Do You Hate Oprah?
This is a thought-provoking post and it made me wonder what you guys think about this issue.
Let’s face it, no matter what anyone says, when any fat celebrity cleans up and become svelte and part of the Jenny Craig group, they are no longer fun and part of the In Crowd. Nope, they become a part of the Beautiful People, that no one in the huddled masses can identify with. They make all of us, who have struggled forever, feel bad.
Do celebrities who lose a lot of weight become unrelateable? I kind of felt betrayed by Sara Rue, actually. But Oprah’s weight has fluctuated up and down and she’s been very public about her struggles, and I don’t feel the same way about her at all. Is there a difference, really?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Oprah, TV, Weight Loss
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That’s so funny, I’ve always thought the same things about sara rue, I felt betrayed! I thought she looked great before she slimmed down and I thought she was happy too. *sigh*
Not true, everyone still hates Star Jones.
Is it wrong of me to think that Sara Rue looked better before the big slim down? She’s hardly recognizable now… but that’s JMO.
I used to feel that I identified with Oprah and now I don’t. It has nothing to do with her weight though. She has become more infatuated with herself as the years go by. Her show is pretty much about HER… with a few fun guests every now and then. I guess you won’t find me jumping on Oprah’s couch anytime soon….
I think it’s the struggle that makes it seem more honest and relatable… we all understand the struggle. What we don’t understand is waking up skinny.
How did I miss the Sara Rue slimdown? Lately I’ve been thinking about my own struggle and how much I really want to like me at this weight. How I still want to be feminine and pretty and have a little self-esteem, and how hard it is, to find the right clothes (especially), shoes, makeup, and hair to do that. Losing another “roll model” another “you can look pretty and secure and not be a size 8 (or 10 or 12),” Sara Rue, just adds to it, that you’re not supposed to, society won’t allow it, and everyone and everything will try to block that attempt and make you feel like you can’t. I think that’s why we like to see someone remain chubby so we can see how pretty they are and how we can be pretty and feel good too.
I think the reson that I felt betrayed by Sara Rue is because she always came across in interviews as very “Hey, this is who I am and I dig it, I’m gorgeous just how I am” and then she suddenly got drastically skinnier, dyed her hair blonde and suddenly looked like hundreds of other starlets. It’s like she was secretly hating herself for all those years, and I fell for her “Being pudgy is okay” spiel only to find out it was a lie.
On the other hand, Oprah’s always been open about the fact that she does not like being fat, does not want to be fat anymore, and struggles every day to not be fat. I think it’s the fact that she’s honest about having a trainer and a cook helping her and showing everyone that she is working really hard at all this is what makes me not feel betrayed by her. Total opposite of the cloak and dagger slimdown Sara Rue pulled.
I think weight, eating, eating disorders and dieting are tricky issues and i couldn’t imagine dealing with these things in the public sphere.
However.
Oprah doesn’t bother me. Carnie Wilson doesn’t bother me. What bothers me are the stars (and non-stars) who lose their empathy for those who choose to be fat or who struggle with weight-loss.
Do I think that stars deserve to lose weight privately? Of course. But if you’ve built your professional persona on, “Hey I’m fat and fabulous” and then turn around and pose for a People article depicting your MIRACULOUS WEIGHT LOSS, you are a complete poser.
Yeah. Celebs sometimes lie when they say they’re happy fat or perhaps they are possibly in denial. Maybe they were happy and just changed their minds as they lost weight. I don’t care. If you become famous on the support of fatties, then you have a responsibility to them.
Star Jones and Ricki Lake, I’m looking at you.
I don’t hate Oprah because she’s thin and I can’t relate to her. I hate her because everything is always all about her, no matter what. She comes off as TOTALLY self-absorbed, conceited and melodramatic.
For some reason, the starlet makeover of Sara Rue bothers me way more than the weight loss in and of itself. Her ‘after’ shots are totally stripped of personality. It’s like she no longer has permission to look human. She was always a pose-y girl, but now the poses are all those weird, carefully contorted ‘working the camera angle’ poses.
Also, as a redhead, I am personally affronted by the blonde dye job. Wha – huh? Is red hair such a deal breaker for hollywood actresses? Is there something wrong with it? Nicole Kidman’s perpetual dye job has always puzzled me for the same reason.
Kind of as an aside, does anyone remember when Jennifer Gray (of Dirty Dancing fame) got her nose done? I loved that nose. When I see her now, I just plain don’t recognize her. She looks like everyone else.
oh amen sister about the red hair thing! i am a redhead too, and i am tired of celebs getting rid of their gorgeous ruby locks once they get skinny, or more recognized, etc. like nicole kidman, sara rue, lindsay lohan. Lindsay was hot when she was in mean girls, now she looks washed out, orange and sad.
