Oprah Promises the Days of Oprah-like Hypocrisy are Over
Sunday night, during the Golden Globules of Self-Righteousness Awards ceremony, Oprah Winfrey received this year’s Clooney Prize, for rousing the emotions, and even presidential fantasies, of hundreds of her fellow Hollywood enablers, thousands of her fellow public purveyors of pop-pornography, and millions of people around the world who always conveniently assume their overflowing toilet must have been clogged by someone else.
Winfrey’s speech cleverly deflected the issue of sexual abuse of women away from the eye of the storm, i.e., her own backyard, and instead pointed a self-righteous finger at “society.” She even had the nerve to promise young women at home that, thanks to her and her clapping crowd of Hollywood monkeys, the days of women’s abuse at the hands of predatory men will soon be over. This week, the internet is awash with people praising her “brave” speech as presidential. The toilet is overflowing — okay, who did it?
Winfrey has forged a brilliantly successful career by pretending to be a deeply caring, socially conscious individual, while in fact being a cynical, emotion-manipulating businesswoman prepared to do or say anything to promote herself and win the weak minds of bored housewives everywhere with her inspiring message of unearned self-esteem, unrestrained self-pity, and endless scapegoating of society, men, and pretty much anyone else, as an excuse for not taking responsibility for one’s own life and problems. In other words, she is a world-class hypocrite.
Who better, then, to deliver the most hypocritical public service announcement of all time?
In the past several months, Oprah’s long–time friend and associate Harvey Weinstein has been exposed as a cretinous lowlife predator. When I say “exposed,” I mean that although we mere mortals have all known forever that Hollywood is full of lowlife predators, creeps, and disreputable deviants of every stripe, the particular identity of this most ubiquitous lowlife predator was, until recently, unknown to those of us who are not highly connected Hollywood insiders.
Those who are so connected, on the other hand, can hardly be expected to have been deaf to the rumors, jokes, and eyewitness accounts that apparently surrounded this man’s behavior — and that of many other Hollywood men and women like him — for years. Hence, while the rest of us might be entitled to say, “The days of widespread sexual abuse throughout the Hollywood hierarchy are over,” no one at the upper levels of that hierarchy has any business preaching to the rest of us, or deigning to promise the normal girls among us that the days of sexual abuse of women are over. Fake doctors, heal thy fake selves!
As Mark Levin pointed out, Winfrey didn’t name a single predator or harasser by name in her “brave” speech. How brave is that? How brave is it to speak in flattering and self-congratulatory tones to a live audience of the rich and vacuous amongst whom undoubtedly sit many people currently engaged in similar practices to those engaged in by Oprah’s friend Weinstein, not to mention many who have willingly or reluctantly allowed themselves to be molested or “used” for the sake of their own pathetic lust for career advancement, to get that great role, or to “stay in the game”; not to mention many more among that crowd who have undoubtedly known very well about such goings-on for years, but chose, and continue to choose, to say nothing, so as not to endanger their own petty little careers?
So the members of the exclusive club gathered at that awards ceremony cheer and hoot while one of their big-wig leaders flatters and covers for them by attacking the general society outside of their exclusive club, as though Hollywood’s longstanding corruption and amorality were society’s problem — and a problem that Hollywood’s most power-mad enablers like Oprah Winfrey are proudly claiming they and they alone can solve.
No, Oprah, you and your cheering underlings at the Golden Globules — how many of them cheered a little more boisterously in the hopes that you might notice them and give their careers a boost? — are in no position to promise society’s little girls anything about their futures, or hold yourselves up as role models of justice and righteous anger. On the contrary, if there were any justice in the society at large, none of those little girls would ever be allowed to come under the ugly influence of you and your fellow entertainment industry pimps and prostitutes at all.
It’s you, Oprah, who have helped to protect your friend Harvey Weinstein from exposure all these years — and who knows how many other creeps like him?
It’s you, Oprah, who have made millions of dollars elevating, aggrandizing, and fawning over professional spokeswomen for promiscuity and sluttishness like your friend Beyoncé, and professional salesmen of thuggish, mindless libido like her husband Jay Z.
It’s you, Oprah, who have been telling women for years to “love themselves” and have “self-esteem,” without reference to any moral ideal of a good and decent life for which one deserves to be loved or esteemed — in effect encouraging people to feel comfortable living lives without meaning or conscience.
The problem here isn’t “society’s” attitude toward women. The problem is the entertainment industry’s attitude toward women, and the attitude of the women in that industry toward themselves and their roles as public figures. If Oprah Winfrey wanted to make a meaningful statement and take responsibility for the damage she has done, rather than generically blaming everyone outside of her circle, then she might have said this:
“For decades, Hollywood and the American entertainment industry in general have fostered and promoted deeply unhealthy attitudes about women. We have encouraged immodesty, sexual promiscuity, and a lack of any moral compass other than petty self-interest and self-promotion.
“Among ourselves here in Hollywood, we encourage young women to think it is okay to simulate sexual acts as realistically and provocatively as possible in front of cameras and crew members, pretending that this self-degradation constitutes an assertion of power, when really it is only about making easy money by selling one’s sexuality, exactly like prostitutes. We have corrupted the virtue, dignity, and self-respect of thousands of actresses and popular singers by selling them dreams of fame and fortune if only they are willing to throw human decency and their own souls to the wind.
“No surprise, then, that we have also fostered among men the attitude that women are lustful objects of temptation without virtue, delicacy, or restraint, who will happily bend to your will and give you sexual favors in exchange for a little perceived material advantage for themselves.
“In this process, the spirit-corrupting machine we call popular entertainment has presented its inhuman picture of life and morality to the general public, in the most deliberately enticing and attractive ways, for the sake of making money. We didn’t care if this picture harmed people’s lives, weakened public morals, or created false idols of mindless pleasure without consequences, in effect teaching impressionable young people that lust is a virtue, instant gratification is the meaning of life, and anything you do for the sake of your pleasure and profit is good if it works.
“We have cheapened popular taste, vulgarized mainstream society, and normalized animalistic sexual behavior, drug use, alcoholism, and fame-whoring as ‘the good life.’
“In this way, we have damaged thousands of lives among ourselves, and countless lives among the public we have knowingly tempted out of their morals and their money for our conscienceless profit. We should be ashamed of ourselves. No one watching this show tonight should ever listen to anything we have to say ever again. We have harmed our fellow citizens enough. It’s time for us to shut this mass corruption operation down, and seek forgiveness from all those we have harmed, from our own souls, and from whatever higher reality exists in this world that we have offended and violated for so long.
“I am sorry, and we should all be sorry, for what we have done to our so-called friends and colleagues, and to our society.”
That’s what Oprah should have said, and could still say today if she wanted to be honest. I won’t hold my breath.
