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A Million Worthless Issues |
The
Warren Adler E-Sheet 47
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A Million Worthless Issues
 If
you view the Frey/Oprah imbroglio with a cool
eye and a marketing sensibility, you come up
with an entirely different scenario than that
hawked by the mainstream media and the
marketing manipulators saturating the world of
modern consumerism.
James Frey
who wrote the book
A Million Little Pieces should be basking
in publishing nirvana. His book about
addiction and redemption, however contrived as
truth, fiction or somewhere in the middle, is
making money hand over fist. Oprah's pick
for her
book club is a coveted bonanza for any
writer, a marketing home run.
If all had
ended there, he would have been satisfied, a
rich and happy camper. But alas, he got a
second shot at the pot of gold, stimulated by
a
website that deals in "gotcha" exposures
which averred that Frey's book was a crock of
baloney. This gave the author yet another
anointment by Oprah to appear before millions
of her ardent fans and an opportunity to
self-contrive himself yet again. He presented
to Oprah's audience a resolute defense of his
tome while Oprah excoriated him, offering her
own mea culpa and her usual dollop of
self-righteous scorn for being "betrayed."
Forgive me father, for I have sinned. What
an opportunity to punch home her very salable
core idea of how to live by the golden rule
and illustrate to her flock how fragile and
vulnerable it is to be human.
 |
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Yet another media event of no importance
giving those who live their lives through
entertainment media outlets something to
chew on to chase the boredom and find an
alternative to the fear of facing the
horrendous facts of modern reality. |
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As for Frey,
all this folderol got him another bite of the
promotional apple for daring to bullshit his
readers and those eager fans of the ubiquitous
Oprah. As a bonus, he got yet another shot at
name and book identification in media all over
the world, a sales stimulator that any author
of whatever stripe would die for. In short, he
is now a worldwide celebrity, however
temporary, which is the only thing that counts
when you're out to sell any product that links
your name with the object of the sale,
especially in the so-called "arts."
Then there is
Oprah, dear Oprah, whose remarkable gift of
gab and do-good persona has made her one of
the most important, if not the most important
mouthpiece and inspiration for practicing
goodness on the planet. Oprah soothes,
lectures, and teaches her billions of avid,
mostly female, watchers how to hew to the
golden rule and circumvent the minefields of
all the horrors, terrors and temptations of
modern life. Think of all the desperate
housewives, who take time out of their busy
lives to worship at her shrine. Where do they
find the time?
She is
beloved, perhaps rightly so, for she has
elevated herself and her vast audience to step
up to the cultural plate and read certain
books of her choice, all exemplary books,
worthy to be read and, if actually read,
providing good nourishment for the mind and
heart. Of course, she has her own
marketing axe to grind. She sells, sells,
sells, her rich remarkable persona, her
products, her magazines, her ideas on
reinventing herself, improving one's looks,
and becoming a good person by doing good
works. The Frey episode has given her a
perfect chance to reiterate her core
philosophy of truth and goodness and offer a
sincere apology for having been "betrayed" by
Frey, his agents, his publisher, and her own
staff of sycophants and producers.
For those
that have nothing better to do, this is great
"theater of the trivia"—yet another media
event of no importance giving those who live
their lives through entertainment media
outlets something to chew on to chase the
boredom and find an alternative to the fear of
facing the horrendous facts of modern reality.
In that respect Oprah serves a real beneficent
purpose for which she is duly applauded,
revered, respected and enriched.
As for the
content of Frey's book, finding redemption
after living a life wrestling with addiction
and all it portends, one wonders if Frey's
path to finally kicking the habit and
re-merging into real life has any relevance to
the truth of the matter or the process. That
to me is the core of his non-fiction self-help
inspirational pose. Does the path he suggests
via his faux experience really work for
others? Did it, in fact, work for him? Was he
really addicted? And, if so, is he now "cured"
or in the parlance of the people who know, a
"recovering addict"?
Is this
content mere phony snake oil or is it hawking
an idea that has real salutary consequences
for addicts who want to get the monkey off
their back? That, it seems to me, is the real
issue of this tawdry self-serving episode. The
rest is media hogwash.
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