I was raised to believe that anything American and popular is embarrassing. Aerobics? Embarrassing. American football? Horrible. Eddy Izzard is popular but he’s English, so he passes. Dennis Kucinich is American, but he’s not popular, so he passes. President Obama is an anomaly – he’s American, he’s popular, but he’s beautiful and eloquent and he defines the spirit of something so much more than cookie cutter American culture – so he passes.
So it’s with a self-consciousness born of forty years of training that I declare that I love someone whose middle name is Popular American: I love Oprah.
Her latest edition of O Magazine is the first edition to have another person on the cover besides Oprah herself. Who is that other person? Michelle Obama. The cover alone brings tears to my eyes – but the interview between those women is incredible. Please don’t miss their beautiful conversation.
Lately I’m annoyed by her focus on goin’ Green, while the advertisements filling her magazine’s pages are all models wearing $5,000 underwear. Plus, I’ll read about how to save electricity and how one woman saved an inner city arts program and turn the page to find out I should really try Loreal’s new vibrating mascara.
But if one of her articles encourage a housewife in Middle America to make major dietary or lifestyle changes, who cares if the same housewife realizes her closet is so last year?
Besides, Oprah encourages people to look at what’s important in their lives besides clothing, makeup and hairstyles. She wants us to live our dream. Isn’t that just so puke-inducingly, wonderfully American?