I didn’t know who Sara Rue was before Mo wrote her original post or what lip-service she had given to being positive about her size. In the “before” picture she looks cool and happy and like someone I’d be able to pick out of a crowd as the Cool, Happy Sara Rue. I would want to have couple of dirnks with her. In the after picture she looks like just another hopelessly self-absorbed, too-afraid-to-be-anything-but-blonde, Hollywood Lollipop Head.
I don’t hate Oprah. She couldn’t find peace with her size and she embarked on the same journey that a lot of us have. And she struggled like a lot of us do. She could have done the Star Jones thing, but she didn’t. There are times when I like to think; yeah, well, if I had a billion dollars and access to world-class chefs and trainers I’d be thinner and fitter too! But I think that’s says more about me than it does about her…
Ditto everyone about the Sara Rue disappointment. She was a hot, curvy redhead who seemed like a lot of fun. Now she’s incredibly blah. Stick-y and blond. Boorrrrr-ing! I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that America Ferrara (Ugly Betty) seems to have lost weight, as well – she’s not as recognizable as the heroine from “Real Women Have Curves” (tho she makes a lovely Ugly Betty!) If real women have curves, why are they so hell-bent on straightening them out?
Oprah … something about her creeps me out. I can’t put my finger on it. But everytime she does that whole “I’m one of the girls” act, it makes me wanna vomit. No. You’re not. None of my girfriends are billionaires with multimedia empires and the ability to determine the literary world’s successes or failures. Not knocking her power, but the “humble” act is disingenuous. Martha Stewart might be aloof and bizarre, but she doesn’t play down-home.
I do not like Oprah but not because she’s thin, just because she is so self-righteous.
And I still like Sara Rue. She looks a little sad but she’s still funny.
But I do think newly thin people become unrelateable. And not just famous people but close friends too. Hell, even bloggers.
Because they change. And your perception of them changes. And maybe that thing that used to make you feel close dissapears.
I remember an episode of Oprah where she featured a mother of nine kids who ran marathons or was ultra-fit or whatever. Her entire point was, if this woman can make exercise a part of her life without making excuses, with NINE KIDS, so can you. But as they featured the woman, they showed that she was a SAHM… and lived in a mansion where she had her own fully-stocked gym… and had nine kids, seven of which were school age… and had a nanny. It’s obvious to everyone but Oprah that it would be way more amazing if a single mother who works two jobs to make ends meet found time to run marathons, but Oprah lives in her dream world where people with vacation mansions face the same challenges as everyone else. Not that they don’t, but come on. Wouldn’t you be thinner if you had nothing to do but concentrate on your body, and could pay for a private trainer and chef and plastic surgeon and “lifestyle coach”?
Oh, I’ll be hated for this.
As a former heavy girl who has now slimmed down, I have not lost my empathy for heavy girls at all, but I do resent heavy girls who feel that those who lose weight are in some way “betraying” those who don’t.
As Anabell referred to above, it comes down to identification. If someone who looks like me becomes famous, then maybe I’m not as worthless as I always imagined. If someone who looks like me stops looking like me — and gets lots of attention and congratulation for no longer looking like me — then, man. I must be even more disgusting than I previously suspected.
So now I’m mad at So-And-So because their publicly lauded weight loss feels like a tacit invalidation of my self-worth. Which is totally understandable, and totally fucking insane.
anonymous i’m with you – i don’t feel betrayed – good for sarah. i think she looks good, healthy – not sick. if i had the access to things that would make my life improved (trainers, medical options, etc…) i would. for all we know she has more motivation then just hollywood sizism for changing her weight – i know i do – hello inherited sky high cholesterol. i do miss the fiery red hair though. – oprah, can’t take her christ like attitude and sound bites are every subject under the sun. i can respect her journey – but can not relate to what she does for a living now.
I’m with Anon 11:00 and Gin. I have such bad knees and such a bada** sports doc, I didn’t even know I looked like I was losing weight until some of my friends told me so (because I don’t own a scale) — I was too focused on lifting all that damned torturous weight the doc said would make my quads stronger so I wouldn’t come out of every single PT session in tears.
I remember Margaret Cho’s anecdote about the weight she was pressured to lose for her show. Something like 30 pounds in 30 days and relentless pressure from the network. She did it, and I’m sure a lot of you know what happened next — yeah, she was hot for the cameras — which also means she was even smaller than that in real life — but she was also subsequently hospitalized as a result of massive kidney malfunction.
I preferred Sara as a redhead, but I don’t have any idea what level of pressure she or America or JHud or any other “(formerly) Hollywood fat” woman is under to shrink for the camera — or what leverage she has to resist that pressure, which I think is more to the point. Oprah gets a pass from me because she built a school, for cripes’ sake — I couldn’t do that. I think whether I might despise these women for being suddenly “less relatable” says more about my own self-image than whether or not they’re actually a “sellout”.
