I know I shouldn't expend valuable give-a-shit energy on this kind of thing, but it's been bothering me all day so I've just got to acknowledge it.

While fiddling with the digital TV equipment at home yesterday, I chanced upon an episode of Oprah. Except, like most of these episodes it was a clips show where the lady herself sits on a couch and reads orchestrated responses to the clips just shown on the big screen behind her. And then of course she pulls that strange pinched face and shifts her head like she's walkin' the egyptian or something and the crowd of sad, sorry Middle America Moms go apeshit and fall all over themselves, seemingly disbelieving of the sheer genius of this woman. Or something.

But anyway, I flicked over to the show while a clip of an interview with Madonna was screening. It must have been from some promotional gig for that kid's book she wrote a while ago, because she was getting all warm and fuzzy about 'giving' or something. Madge spoke of her 'old self' which consisted of acknowledging that whenever she was approached to do some work (like wiggling her arse, or acting wooden or something) she would inevitably make the decision based on how it would benefit her in some way - "Only fools or liars would say otherwise".

Cut to Oprah and her little friend who seems to get pulled in to up to feelgood, sisterhood factor to the show. They start getting all gossipy about this above statement (or something that resembled it very closely) and Bestest Friend comments that this is such an alien concept to Her Most O'ness but she just had to sit there and let Madge go on her little way. That Oprah is just such a giving, altruistic soul that she always does things just out of the kindness of her heart, and never once stops to think about how these actions could benefit her.

Is she really that clueless that she believes this shit about herself? That she's a fucking saint or something who just gives, gives, gives and is surrounded by these selfish beings like Madonna who only do something if it works for them? For a woman whose celebrity is so clearly rooted in this kind of fiction of altruism, and happily exploits that fiction for her own gains (the show, the magazine, the book club et al) she seems blissfully unaware of her situation, or else she's happy to deceive the millions(?) of (mostly) women into believing it. That she can only do 'good things' because she's a millionare dozens of times over seems to not register in her view of herself and her role. That she happily accepts a portrait of herself as a goddess showering poor South African children with Nike shoes and backpacks is evidence of her vanity in this project. By feeding her celebrity, and her opinion of herself, through these 'acts of kindness' or generosity she is benifiting from them, while also carrying on the charade that she does this without any reward.

It's not often that I'd defend her, but at least Madonna has some degree of self-awareness.

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