The Church of Oprah

Sure looks like a religious revival to me!

Yesterday, after a 25-year run, the Oprah Winfrey daytime talk show came to an end. That doesn’t mean she’ll disappear. On the contrary, Oprah has launched her own TV network, OWN. The woman will never go away. LOL

I’ve never really understood why Oprah’s show was so wildly popular. On the infrequent occasions when I tuned in, it was obvious her studio audience was comprised almost entirely of women.

In her new book, Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon, Yale University professor Kathryn Lofton claims that the reason Oprah is so successful is because she’s the equivalent of a religious icon.

Having seen every episode of the Oprah show, Lofton explains that Oprah uses a Southern preacher’s rhythmic speech patterns and her show structure resembles a sermon. “Gospel is a word that means ‘good news’,” and “Oprah says that the good news is ‘you’,” Lofton told New York Post. Oprah became a religious icon in 1994 when she focused on The Gospel of You. “The time has come for this genre of talk shows to move on from dysfunctional whining and complaining and blaming. I have had enough of people’s dysfunction,” Oprah declared in 1994.

And yet, the National Enquirer points out Oprah herself is “a master of dysfunction – from her BFF Gayle King, on-off BF Stedman Graham and her shaky relationship with mom Vernita.”

Since I’ve watched very little of her talk show, I didn’t know about the New Age Church of Oprah until I watched these two videos.

What a load of horse manure! The Gospel of Oprah turns out to be the same old same old — the First Sin of narcissism.

H/t beloved fellow Tina.

~Eowyn