Dr. Marcia Chatelain
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
and her influence in this way? I think she's a once-in-a-lifetime talent because she is good at using her instincts. She understands people. She knows what they want. She knows how to pivot. I think she's creative, and I think she has all of the elements of a true, true talent. I think what has happened is that – Everyone is doing a version of Oprah. Yes, they are. Yes. Everyone's a derivative.
It's Been a Minute
The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
And so it's like, sure, there are a lot of people who will be successful, who may make more money than her or have bigger platforms, but they're all doing Oprah.
It's Been a Minute
The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
Even in terms of the interview, like the queen of talk. She did not have Instagram to start. She did not have a brand deal, right? Like the ways that she was able to navigate the advent of new technologies, you know, really kind of go through the opening and closing of doors in media. I just, I don't see anyone having to run that kind of race in order to get those kinds of skills.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
We know him as Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil was her trial coach. So that introduction was really like, huh, what was he saying to Oprah to help this superwoman kind of get it together?
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
Oprah's show is all about you as an individual, what you need to do. She's also doing this during a period in the self-help movement and the new age spirituality movement where it's moving from fringe to center.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
brought him back time and time again he becomes this authority because he's so likable i think a lot of people lose sight of the fact that he was actually someone who actively was looking to be a media doctor as well i did not realize that he wasn't necessarily plucked by Oprah, but he had been working a lot of different ways to try to be the face of medicine on television.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
And so I think that that's an important thing to note. And just like Dr. Phil was her trial coach when she was being sued by the beef industry, it's her intimate contact with these people that, And I think that this is important because what then happens is that she's also a business person. So she starts producing shows for them or she starts getting them in contact to get a larger platform.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
And so I think that the problem with all of these people is that they were already primed. And I think they exhausted the capacities of the Oprah type audience. And then they took a right wing turn because obviously, Who knows what the real politics of any of these people are?
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
We want, we need to see. Okay. We need to see. So we had always seen Oprah as this person who was overcoming everything, overcoming very traumatic childhood, overcoming the luxism and the fat phobia of the media. Colorism of everything. Yeah. But Oprah's money was on the table with this lawsuit. I remember. And she, for the first time was like, y'all, I was scared, scared.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
And this man got me all the way together. So that, That introduction was really like, huh, what was he saying to Oprah to help this superwoman kind of get it together? And then on the show, he actually had some very good relationship advice. And then it started to do this thing that I think is also at the essence of self-help and capitalism.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
And it was an uplift philosophy that while it was a little tough, wasn't that different than the kind of things that Oprah was saying on her show? Yeah. Oprah's show is all about you as an individual, what you need to do.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
And I also think she set the scene for our expectation of what television does. I used to watch the old Phil Donahue shows, and a lot of those were very educational.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
Ralph Nader talking about consumer rights. Debates about, you know, gay marriage, like it was about exposing the world to these like critical questions. Right. And that evolved into like, here are things you can do to constantly be in a cycle of self-improvement. If you only have one hour of television a week because you're a working mom or you're a stressed out person.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
person working three jobs, then that hour is supposed to make you want to be or do or purchase something.
It's Been a Minute
The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
She's also doing this during a period in the self-help movement and the New Age spirituality movement where it's moving from fringe to center. So it's no longer weird for someone to talk about meditation or manifesting things or visioning, right? You're also in a period where there's less stigma around therapy. So why don't you get a workbook? Marianne Williamson is another one. Right. Yes.
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
Cause when I think about it, you're absolutely right, Kelly. When I think about Oprah's audience, I thought of it as definitely as middle-class white women, but I think that there was something for us who were actually probably a little too young to be watching the show. But here we are, like, because we were watching the show at like, eight, nine, 1011. Right.
It's Been a Minute
The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
But it was also a way I think for it, I felt like women and girls. I remember watching it with my mom. And we talked about what was on Oprah, or there was an understanding that this might have been a grown up show that I'm watching also, because I think it was also instructive about like, what do women talk about? What do they think about?
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The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
And apparently, according to Oprah, it was like your weight, and the possibility your husband's going to leave you with no money, like the Those are the two things that I learned.