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Popular television hosts need something which attracts their viewers back, again and again. Martha Stewart does this with her meticulous "home shows," which range from cooking segments to craft demonstrations. Martha brings in expert guests for almost all her shows. But, she's no detached hostess. She herself can cook up sophisticated dishes and arrange a beautiful bouquet of flowers, as good as many of her experts.
Oprah, on the other hand, invites guests and tries to get into their psyche: why were they drug addicts? What made them kill their wife, their daughter, the random stranger? How does a person survive, and overcome, a devastating disfigurement like the loss of limbs during an accident, or even a whole face after a shooting incident with one's husband (the topic of one of her new shows in the fall season)?
Martha goes for the outward, visible light. Oprah narrows in on the invisible, interior darkness. Oprah knows best how to delve into people’s heart, to get a glimpse of their scarred souls.
This is what she did during the two-episode interview of Whitney Houston. Whitney, after years of a terrible marriage during which she made terrible decisions, including a descent into drug addiction, came out of it looking stunning - slim, youthful and beautiful. Oprah, stodgy and overweight, sat across her with her questions ready at hand.
Whitney, in her happiness at her recovery and at returning to her beloved fans once again, answered Oprah's probing questions with candor. She fully trusted Oprah, and was willing to answer questions she was clearly uncomfortable with. And Oprah probed on, with a strange fearful look in her eyes, unable to keep up with the superior force of the happy and buoyant Whitney, whose spirit was of someone who had truly survived and shelved the inner demons away.
I wondered why Oprah had that startled, frightened expression in her eyes throughout the interview. I think it is because she is used to reaching, at some point, that dark and unsettled corner of her guests' souls. She's used to the darkness, and not the light. I think Whitney derailed her. She expected something much more negative from Whitney, and despite the sad and tortuous story that Whitney related, all she got was something positive instead.
Oprah can rule with negativity. She can continue confidently with her questions. She is superior to her guests on whom she can then bestow her empathy. "You can get better. I know, I've been there, and look at me now," she seems to be saying, and continues with her interrogation. Yet, with Whitney, the truly happy newly formed Whitney, she couldn't find this dark corner at which she can ever so generously throw her empathy. Whitney had indeed crawled out of her dark soul and reached the light. And Whitney’s frankness about her past, which she discarded into the open like a dried corpse, left little for Oprah to delve into.
I realized later how much probing Oprah had tried to do when Whitney came on live on Oprah's show after the end of the pre-taped interview. Whitney was detached, and distanced herself from Oprah. And Oprah's narcissistic radar picked up this recoil, and rather than welcome Whitney as best as she could (like a true hostess), she asked, "Did you regret doing the interview?" Whitney was clearly upset that she had said (or been baited into saying) too much, but in her wisdom, realized that she needn't revisit this painful past again for future inquiring and curious fans. But Oprah, predictably, was the buoyant one this time, realizing that she had indeed gone further than she had thought, had delved deeper and found more hurtful corners than she had expected. So this was one more successful interview, by Oprah's standards.
But Whitney has indeed overcome her dark past, however much it is possible to close off fourteen years of one's life. Oprah would be better advised to see how Whitney, with her bible close to her heart, came to this victory, rather than return to her addictive circular probings of people's unresolved miseries.
Such is the crippling psychology of Oprah, the Queen of Narcissism, who cannot shake off her own dark and tragic background – because that's what it’s all about - and has to revisit it with her guests daily, monthly, ad infinitum, in her ceaseless attempt to understand it. Perhaps she should opt for the truly positive, productive and lively shows that Martha Stewart brings, who like most human beings resolves her tragedies in private and decides to focus on the beauty of life rather than its dark and inert recesses.