Tag: television

Oprah Winfrey is an American media personality, actress, television producer, literary critic and magazine publisher, best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history.

She is considered a prominent spiritual icon and an influential New Age promoter. She has had numerous famous spiritual and self help authors and personalities on her show, she also speaks openly about her own beliefs and spirituality.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, including being raped at the age of nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

By the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture and promoting controversial self-help fads, she is generally admired for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.

Emerging as a spiritual icon

During the late 90's Winfrey emerged as an influential spiritual leader. Since 1994, when she abandoned traditional talk-show fare for more edifying content, and 1998, when she began 'Change Your Life TV', Oprah's most significant role has become that of spiritual leader.

To her audience of more than 22 million mostly female viewers, she has become a postmodern priestess — an icon of church-free spirituality. On the season premier of Winfrey's 13th season Roseanne Barr told Winfrey "you're the African Mother Goddess of us all" inspiring much enthusiasm from the studio audience. The animated series Futurama alluded to her spiritual influence by suggesting that "Oprahism" is a mainstream religion in 3000 AD.

In 2008 Winfrey endorsed author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and his book, "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose", which sold several million copies after being selected for her book club. During a Webinar class, in which she promoted the book, Winfrey stated "God is a feeling experience and not a believing experience. If your religion is a believing experience…then that's not truly God." Frank Pastore, a Christian radio talk show host on KKLA, was among the many Christian leaders who criticized Winfrey's views, saying "if she's a Christian, she's an ignorant one, because Christianity is incompatible with New Age thought."