Thursday, January 17, 2013

Oprah, Lance and coming OWN attractions.

Watched the first part of the Lance Armstrong summit meeting with Oprah Winfrey, and my heart hasn't softened as a result; he's still a jerk, but one who now carefully weighs words and parses some of them in the best Bill Clinton how-do-you-define-what-the-word-"is"-is fashion.

I don't intend to endure Part Two--where Lance goes into up-to-a-point detail about how his behavior impacted on family, Livestrong and what seemed to be infinite endorsement deals.

Now, let's proceed to the OWN program commercials.

Oprah's still trying to find the right mixture of high-minded and lowbrow: I saw ads for a Dallas policewomen show (intended to evoke Fox's COPS), an IYANLA promo which features her verbally taking down past-his-prime hip-hop star DMX, a commercial for a LEAN ON ME-esque reality series with a more--youthful-and-telegenic-than-Joe Clark protagonist and--finally--a special on S&M/bondage being packaged as suitably middle-of-the-road for America thanks to the mainstream success of the FIFTY SHADES OF GREY novels.

Not to mention a plug for a future Oprah exclusive with Drew Barrymore on the latter's new child--with the promo having Oprah ask Drew about past bisexuality in a clear context of "wild behavior you later have to explain to your kids."

Considering the alleged more-than-friends relationship between Oprah and Gayle King, this sort of inquiry dives into the deep end of the moral hypocrisy swimming pool.



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