  I have a love/hate relationship with Oprah. On the one hand I think she's a megalomaniac making millions of dollars by exploiting the fact that intelligent women hang on her every word and are continually being sucked into the vortex of the Oprah world of self-improvement, because maybe one day they can be like her and appear on the front cover of their own magazine every month. On the other hand, I have been sucked into the vortex of the Oprah world of self-improvement. I love the Oprah magazine, and the Oprah show.
I cry every time I watch it. I desperately want to reconnect with my spirit and make the world a better place, but more than anything, I want to be an audience member on the Christmas show and get all that cool stuff they give out. Oprah is to 'new aged-ness' what Martha Stewart is to 'home-making'. I love/loathe them both. Both of them have managed to tap into what, I believe, modern women (okay, maybe just me then) , want. Spirtiualism without sacrificing Materialism. I want to be a better person, but with nice furniture. It's the Oprah/Martha Way. I want a fully accessorised soul, and a fully accessorised kitchen.
But not just any accessories, I want the autumnal shaded/New England/Turkey Hill/ kind of accessorising that appears in the glossy pages of the Oprah and Martha Stewart Living Magazines. Also, I believe, both of them are possibly complete cows. Having clawed their way to the top from unfortunate circumstances early in their lives and careers. I feel that probably both of them have a completely 'fuck you' attitude to anyone who told them they couldn't make it.
And probably still do. I don't think you get to be on the cover of every single edition of the magazine which bears your name by being nice to anyone. I also don't think you get to have seventeen houses in the Hamptons and come up with the concept of an 'Omnimedia' by being polite.
I guess I can keep buying the magazines and watching the TV show, and crying when Oprah gives money to undeprivileged kiddies in the ghetto to go to college, but I guess I can still loathe her when she interrupts yet another movie star in the middle of an anecdote to tell them about herself. I'll buy the spiritual thing for an hour or so, and I'll keep dreaming about my pristine white kitchen in my house in Martha's Vineyard, but I'll also keep my cynicism in an antique bell jar picked up in a flea market by the door too. 