I will say that since Jennifer Grey had her nose done, I haven’t seen her in anything since “Dirty Dancing” and “Ferris Bueller” (and IMO she was great in both). Make of that what you will.
Hollywood is brutal. If actresses don’t toe the line and get with the program, there’s always someone else waiting in the wings who’s willing to work harder and be skinnier, if that’s what it takes.
It has always been “survival of the fittest” in the Hollywood jungle. Yes, it sucks, but it’s an entrenched mentality. And many actors get so much rejection at the beginning of their careers that once they finally make it, then they’ll do whatever it takes to hold on. I don’t envy them and don’t base my self-esteem on what they do.
I only feel that former fatties are “betraying me” (and themselves) when they start disparaging their “fat self” and caricaturing that self as some horrible beastly benighted food machine that has since “seen the light” and become moral and virtuous just because they count calories and run around on a hamster wheel.
So when Oprah dragged that cart with the fat on it so everybody could point and go ewww isn’t that disgusting!!! then yeaaah. I was irritated.
And it was sort of a “mission accomplished” moment. That bothers me too. You know when dieters at the low point of their yo yo start trumpeting to the world that FINALLY they’ve succeeded! Forever and ever! And then if/when they regain they’re skulking around in the shadows wearing all black hoping nobody notices. And then when they swing down on their yo yo again it’s LOOK AT ME…I tried so many times and THIS TIME I FINALLY DID IT.
Oprah does a bit of that. When she’s in the fatter part of her yo yo the camera shoots her from the face up and she’s carefully positioned to look as thin as possible. Which I think is deceptive advertising.
If she didn’t do these things she could lose weight and talk about weight loss to her heart’s content and I’d have no problem with it.
But mostly I don’t like Oprah because she has no sense of humor that I can tell. None.
I don’t love Oprah nor do I hate her.
I mean, I never thought she was my friend or anything because–duh–she’s a multimillionaire with a TV show, and, hmmm…I don’t personally know any of those. I do respect that she’s had to build up some major, major protective mechanisms to keep those people who want to, like, be her best buddy (which, face it, seems to be every stay-at-home mom in the 25-45 age range) at bay.
She’s publicly struggled with weight, which isn’t easy certainly–and her weight loss is 100% her own damned hard work, and she deserves to have a bit of peace about it.
And, too, I think she’s sometimes kinda funny and besides that she’s done a lot more in terms of public service than any ten of us will do in our lifetimes. So cut Oprah some slack, huh?
I hate Oprah. I think she’s a big, fat, phoney (if she’s not fat this week, she soon will be)
opportunistic bitch.
When she slims down, slim is the way to be. when she’s fat, fat’s where it’s at.
Oprah has not made peace with her weight. Every time a skinny actress is on her show Oprah makes some remark about how tiny she is. It’s obvious that the woman secretly desires to be the next front page anorexic. I hate the bitch, she’s a fucking cult leader. All of her viewers following her every command like fucking sheep. “Oh Oprah says eat blueberries, alright-oh she says buy this book, live “The Secret” way of life, okay” Jesus you can’t find fucking blueberries for a month after one of those shows. And the population of the good ol’ U.S. of A. is still fucking FAT and clueless.
“opportunistic bitch”? “I hate the bitch”?
I mean, seriously, can we critique someone’s actions without resorting to sexist epithets?
Oprah may not have made peace with her weight, but so what? Neither have a lot of women. Guess we’re all just “fucking FAT and clueless” huh?
I admire Oprah for her generosity and for the way she tries to inspire others to be generous. I think many of her show topics are chosen because she genuinely wants to help people. Yes, it’s a business — and that’s why there are also some tabloid topics (which I never watch) or stars talking about their books/albums/movies/TV shows. But even though she still obviously remembers growing up in a family without money, I’m sure that decades of wealth (and the way a famous person needs to seclude themselves) have caused her to forget some of what it’s like not to have trainers, cooks, and nannies. . .
we hate them because they made doing something we cant do easy. so we ask ourselves if its so easy why do we stuggle..the truth is when someone like sara rue loses weight that quickly and to the point where her collar bones stick out, its because shes just not eating…is it worth an eating disorder to be super skinny..we dont hate people who do i the right way, it takes time and is a struggle, we just know real healthy dieting from starvation i guess.
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You need to a spotlight on The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos. It’s the diet industry’s reality check! The book talks about how you can be fit and fat and why the $30 billion dollar industry doesn’t want you to know that!
Wow, I’m shocked at how jaded people are! As a full-figured size 22 woman, I bet if you posted this comment on your blog, people might actually lose it!
Yes, there are actually people out there who are over a size 2. It’s really sad that looks, Hollywood’s standard of beauty and being an ideal weight trump
healthy lifestyles and talent. What will the future scholars say about us when they see that Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson receive more press than Kathy Bates and Camryn Manheim?
