Best Life!
I hereby commit to living my Best Life. I will participate in a program of regular exercise, including a minimum of 80 minutes of activity over the course of four days each week. I will focus on challenging my abilities in the pursuit of elevating my physical performance. I will endeavor to be conscious of when I eat, and consistently terminate the consumption of all food two or three hours before bedtime. I will also be aware of why I eat, and will, to the best of my ability, eat primarily to satisfy my nutritional needs as opposed to my emotional needs. I will do my best to make healthful food choices by substituting foods that are nutritionally empty with those that are rich in nutrition.
Furthermore, I realize that this contract carries no promise of rewards, penalties or punishments other than those associated with the reflection of the strength of my character and of my health.
I sign my name on the contract. This all sounds doable, and I’m not as intimidated as I expected to be, although I am disturbed that the “strength of my character” is tied to how well I manage to diet and exercise. That seems harsh. I never judged Oprah’s character based on her body. Regardless, 80 minutes of activity a week isn’t too vigorous and is much less exercise than conventional wisdom suggests (30 minutes a day five times a week). I already exercise more than 80 minutes most weeks but will definitely benefit from showing up at the Y more consistently. The only thing that sounds like a real challenge to me is that I’ll have to stop eating two to three hours before I hit the hay. There are some days I don’t get home from teaching until 9:30 PM. After my physically demanding job, I need to eat when I get in. Now I’ll have to make certain I don’t go to sleep before the allotted window closes. Staying up past my bedtime to fulfill this suggestion is not exactly making me dance a jig of happiness (unless dancing counts toward my contracted minutes of exercise, in which case, I’ll jig).
Hold the phone! Oprah says she’s not going to sign her contract for a couple days. She wants to drink champagne at an upcoming event, and as Greene informs us, once the contract is signed, we’re not allowed to drink alcohol for at least a month or two. I look at my signed contract and groan to think of all the goodies I’ll miss out on during my mom’s big birthday bash tomorrow night. I’m not happy that Oprah isn’t signing today with the rest of us. She admitted on the show that she needs to get back on track, and if we have to put our excuses aside (along with the sinfully delicious deep-fried pot stickers at my mom’s favorite restaurant in Chicago), I wish Oprah would as well. I know it’s ridiculous to connect my enjoyment of the Challenge to Winfrey’s commitment, but I think it’d be more fun if she signed today. We all want the most popular girl in school on our team. I bet if she played her cards right, we’d even let her be captain.
January is coming to a close and I am very excited to learn what Oprah’s Book Club selection will be. Her last choice, Pillars of the Earth, was a sweeping historical drama. As highfalutin as I’d like to think my literary choices
are in general, I am a sucker for this genre. While I might have taken the cover off of The Other Boleyn Girl so nobody in my graduate-level writing classes knew I was reading the bodice ripper, I savored every word.
Pillars is a long book — my mass market paperback looked like a brick at 983 pages — but it’s a quick and fun novel. I actually read my mother’s copy when I was in high school, titillated by all the sex. It was just as much fun to reread when I was double the age but evidently no more mature, as I still eagerly awaited the next down-and-dirty-behind-the-pillar moment. By the time I started the Living Oprah project, Oprah’s foray into Ken Follett’s drama about horny medieval cathedral builders was coming to a close.
I am eager to hear what the next novel will be. My fingers are crossed for a contemporary author. I’d love to read something by a wry, clever, thought-provoking author such as (dare I dream it?) David Sedaris. Looking at the list of past selections, I see very few books that would provoke a big belly laugh. I think this might be the year. So the carpet is truly pulled out from under my feet, yanked, if you will, when Oprah heralds her newest Book Club selection, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, by Eckhart Tolle.
Oprah says, “If you’re interested in becoming all that you were created to be, if you want to begin to live your best life from the inside out, not looking at external ways for doing that, but how you really can begin to fulfill the potential of your life, this is the book for you.”
Oy! This sounds like work, not pleasure — a sit cross-legged and ponder my inner demons kind of book, not a melt into a bubble bath and relax kind of book. As phenomenal as Winfrey makes this publication sound, I soon discover it isn’t powerful enough on its own. Just like Butch Cassidy needed Sundance and chocolate cries out for peanut butter, Tolle’s book also needs the perfect pairing. Oprah tells us, “You’re gonna need one of these for reading A New Earth.” She holds a bright yellow pen in the air, for all to see: the Post-It Flag Highlighter from 3M. Suspicious about how much a writing implement will enhance my spiritual growth, I add the product to my shopping list.
I’m always a bit wary when I hear that someone else believes that he or she holds the key that might unlock a previously sealed door to my enlightenment. Part of this is because of pride. I get prickly at the implication that (a) I don’t know my life’s purpose and (b) simply living my life isn’t a valid enough journey without the wisdom of a questionably qualified outsider. Is it necessary to buy into someone else’s plan to quicken my evolution as a human being? Somehow the writers of these books, the purveyors of these pearls of wisdom, were able to find a deeper sense of peace, joy, or enlightenment by seeking out and following their own path. I wish they would trust that we all have the ability to do the same. Right off the bat, Oprah’s announcement makes me sullen and sulky.
Insult is added to injury. Not only will there be an absence of bodice-ripping in my near future, Oprah makes an announcement that we are also to sign up for a ten-week webinar that includes online classes every Monday night to be taught by Tolle and Winfrey. The course begins in March, and yes, like most classes, this one will also require homework — ten weeks of workbook pages to complete. I revert to my 15-year-old, stubborn, homework-avoiding, excuse-generating self. I don’t wanna do homework! I don’t wanna soul search! I wanna hang out with my friends! If I had a staircase in my home, there would be some major stomping up to my room and door slamming. This is not a good start to kick off my spiritual journey. Maybe I need to read this book after all.
