Have you or someone you love been confused by the push to 'Make America Healthy Again'? Then you, my friend, are in dire need of our series: The Road to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). For the next few weeks, we're delving into some of the origins, conspiracy theories, and power grabs that have led us to this moment, and what it could mean for our health.For the final episode in the series, Brittany puts the spotlight on the Queen of Talk: Oprah Winfrey. The Oprah Winfrey Show made Oprah one of the most influential voices in media. Her recommendations have become best sellers, sold out stores, and even launched the careers of two very well known Make America Healthy Again icons - Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.Historian and host of You Get a Podcast!, Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, and professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Marcia Chatelain, join the show to walk through how the Queen of Talk's influence took us from daytime television to the White House.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is Brittany Luce and what is the Road to Make America Healthy Again series about?
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. Have you or someone you love been confused by the push to make America healthy again? No. If that's the case, then you, my friend, are in dire need of our new series. The Road to Make America Healthy Again.
Don't you want a president that's going to make America healthy again?
For the next few weeks, we're delving into some of the origins, conspiracy theories, and power grabs that have led us to this moment and what that could mean for our health. For the final episode in our Road to Maha series, we are talking about the one, the only Oprah Winfrey. She is the ultimate self-made woman story.
Chapter 2: Why is Oprah Winfrey considered the Queen of Talk and what is her influence on American culture?
That is Dr. Kelly Carter-Jackson, historian and co-host of You Get a Podcast, a show about the queen of talk.
And I think people look to her as someone who was highly relatable, as someone also saw as highly aspirational as well.
The impact of The Oprah Winfrey Show cannot be overstated. It was the place to go to talk about any and every hot topic. Celebrity interviews, relationship woes, family trauma. She had it all. Starting from its debut in 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show was the number one talk show in the country for 24 consecutive seasons.
By the time you get to the late 90s, and certainly the 2000s. I mean, Oprah is a kingmaker. Oprah is the person that you want interviewing you. She is a tastemaker. If she says she likes Ugg boots, that's the new latest greatest thing.
That influence, also called the Oprah effect, made her no stranger to controversy. In fact, in the 90s, she had an episode about mad cow disease. And after learning about the dangers of infected beef, she declared that she was done eating burgers. After that episode aired, Oprah was sued by the cattle industry, who claimed that her program led to an $11 million loss.
This is also when Oprah would meet a psychologist by the name of Phil McGraw.
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?
That is Dr. Marsha Chatelain, professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. After Dr. Phil helped Oprah through her trial, he eventually joined her show as a sort of no-nonsense self-help expert. And that led to his own Oprah-produced show called Dr. Phil. Heard of it? But that's not the only doctor that was put on by Oprah. Welcome back, Dr. O!
Dr. Mehmet Oz, former heart surgeon and newly confirmed head of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also made his claim to fame on her show.
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Chapter 3: How did Oprah Winfrey contribute to launching the careers of Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz?
Chapter 4: What is the 'Oprah effect' and how did it impact public health discussions?
That influence, also called the Oprah effect, made her no stranger to controversy. In fact, in the 90s, she had an episode about mad cow disease. And after learning about the dangers of infected beef, she declared that she was done eating burgers. After that episode aired, Oprah was sued by the cattle industry, who claimed that her program led to an $11 million loss.
This is also when Oprah would meet a psychologist by the name of Phil McGraw.
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?
That is Dr. Marsha Chatelain, professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. After Dr. Phil helped Oprah through her trial, he eventually joined her show as a sort of no-nonsense self-help expert. And that led to his own Oprah-produced show called Dr. Phil. Heard of it? But that's not the only doctor that was put on by Oprah. Welcome back, Dr. O!
Dr. Mehmet Oz, former heart surgeon and newly confirmed head of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also made his claim to fame on her show.
He's on her show for 62 times, to be exact. And it catapults him, really, into creating his own show. That's on for over a dozen years.
And while both of these men started out as highly respected in their fields, over time they have left behind their traditional careers for the limelight. And that has come with some pretty bewildering political evolutions. Dr. Phil went from psychologist to talk show host to now joining the Trump administration's ICE raids in Chicago.
But you've never been deported before? No.
Yeah? How do you know me? And while Dr. Oz started out as a well-regarded heart surgeon, about half of the recommendations made on his show were found to be unsupported by scientific evidence.
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Chapter 5: How have Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz's careers evolved beyond their original professions?
This is the thing about Dr. Oz. He has charisma. He is personal. He knows how to take something that seems very complicated and make it sound simple for your everyday audience. He knows what he's doing when he's in that room and he's sort of shaking hands and kissing babies and making things make sense for people who are struggling with some really intimate, personal, bodily issues.
And I think that kind of charisma and endearment is what...
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.
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.
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?
Okay, so I have a good idea of why, like, Oprah was probably drawn to Dr. Oz. But how do you explain Dr. Phil? Like, you mentioned that he was Oprah's trial coach, to which I say... leak the practice tapes. Okay. Stop being shy. Leak the practice tapes.
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.
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.
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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Chapter 6: What role did Oprah's personal and political beliefs play in her show's content and influence?
Chapter 7: How do Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson and Dr. Marcia Chatelain analyze Oprah's influence on health and politics?
Chapter 8: What is the connection between entertainment, health, and politics in Oprah's legacy?
Okay, so I have a good idea of why, like, Oprah was probably drawn to Dr. Oz. But how do you explain Dr. Phil? Like, you mentioned that he was Oprah's trial coach, to which I say... leak the practice tapes. Okay. Stop being shy. Leak the practice tapes.
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.
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.
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.
This makes so much sense because I don't think people also realize that she voted Republican.
hold on. Now you're right.
People didn't realize I'm people. I didn't realize that. She talks about this. She talks about this on her show. She talks about the idea that she sort of voted both ways, but it's really not till Obama comes on the scene that she's like- She's actively involving herself in politics. Yes. Right. In an explicit way. Yes. But she was very much, I would say, of a bootstrapper kind of ideology. So
She comes from Mississippi. She hails from poverty. She is the ultimate self-made woman story. That's a very Americana kind of story. Started from the bottom, now we're here. And so it makes a lot of sense to me that she would gravitate toward people who would push those same sort of ethics. I mean, listen, Donald Trump does the same kind of thing.
It shouldn't surprise any of us that he's on her show. You could say she gave him a platform as well. It's so interesting. I mean, no, this is a lot to take in. This is a lot to take in. This is interesting. This is interesting. Coming up.
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