Man, the [WaPo] article did not do this show justice (not its fault--it's a visual and auditory thing)! Oprah's as pissed as I've ever seen her--even during the whole beef trial thing, if I'm recalling correctly. She's clearly embarrassed and uncomfortable, and she's actually having a hard time, from what I can see, looking at Frey.
From the linked WaPo article:
"I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that," Winfrey told viewers of her syndicated show. "That is not what I believe." She added: "To everyone who has challenged me on this issue of truth, you are absolutely right."
Now, she's for truth, now that she got slammed for saying: "the underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me. And I know that it resonates with millions of other people who have read this book." Truth seems more like a strategy for getting out of a jam.
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23 comments:
I'm happy to see her apologize, and take responsibility. I'd love to see more that in public life.
It may comfort you to know, Roger, that Eddie Compass resigned not long after his public meltdown. I too wish Oprah would confront that episode as well, but it doesn't detract from my appreciation of this one.
If only our elected officials would have the nerve to say "I was wrong."
I saw a short video clip of the show. Frey looked and sounded like a nerdy kid who wants to be cool, but breaks down in the principal's office when he's caught. Not the image you want when you're trying to be a reformed "bad boy."
Link to the video and comments here.
vw: mxgig = a dj's job
It's an especially big deal, given that her next book club selection is Wiesel's Night. She can't discuss it and also fail to appreciate the difference between truth and truthiness, given Holocaust denial in 2006.
I missed the show - did she suggest a charity to which Frey could contribute to help with his lousy karma?
p.s. that reminds me - did anyone else read Benjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments before it was discovered to be a fraud? That was a huge disappointment.
Jen:
Not that I saw--but what an excellent idea, especially given that Frey's got not one, but two bestsellers on the NYT bestsellers list.
"A Million Little Pieces" is #1 on the --ahem--non-fiction paperback list.
"My Friend Leonard" is #3 on the hardback non-fiction paperback list.
Anyone care to guess whether I should add an "ahem" before "non-fiction" there, too?
I don't know ... but I'd be a commplete idiot if I weren't wondering.
I saw the show today. Frey was as shifty-eyed as usual. I tell you, on the initial show, he showed a video of himself I think at home and Oprah asked him, hey, why are there beer bottles in the picture, I thought you were not drinking? His answer was more shifty eyes, saying, well, my friends still drink...it was their beer, Mom! I just didn't buy him at all. Thank goodness Oprah doesn't any more either. She was indeed shaking, almost crying, angry.
Nan Talese was really weak, even dropping in an anecdote about her work with Jimmy Carter and his wife on their memoirs. Whoo-hoo! She has a name and used it to get to her position. I think most people will be astounded that neither she, nor anybody, checks facts on these books! Until now. So, hurray, for Oprah.
So Oprah was against the truth before she was for it.
And Oprah at first thought Frey's book was fake but accurate.
You know, the great cliches really live on beyond their creation--that's what makes them cliches, of course.
Good times.
With an extra "m" (as in hmmmm ...) to boot.
Rueful ; )
I dunno. I think saying that there were WMD's in Iraq and "Mission Accomplished" when neither were true, are just a few examples of lies that bother me more than this.
Never even heard of this guy until Ann's post.
Roger, you're probably right about the pressure on Compass, but it was inevitable. His on-air breakdown with Oprah was just the icing on the cake. He'd apparently spent most of the three critical days during and after the storm holed up in a command center, not in touch with his officers, and slowly losing it. The guy who's now in charge may have some baggage, but Warren Riley was on the ground, and in the water, keeping communications going, minimal as they were. His officers saw him, and responded to his leadership. Compass had a fine record as a cop on the street, and as a supervisor. But he was way over his head as chief, and that was already a problem well before Katrina.
And I agree, Oprah has some class.
I've been posting from prison for some time and it's a good day when I can say I'm wearing a blood-stained torn shirt, incidentally. So this sort of bullshit really pisses me off.
Ann, I didn't initially pay attention, but on second glance, I love the Frey fray wordplay.
