If you haven't visited the website Living Oprah, here's the deal -- a blogger named Robyn Okrant has devoted this entire year to doing whatever Oprah says on her TV show, magazine, and website. In the process, Okrant has netted herself a book deal. What's good about this is also what's bad about this.
The Chicago Sun-Times interviewed Okrant about her experiment in "immersion journalism", which seems to be all the rage these days, and here's Okrant's explanation of what the hell she's doing:
I'm creating in myself a reflection of Oprah's perfect audience member. It's a many-layered critique about the machine of Oprah Winfrey, but also about women and how we fall into taking the advice of celebrities, assuming someone's gotta have the secret to happiness. Oprah certainly wouldn't advocate taking every bit of her advice, but my hope is that people will reflect on their own lives.
Okay, first of all, you're not allowed to refer to your own book as "many-layered." That's in The Official Rulebook Of Authorship. Otherwise, what Okrant is saying is interesting. Oprah's cultural importance can't be overstated; she is a fully-functional living Goddess, in the literal sense of the word; people follow her religiously. So in that sense, as social commentary, this is dead-on. But...
There is zero chance this book gets published, or the website gets popular, without Oprah's name in the title. So while it may be a "many-layered critique" that makes people "reflect on their own lives," it's also all about hopping on the biggest celebrity train. Not to be cynical, but there will be a quote from Oprah on the back cover, and, we're sure, an appearance on Oprah when the book comes out. Think that didn't influence the publisher? Put it this way - the very women who "fall into taking the advice of celebrities" (and there are millions of them) are potential buyers of this book, because it deals with Goddess Oprah. Congrats to Robyn Okrant for figuring out a way to work the Oprah Winfrey machine.