Going over the Internet I can see how jaded people really are! Even if America didn’t have a “weight” problem, what would we focus on then? Maybe the 43 million people without healthcare or that every 6 seconds, a child dies in a third-world country of poverty.
In a consumer-driven society, it does not surprise that Sara Rue, despite being a bombshell, feels the need to lose weight until she becomes another dingy-looking Hollywood starlet or that Charlotte Church was passed over for the lead role in The Phantom of the Opera because she wouldn’t lose weight (she’s a size 8 by the way)! The role went to malnourished waif Emily Rossum and bombed at the movies!
The direction this county is headed in is the equivalent of the Salem witch trials of the 1600’s, where the ruling majority decided who was “fit” (pun intended) to live a regular, normal lifestyle. I fear for the lives that my future children and generations of people will have to endure.
I think women celebrities who succomb to the pressure of weight loss are “uncle toms”.
There. I said it.
Not only did they sell out, they are selling every woman in the world out because they have one less positive image of a normal sized woman in the media and thye get one more message that it is either ” get skinny” or else…
I refuse to loose an ounce.
Hugs,
Milla
star jones and oprah should be ashame of themselves.
star jone s and oprah should be ashame of them selves i would choose mo`nique over them anytime she is big and lovely oh lets not 4get she`s sexy!
A lot of people won’t let you criticize Oprah. They accuse you of being jealous, racist (fyi: i’m a black woman myself) or a hater.
I used to really like Oprah but I think like Star Jones, you have to be really careful not to overexpose yourself, which Oprah has done.
I think my problem with Oprah is this growing borderline-fascism that I see on her show from telling people what books to read (half of which are really fantastic books, the other selections which have no literary value. Books I like to call “summer beach fluff” or books that should have been straight-to-Lifetime movie of the week) to telling them how much weight they need to gain or lose to plugging certain celebrities (i.e. Halle Berry, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, etc.) who really aren’t that talented but are more Hollywood-aesthetically easy on the eyes, as opposed to talented actors who are virtually ignored (i.e. Don Cheadle, Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Paul Giamatti, etc.).
I used to really like her and I respect what she’s accomplished as a black woman but her show doesn’t impress me anymore.
You see the same celebrities, the same “self-help” pop psychologists and I’ve even begun to notice a formula to the books she chooses. Oprah, sadly, is losing touch with reality.
I’m new to the board but I wanted to add this comment about Oprah. If she wants to encourage people to be healthier, give more, do good, fine. It’s that she doesn’t have heavy people on her show anymore – period. If she’s doing something with clothes, she used to show plus-size folks. But no more. And it does seem that guests are only overweight if they are talking about how they want to lose weight.
Oprah is a fake – someone said it correctly. She is again acting like she is god – who will pontificate and sweep the masses into beleiving Obama is the man. One post said it accurately – she is a selfish bitch you will do anyhting to see that no other woman becomes the most powerful woman in America. She disgusts me!
I hate Oprah and could not believe someone actually said it on the web. When she started O Mag, i thought she was going to have other inspirational women on the cover, esp. everyday women who have accomplished something, whether big or small. Noo – she has herself on the covers – airbrushed, et al. What really pisses me off is that nothing sticks to her ass other than the food she eats – she is untouchable. When she went on the road for Obama, she spoke with a southern black accent, and with the cadence of Martin L. King’s famous speech. She thinks we don’t notice this shit.
So you follow celebrity bullshit why? Is it that everyone wants to be one? So in other words you want to give more money to the IRS, you want to be followed around, you want to lack a sex life, you want to not be loved yet you want to be admired….
I had a few girlfriends over the other day and all they did was talk about celebrities. I had to walk away from the table and do something productive….like masturbate.
BTW, listen to city chick. She knows what she’s saying. Don’t even get me on the Obama thing considering the only reason she supports him is because he’s black. Another thing that’s sad about our society is that we think change comes with skin color. It’s funny how no one even looked at Ron Paul because he wanted to get rid of the IRS, the CIA, NSA, homeland security, board of education, etc. You people seriously don’t realize how controlled you are. Go one year without paying taxes then see how many guns show up at your door because you didn’t give away your money to fruitless causes such as killing and raping innocent women and children, espionage, assassination, arms dealing and smuggling, drug dealing and smuggling, rigged elections, etc, etc. Don’t even get me going on the list of shit that this government and most governments do to the population.
Meanwhile we just go to work then go to the mall. Pathetic humans.
Here’s oprahs m.o
http://carbonphobia.blogspot.com/2008/09/oprahs-business-model.html
I just happened upon this by accident.
I sill hate Oprah, but I hate her sheep like followers even worse.
“Bleep the Sheep, and Oprah too!”