Apparently, or I should say allegedly because this was told to me and I didn't hear it out of the whore....horse's mouth, but Oprah is once again showing how out of touch she truly is.
On her show this week, she apparently told her audiences to stop going out to restaurants for dinner in these tough economic times. I don't know if she suggested that we all get a personal chef like she and her husband Gayle have, but she doesn't think we can afford to eat out.
She wants us to stop spending our money on restaurant food.
Well, Oprah, if you'd put down the cookies and stop counting your money for a second, you might realize that the restaurant industry employs a fairly large number of people, and when you open your cake-hole and tell us to stop dining out you could be sending millions of people to the unemployment line; you could be closing many small businesses....and some large ones, too.
So, O, instead of asking people to stop dining out, how about this: Tell them to stop buying every little piece of crap just because you call it your 'Favorite Thing;' tell them to cancel their subscriptions to your vanity publication 'O' and read the free copy at the library....or better yet stop reading it altogether. Tell people to stop buying Kindles, and Oprah's Book Club selections; tell them to stop trying to get your boy Nate to redo their homes.
But don't tell them to take money out of someone elses pocket, or business, while you keep promoting your magazines, and your books and your shows and your favorite things.
The best thing you can do, O, since you are so out of touch with real people, is to tell your audiences to turn off their TVs and get a second job.....or even a first job in some cases.
Get real Oprah. We don't need you telling us how to live our lives and what to buy and where to spend our money. Go out and buy yourself another house or another car or another fancy dress and supplement your feelings of inadequacy by shoving a whole Chicago-style-deep-dish-pizza down your gullet.
Well said! (with a son employed in the industry).
ReplyDeleteAnd she should have remembered when the beef industry sued her.
Sharp post, indeed, Bob. Don't throw tomatoes at me for replying with the following... but she is addressing "an audience".. "her audience".. like most TV shows do.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure she's well aware that her audience isn't the whole world, and that there are many out there that don't care for her show -- myself included. We will continue to eat at restaurants and do what we see fit. She didn't get rich by trying to appeal to everyone and influence everyone's lives.
Just like if someone from God Hates Fags came to read your blog, then posted a response somewhere else. You aren't necessarily catering to that person -- hence, your objective is not to suggest to the whole world that your opinion is law... only to convey your thoughts to your own "niche audience".
While I certainly agree with your well-written response, I have to diverge with your view on the intentions of her message and who she expects to follow it.
I have no idea what Kevin (above) just said...
ReplyDeleteBut anywhoo - Bob, you are correct. The restaurant industry is a huge money-generating machine in this country. There are restaurant workers, farm workers, food processing workers, truck drivers, kitchen equipment manufacturing and repair workers, and food wholesalers - who are directly affected when the restaurant industry hits the skids. I am also one of those workers - and we have definitely hit the skids.
Not to mention the fact that all the people mentioned above pay taxes (as do their employers) and generate income for their local, state, and federal governments.
But maybe Oprah is onto something. I'm assuming that Oprah was implying that her mostly female audience should be cooking at home, instead of taking the family out to a restaurant. Well, since many of these females, and their husbands, will soon be out of work because of our CONTRACTING economy - they should have plenty of time to prepare those low-cost meals in their very own kitchens.
That is, until the bank forecloses on their mortgage and repossess their kitchen (and the rest of their home).
XOXOXOXOXOXO
BTW -
ReplyDeleteI investigated a little bit, and it was frequent Oprah guest Suze Orman who suggested to a cash-strapped studio audience of 300 guests that they not eat out for a month.
Since Suze is an out lesbian, are we still allowed to be mad at her for saying this??..
XOXOXOXO
I'll eat out if I want to and Oprah can't stop me. Besides, I figure in into my food budget!
ReplyDeleteOkay, to simplify, David...
ReplyDelete"The best thing you can do, O, since you are so out of touch with real people, is to tell your audiences to turn off their TVs and get a second job.....or even a first job in some cases." -- Bob
Considering that she is catering to a specific audience, which you acknowledged in your response, her message may not have been intended to shut down the restaurant industry... but to tell her audience to pare what she deems to be "frivolous expenses" wherever they can until the economy can recover.
Shop smart, and don't overextend yourselves by ordering dinner, and dessert, and wine, and tipping 50%... all while being uncertain of your own financial future.
Dave, I'm with ya. I'll eat out because I can afford it and it's in my budget. But, she wasn't speaking to people like you or me.
ReplyDeleteKevin: I agree she's talking to her audience--the Oprah-maniacs, but they're talking to the rest of us. And I think that before she puts this message out there, she needs to think about it. When you have an audience as rabid as hers, make your point clearly and concisely.
ReplyDeleteAnd she--or as David discovered, Suze Orman--didn't say 'pare' down, she said 'don't,' which is different.
David: I agree with you 100%. Carlos and I love to eat out, but we don't do it as much as we used to...and when we do we tend to support our locally owned restaurant here in, and around, Smallville.
And believe me, I love to cook--and I know it's cheaper than dining out--but be careful what you say O, because your words--like FP said about the beef men--impact a lot of folks.
And yeah, I can be mad at lesbian Suze for what she said. I can be mad at anyone whether straight or gay when they say things I think are nonsensical.
I hear ya, Bob. I definitely agree that a point should be as clear and concise as you can make it. Just to be clear (grin), I'm not out to stir trouble with this post... but sometimes, you can be as clear as possible, but people still take the message differently -- or simply don't understand it. As such, I don't know how realistic it would be to try and get the entire listening population to hear a message the exact same way.
ReplyDeleteBut, I agree with you in that Oprah may be underestimating her reaching power. Nevertheless, it's people such as this cash-strapped audience of 300 people that she aims to send a targeted message to... and I honestly believe it's a message they should hear.. and this is how she's gotten rich.
I highly doubt she is trying to drag the restaurant industry into darkness, especially with nothing to gain. She's not a monster, and that's why I saw your post in a different light.
Is we still friendz? LOL
Very nice post Bob. I use to watch Oprah all the time till she started getting cult like. I swear the fans start crying over receiving gifts from under there seats for God's sake! And if she told them to jump they wouldn't ask how high, they would just start jumping! But her reign is very,very slowly coming to a end. Her ratings are starting to come down and readership of her magazine is dropping. Don't get me wrong I do like Oprah but she is so over exposed!
ReplyDelete"but she is so over exposed!"
ReplyDeleteYou're preachin' to the choir, Mistress Maddie!
Kevin: Of course we're still friendz.
ReplyDeleteI love the debate and the different points of view. if everyone in the world thought like me, well, I would LOVE it....but it would get boring fast.
But make no mistake, while there were some 300 people in the audience that day, there were millions of more at home drinking the koolaid.
Well that was a fun repartee, gents. I think restaurant/fast foods etc services account for almost a third of the working force in related ways. I admire that she doesn't make more errors being on every single goddamned day somewhere and her name is probably mentioned as many times in a day as Jeebus ( thank you David) in either reverence or cursing but then Jeebus had a shorter run, a much smaller audience,and his fingers in far fewer pies.That she is influential...well I forgot whoever was before her, or who runs opposite,but I feel assured she might not make your bios in black history...ha hahahahahahaha
ReplyDeleteWho's Oprah? Hehe. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Bob. If we all stopped eating out, many restaurants would lay off workers and that would make the current unemployment situation even worse.
ReplyDelete