Oprah used to cater to the same kind of skeeze other talkshows catered to, but at some point, I think the early or mid ninties, she revamped to clean things up. In the process she has simply made the show uninteresting. I never watch Oprah. Frankly, I don't like any talkshows, with the exception of Ellen's talkshow and even there it's a format I don't really like of two overly flip interviews with celebrities each episode that generally don't turn out to be particularly informative. I like Ellen a lot and I like watching her dynamics with other people, because she's so hilarious and genuine. But I wish she'd make a move to go a little deeper with her interviews, or better yet, make the interviews longer. One interview per show would be better than the currently flip two-or three barely-seven-minutes interviews that she does now.

This doesn't really address your post at all, does it? I didn't see the Oprah thing but from your sister's description it sounds pretty damn odious. Oprah is admirable in many respects, but this sounds like an issue that she handled in a very wrong way. Maybe when you actually see the the show it won't turn out to be quite so one-sided, but knowing Oprah, it probably will be. This is a weakness of hers--when it comes to talking about issues of female inequality, sexual harassment and rape, she eschews the rational for the rabidly indignant emotional. That's something that my favorite little Canadian misogynist Dave Sim said once (albiet in cruder terms), and in this case I have to admit he's right.