Fat Girls Finish First

NY Post reporter Maureen Callahan reports a correlation between Oprah's weight and her ratings -- namely, the more Oprah, the more viewers.


The Wench seems to recall another popular female talk show host whose popularity only increased with her waistline, as well as her nauseatingly proclivity for discussing her flabbiness with viewers:





The Wench submits that the baffling popularity of Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell among women is really not so baffling at all. Their success owes much to a tragic, insidious flaw in the female psyche: The preference for self-indulgence over self-mastery, victimhood over tough-minded heroism.

A thin Oprah is utterly without appeal to many women. A thin Oprah says: "No excuses. No wallowing with Eckhart Tolle/Elizabeth Gilbert/Dr. Phil. Suck it up and do what you have to do." A thin Oprah has none of the soft, fleshy comfort of failure. Female self-discipline, after all, is so not "relatable" or "humanizing". Some women take it as a rebuke.

The Wench asks her female readers: How many times have you noticed a subtle "cooling off" or even outright snideness on the part of your fellow females, following some stroke of good fortune or hard-earned success on your part? And how many times have you noticed a sudden affection or even outpouring of goodwill on the part of the same females, after you fall flat on your face or suffer some crippling event?

The Wench surmises that Oprah knows exactly what she's doing when she laments her scale-tipping physique. And The Wench has to admire her business acumen. Hand the good woman another bag of chips.

On Oprah, or, The AntiChrist

The Wench was utterly delighted to stumble upon this enlightening NY Post piece by Maureen Callahan, in which the author examines the popularity of the latest female New Age tome, Eat, Pray, Love:

What is going on? Why is it that women, in overwhelming numbers, are now indulging in this silliness in a way that men are not? (To be fair, there was the equally unhinged “Iron John" movement in the '90s.) Oprah's audience has helped turn serious, artful literature like Cormac McCarthy's “The Road" and Elie Wiesel's “Night" into bestsellers. So why aren't they clamoring for more weight when it comes to Oprah's female authors? Where's the Joan Didion? Or Alice Munro?

Instead, we are saddled with this narcissistic New Age reading, curated by Winfrey (who is responsible for turning “The Secret" into the year's best-selling book) and newly abetted by Gilbert, whose own book is 2007's second best-selling title. During her most recent appearance on Winfrey's show, Gilbert beamed beatifically while spouting stuff like: “If you take the word ‘no' and put it backwards, it's almost ‘om.' " “When you fill up your own skin with yourself, that alone becomes your offering." “There are days when I look at that meditation mat in the corner of my room and say, ‘I'm gonna have to see you, like, Thursday, but I know you're there and we're coming back to each other."

The Wench considers Ms. Gilbert's bromides to be pure, unmitigated POOP. And POOP stinks just the same, whether spelled backwards or forwards.

Ms. Winfrey encourages women to slather themselves in unadulterated narcissism (Could one expect any less from a woman who features herself on every cover of her magazine?). She calls this brand of no-holds-barred self-love "finding your spirit" and "living your best life" -- euphemisms that conveniently absolve women from the yucky, inconvenient duties we all shoulder in this life.

Real personal and spiritual growth demands sacrifice and inner struggle. It involves learning to be content on less. It involves a battle with one's own temperament. It involves a hard, critical look at the values and beliefs one holds dear, and a hard, critical appraisal of the self.

Ms. Gilbert and Ms. Winfrey deny this is so. They tell women that personal and spiritual growth can be achieved by a patchouli-scented bubble bath, or by eating low-fat wraps with skim-milk cheese. Or, as Ms. Gilbert suggests, by getting a four-hour massage from a brown-skinned medicine woman. And a great many women swallow this Kool-Aid willingly and without question.

The Wench never ceases to be amazed at her gender's simultaneous, completely contrary impulses: To be taken seriously, and to be treated like little girls.