Although I give her credit for changing her mind and saying she made a mistake, it baffles me how me she could have gotten it so wrong originally.
I mean this is not a tough moral case. The guy's a jerk. There was no way around it. It means she panicked and couldn't see straight; or she panicked and thought she could bluster her way past it; or she's cynical and underestimated her audience; or it just gives a glimpse into how oddly focused and unreal life gets when you become a hyper-celebrity.
Oprah seems to matter to people, it seems.
Elizabeth: re wordplay. It's especially interesting that Winfrey is Win Frey. He's permanently attached to her name. How irksome that must be for her.
Paul: "it baffles me how me she could have gotten it so wrong originally."
I don't think it's baffling at all. It shows the strength of her instinct to protect her own self-interest -- enough to cloud her perception of how people would react.
Not a Winfrey fan.....during the early '90's I recall tuning in to shows devoted to male bashing and was revolted. Her conduct appeared to fuel the harsh rhetoric.
Is it possible her sudden reversal was being influenced by Fans Want Nobel Peace Prize For Oprah???
Am I the only one who didn't buy the anger she was exhibiting? I've seen enough Oprah shows where she gushes and praises people in such a fake manner that this just seemed the same. You see, my problem with Oprah is that everything is about her. So a show where Frey comes on and reveals that his tall-tale is just that, has nothing to do with him and is all about her. And that's how Today, Good Morning America and the rest ran with it this morning - "Oprah Is Sad."
I also find it strange that people actually go in for her book club recommendations. To me it's a smaller version of her give-away show. What I mean is that once a year Oprah indulges in a giant give-away so that people can point out how unbelievably generous she is. That show will inevitably make the evening news also. Of course, companies are just begging to give stuff away on that episode. Oprah's staff are left inundated with various products that assorted companies are desperate to market through her TV show. But the rub is that Oprah endorses every product as if she handpicked it herself, and had to tell everyone about. Which is often difficult - the Video Ipod is a case in point - not only did she have no idea how to work it, but she confessed that she'd been told by lots of people that it's the next big thing. That's pretty much how she does her Book Club shows as well. Except she'll have a promo shot of herself amongst a pile of books which she herself has endorsed.
Her defensive phone call to Larry King was too strong. Her Frey interview was nothing overly special but she felt the need to phone a live tv show and defend herself (you didn't think she was defending him now did you?).
Oprah is interested in one thing--Oprah. I mean, come one...how big of an egomaniac do you have to be to name a magazine after yourself and put yourself on the cover each week!
She is a horrible influence on this country...thing, for example, of all the damage Dr. Phil has done with his mindless pop psychology.
Bleh. She got what she deserved.
Are we to believe that her producers couldn't scrounge up ONE moderate to conservative voice?
Brendan, they were all booked on MSNBC, CNN and FOX.
Abraham,
Idiots would like to know what we did, in 1988, when Saddam used gas on the Kurds. Why'd we wait 15 years to do anything about it? I had stuff in 1988 that I don't have now. Why is it idiotic to want to establish that Saddam STILL had WMDs in 2003, as opposed to 1988, before our first invasion, and before the years of monitoring that followed?
As for the Mission Accomplished rationalizing, gee, that's some parsing, along the lines of what "it" means. The flight suit drag was cute, though.
Some readers who bought the book and believed it are suing. Maybe Oprah is worried about the legal ramifications, ala the beef "beef."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002760247_frey25m.html
Suing? Oh goodness.
I think Frey is a cheesy fake. But I also don't buy a memoir thinking I'm buying a slice of history. Memoir is memory. Just think about the last tiff you've had with a spouse or partner, and what role memory played in your disagreement. I assume some fictionalizing, or embellisment, in a memoir. The first-person narrator, both in autobiography and in fiction, carries an air of questionable reliability.
Frey failed to carry it off. His stories were too thin, too easy to debunk, too melodramatic. But anyone who feels cheated to the point of suing needs to grow an independent personality of their own, and stop looking for one in books.
I agree his story didn't pass the stink test from the beginning, E, but I think the lawsuit is more about "show me the money" than the actual time they lost reading it.
*crocodile tears*
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