Oprah Watch: Superhumans, Questioning Brad Pitt’s Integrity, and Beauty Around the World
By Ali Trachta in Miscellaneous on Nov 21, 2008 7:00PM
This Monday, Oprah opened the floodgates for pushy stage moms everywhere with the “World’s Smartest and Most Talented Kids” show, featuring freakishly amazing children hand-selected from thousands of video submissions. The cute-but-tame, pint-sized b-boy and tap dancer along with the demon child hula hooper kept us entertained in the beginning, but the talent show took an awkward turn when the 11-year-old yodeling sensations took the stage. Instead of letting Taylor Ware and her Pippy Longstocking pigtails have their moment, Oprah had the yodelette give the entire audience a lesson, making the whole room “littleoldladyheewhooo” about 16 times before she cut to commercial. Oy. The absolute stunner of the show was little Connie Talbot, the seven-year-old British singing sensation, whose head shaking-induced vibrato in her rendition of “Ben” wiggled its way into our hearts.
Tuesday’s show was almost as jaw-dropping, but in a more cerebral, scientific kind of way. Oprah and Dr. Oz welcomed guests whose medical issues defied the limits of science and baffled doctors around the world. First up was Brenden Adams, the 12-year-old boy who towers over his classmates at 7 foot 3 inches tall. Due to a chromosome switch in utero, Brenden literally cannot stop growing, creating a one-of-a-kind medical mystery that no one else on the planet shares. Though his conspicuous condition would make most people wallow in self pity and shame, Brenden, with incredible courage and brightness, delivered the inspirational moment of Oprahfication we craved when he said “I accept my life just fine. I love the way I am. I couldn’t see myself any different.” Up next came Kristin Riley, one of only 100 people on Earth with Primordial Dwarfism: a condition similar to that which affects little people but with proportional body parts. But once again, victim who? Kristin exhibited incredible humor, and wanted the simple things in life just like everyone else. The most fascinating guest was Jill Price: the woman who remembers every itsy-bitsy part of every single day for the last 30 years, and can recall the details of any particular date on command. Not only that, with each memory comes all the emotional baggage. Nice when reminiscing about vacations, destructive when recalling tragic moments. We suddenly became grateful for our ability to compartmentalize and repress when necessary.
Oooo more ex anxiety! On Thursday, after four long years (and one big divorce from a close celebrity friend and recent guest) Oprah invited Brad Pitt back to the hot seat. The show was filmed the day after election day, and who knew Brad Pitt had been at the Grant Park rally? He says he road the “tram” shoulder to shoulder with everyone else. Any witnesses among us? Why do we not buy this story? Maybe it’s because we haven’t really been able to trust Brad Pitt since he left his wife and impregnated his mistress. Alright alright, the Jolie-Pitts do a lot of good for the world, and apparently their love is pretty solid because Brad couldn’t stop gushing about Angelina. When asked if he and his lady love would have more children, he replied, “why would I stop?” (You have an addiction, Brad!) Cate Blanchett joined up about halfway through so the pair could promote The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but elegant and graceful as she may be, she could not steal our attention away from solving the mystery of Brad Pitt’s tattoos.
Oprah partners with Dove and their game-changing “Campaign for Real Beauty,” so we were psyched about her Thursday show that explored beauty standards and practices around the globe. While we Americans cultivate our comeliness through diet pills and Botox, women on other continents have much different and sometimes even more bizarre beautification methods. We learned that in Japan, instead of injecting their faces with collagen to look younger like many do here, they simply drink it with tea in the morning, and their skin glows. In parts of India, women sacrifice their hair to the gods in order to beautify their bodies and souls...and much of that hair is imported to the United States to be sold for thousands as hair extensions. In Brazil, women are putting breast implants on lay-a-way, and in Iran, bandages from nose jobs are status symbols. Most fascinating was the culture in Mauritania, a country in western Africa, where the standards seem to be the exact opposite of ours. There, plump women are considered desirable, and while we starve ourselves here, women there go to the extreme of force-feedding skinny young girls and buying black market drugs to fatten up. Apparently Mauritanian men also love stretch marks and divorced women. For rills? While some of their practices are certainly unfortunate, Oprah was all about a place where they love big butts and cannot lie, singing a resounding chorus of “Somewhere” from West Side Story. We won’t be surprised if her next school for girls pops up there.
Friday’s show takes it all back to the bedroom with a follow-up to the hot sex show from a few weeks ago. We imagine Chicago-based Dr. Laura Berman has a line out the door at this point.