O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE: Honesty, Class, and Cuts To The Chase

Whether you're a man or a woman, you've got to admit it: Oprah Winfrey has carved out a respectable niche in American culture and indeed in international culture.

After the phenomenal success of her TV show, she finally launched a magazine to share her stories in print form. And O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE one-ups the ordinary magazines of its type the same way her TV show one-ups most of the TV shows in its class. What makes this so?

It all goes back to Oprah herself. Many of the media personalities today, from entertainers to politicians, are products of teams of advisors who put the celebrity's "media personality" together like a committee of architects designing a new city. Nothing wrong with that; if you need a room full of handlers and advisors and a cabinet full of opinionated people to tell you how to live out your life and present yourself to the public and reinvent yourself for marketing purposes every few months, and that's what makes you money and if that's what makes you happy, fine and dandy. Live that way. But I get the feeling that Oprah isn't like that at all.

The feeling you get watching Oprah, or reading her magazine is that here is a Real Person who lives her Own Life without a whole lot of people telling her how to sell herself. And because she isn't always watching her back, she comes through in a form such as her magazine, as a person who is honest, has class, and as a person who cuts to the chase.

Many magazines in the category she has chosen, which is basically about lifestyles, often slanted toward women (no, so far she hasn't had an article about Monster Truck Races yet) tiptoe around issues such as male-female relationships. Lots of lifestyle magazines like this are descriptive about these relationships but never get very far beyond surface descriptions. Magazines like Cosmopolitan redefine male-female relationships primarily in terms of hormonal mating cycles (meet/mate/end-it-and- move-on-to-the-next-one) without a whole lot of substance beyond that. In O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE you get a clean, honest discussion of male-female relationships that takes into account the depth level of a friendship and yet also honestly and with a healthy attitude looks at sexuality, fidelity, where God fits into the couple's life, the economic side of the relationship, and other facets. It is all entirely readable too.

Have you noticed that a lot of the covers of women's magazines today are sort of mini-billboards to soft-core porn? Maybe some people like that but I find it a little embarrassing to be walking through the checkout line at the supermarket and see all that garbage displayed on the covers. I guess some people get a buzz out of it, but to me it's just a reversion to a time when men and women were valued solely for their flesh and not for their spirit and fire and creativity and brains. I hope we cycle into that more comprehensive kind of collective understanding again some day, and this magazine may be a part of the movement in that direction. No, I get depresssed with the meat-market aspect of so many women's and men's magazines displayed out there on the racks.

Not so when I see O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE. The whole tone the magazine sets is healthy. Take the August, 2001 issue for example. On the cover is Oprah herself, smiling at you like she's ready to sit down to a nice lunch on the veranda with you. The article titles featured are: "You've Got A Friend", "Lose Weight Together," and "What Makes For Real Happiness: Oprah Talks To The Dalai Lama." If there is a common thread here it is that the main articles are about good relationships between people.

Oprah's real strength is in helping people to feel really good about themselves and then helping them relate to others who have a healthy view of themselves. As I say, she is honest in this approach, she does it with class, and she cuts to the chase and doesn't define anything in a generalization just because it's the popular thing to do at the moment. She don't preach but she just makes you feel divine anyway.

Another thing you like about this magazine is that Oprah's smarts show through. People read the books she suggests on her TV show and people take her advice about things written in the magazine. She is in that sense very influential: all kinds of people tune into her show and now read her magazine.

As a man, I find that I can really relate to Oprah's magazine. I don't feel that I have to downshift into my "feminine side" when I read the articles because they seem written for an audience that includes men as well as women. I really think the magazine marks a sort of breakthrough because of that.

Buy a copy and see for yourself. No, you won't find stories about Monster Trucks here and you won't find articles about 99 ways to seduce your boyfriend next Friday night and make his toes curl. What you will find is the soul and spirit of a wonderful woman who has changed a lot of life for the better for people all over the world.

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