As assigned, I immediately get myself a copy and sign up for the class. For the first few days I own A New Earth, I find myself glowering at the bright orange book and busying myself with other projects. I can’t help but feel that cracking open the front cover will be like popping the top off a can of worms. Exhausting worms.
Speaking of the front cover, I have a weird feeling about carrying one of Oprah’s Book Club picks around in public. Pre–Living Oprah, I never bought a book with the O seal on the jacket. Why? I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’ve never been embarrassed that I watch her show, so I’m not entirely certain why I have such a strong feeling about these books. I think part of the reason is because Oprah is so tightly tied to pop culture and I didn’t want to advertise that I allowed trends to drive my literary decisions. Also, before this year of Living Oprah began, I didn’t really want to give the impression that I belonged to a “club” led by a talk show host. In fact, I would resent it if I went to a bookseller, found a book I was interested in, and discovered it was also part of Oprah’s Book Club. I would even search the shelves for a copy that didn’t have the telltale seal on the front cover. Why would I want to advertise for Oprah when I wasn’t part of her organization? I never understood why people who didn’t attend Harvard or have a child who attended Harvard would wear a sweatshirt with HARVARD emblazoned on it, so why would I carry a book with OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB on the cover when I wasn’t part of the club? I’d rather wear a sweatshirt that said HARVARD on it. At least I’ve seen Legally Blonde. Twice.
Also, I always felt as if Oprah took sort of ownership of a book when her name was on the front cover and wonder what the Book Club would be without her branding on the jacket. I would bet money — hypothetical money of course, this is a recession — that it wouldn’t be as powerful a merchandising tool. I believe that many people are drawn to a book not just because they heard Oprah mention it on her show but because it sits in a special section of their brick-and-mortar or dot-com bookstore. They buy it because they do want to be part of the club that I shy away from. They proudly display Oprah’s stamp of approval on their book covers. I’ve seen women nod to one another and laugh on the Chicago El train when they realize they’re both reading the same Oprah pick (this was years back and She’s Come Undone was Oprah’s favorite book).
But here’s where I get really torn. Oprah is getting people reading, so why on earth should I complain? I spend countless hours commuting by Chicago’s public transit system each week, and the majority of my fellow bus and train passengers are usually plugged into something electronic. They’re not reading. But Oprah inspires people to appreciate the printed word. I love books. I am a writer. Therefore, shouldn’t I love that Oprah loves books and authors? I feel I should be over the moon that there is a public figure suggesting that Americans should read. No other modern-day influential figure drives us toward specific literature like Oprah. The last time I had someone like her in my life, it was a crotchety literature professor in college who handed out a mile-long reading list to a room of groaning, hungover coeds.
Oprah’s deciding a lot for us. She’s creating our literature syllabus, and until this year I’ve never registered for her class. I wonder if I’ll giggle with other commuters as we mouth to one another over our copies of A New Earth, “What page are you on?”
“Are you enlightened yet?”
“Keep reading, you’ll love the part when you learn the meaning of life!”
Jim and I sit down to a dinner of Mustard Grilled Chicken and Roast Potatoes with Lemons. After searching for recipes on Oprah.com that would appeal to my husband, I spent a couple hours shopping, prepping, and cooking. The apartment smells fantastic. I cook most nights of the week, but I’m more of an improviser in the kitchen and tend to shy away from recipes. Because of my mad-scientist-meets-the-Swedish-Chef-from-the-Muppets cooking style, the results are sometimes fantastic, and other times we end up ordering Thai. Following a recipe isn’t my cup of tea, but as I cooked tonight, I was relaxed knowing the end product had been tested and approved and there would be little room for failure. I adored the look on Jim’s face when he came home from work to a welcoming smell wafting from the kitchen.
We dig in, and after just a few bites, Jim asks if I’ll make this meal again. I am both thrilled and annoyed. I guess I wish he’d said something along the lines of, “Well, it’s good, but it can’t hold a candle to your cooking.”
With a mouthful of potato, he casually m
entions that a coworker of his mom asked why I’m making fun of Oprah. My heart leaps into my throat. It didn’t occur to me that I was giving that impression. First off, I don’t think I could spend an entire year making fun of anybody without all that negativity burning me to a piece of coal. A tiny, hard, angry, Robyn-shaped piece of black rock. What an ugly way to spend my days that would be. Nope. Not making fun of Oprah. Also, between you and me — don’t tell Oprah — I’m a little bit afraid of her. Living in Chicago, sometimes you can feel her influence pulsating in the city, through the airwaves. She’s like the Wizard of Oz. Except she really does have power and isn’t some flaccid “man behind the curtain.” Because she’s such an omniscient presence in pop culture, media, and entertainment — and because I am an itty-bitty bug holding on as tightly as I can to make a career in the arts — I’m slightly scared she could squash me with one of her painfully uncomfortable Christian Louboutin heels.
Besides, this project is just as much a critique of myself as it is of Oprah. I am part of a celebrity-watching culture that puts one woman up on a pedestal even as it nudges another off a cliff. I am a consumer. I am a television watcher. I am a Web-surfing-Internet-junkie-Facebook-friend. And I am always seeking a deeper understanding of myself. Oprah’s media empire caters to people like me. As much as I’d like to think of myself as my subversive, ideological, fearless teenage self, I’m just not. I’m a 35-year-old woman who frets about the newly forming wrinkles on my forehead all the way down to my carbon footprint. I have been shaped by pop culture, by the self-help industry, by fads, and by the media. Oprah is at the epicenter of influence, and her power is ever growing, ever flourishing with the times. As I witness Oprah dip into new media and deepen her stronghold over the world of infotainment, I wonder whether I am a creation of hers, or vice versa.
