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　　美國脫口秀女王Oprah Winfrey

　　Oprah Winfrey

　　She didnt create the talk-show format. But the compassion and intimacy she put into it have created a new way for us to talk to one another

　　By DEBORAH TANNEN

　　The Sudanese-born supermodel Alek Wek stands poised and insouciant as the talk-show host, admiring her classic African features, cradles Weks cheek and says, What a difference it would have made to my childhood if I had seen someone who looks like you on television. The host is Oprah Winfrey, and she has been making that difference for millions of viewers, young and old, black and white, for nearly a dozen rs.

　　Winfrey stands as a beacon, not only in the worlds of media and entertainment but also in the larger realm of public discourse. At 44, she has a personal fortune estimated at more than half a billion dollars. She owns her own production company, which creates feature films, prime-time TV specials and home videos. An accomplished actress, she won an Academy Award nomination for her role in The Color Purple, and this fall will star in her own film production of Toni Morrisons Beloved.

　　But it is through her talk show that her influence has been greatest. When Winfrey talks, her viewers an estimated 14 million daily in the U.S. and millions more in 132 other countries listen. Any book she chooses for her on-air book club becomes an instant best seller. When she established the worlds largest piggy bank, people all over the country contributed spare change to raise more than $1 million to send disadvantaged kids to college. When she blurted that hearing about the threat of mad-cow disease just stopped me cold from eating another burger!, the perceived threat to the beef industry was enough to trigger a multimillion-dollar lawsuit .

　　Born in 1954 to unmarried parents, Winfrey was raised by her grandmother on a farm with no indoor plumbing in Kosciusko, Miss. By age 3 she was reading the Bible and reciting in church. At 6 she moved to her mothers home in Milwaukee, Wis.; later, to her fathers in Nashville, Tenn. A lonely child, she found solace in books. When a seventh-grade teacher noticed the young girl reading during lunch, he got her a scholarship to a better school. Winfreys talent for public performance and spontaneity in answering questions helped her win beauty contests and get her first taste of public attention.

　　Crowned Miss Fire Prevention in Nashville at 17, Winfrey visited a local radio station, where she was invited to read copy for a lark and was hired to read news on the air. Two rs later, while a sophomore at Tennessee State University, she was hired as Nashvilles first female and first black TV-news anchor. After graduation, she took an anchor position in Baltimore, Md., but lacked the detachment to be a reporter. She cried when a story was sad, laughed when she misread a word. Instead, she was given an early-morning talk show. She had found her medium.

　　In 1984 she moved on to be the host of A.M. Chicago, which became The Oprah Winfrey Show. It was syndicated in 1986 when Winfrey was 32 and soon overtook Donahue as the nations top-rated talk show.

　　Women, especially, listen to Winfrey because they feel as if shes a friend. Although Phil Donahue pioneered the format she uses , his show was mostly what I call report-talk, which often typifies mens conversation. The overt focus is on information. Winfrey transformed the format into what I call rapport-talk, the back-and-forth conversation that is the basis of female friendship, with its emphasis on self-revealing intimacies. She turned the focus from experts to ordinary people talking about personal issues. Girls and womens friendships are often built on trading secrets. Winfreys power is that she tells her own, divulging that she once ate a package of hot-dog buns drenched in maple syrup, that she had smoked cocaine, even that she had been raped as a child. With Winfrey, the talk show became more immediate, more confessional, more personal. When a guests story moves her, she cries and spreads her arms for a hug.

　　When my book You Just Dont Understand: Women and Men in Conversation was published, I was lucky enough to appear on both Donahue and Oprah and to glimpse the difference between them. Winfrey related my book to her own life: she began by saying she had read the book and saw myself over and over in it. She then told one of my examples, adding, Ive done that a thousand times and illustrated it by describing herself and Stedman.

　　Winfrey saw televisions power to blend public and private; while it links strangers and conveys information over public airwaves, TV is most often viewed in the privacy of our homes. Like a family member, it sits down to meals with us and talks to us in the lonely afternoons. Grasping this paradox, Oprah exhorts viewers to improve their lives and the world. She makes people care because she cares. That is Winfreys genius, and will be her legacy, as the changes she has wrought in the talk show continue to permeate our culture and shape our lives.

　　美國脫口秀女王Oprah Winfrey

　　Oprah Winfrey

　　She didnt create the talk-show format. But the compassion and intimacy she put into it have created a new way for us to talk to one another

　　By DEBORAH TANNEN

　　The Sudanese-born supermodel Alek Wek stands poised and insouciant as the talk-show host, admiring her classic African features, cradles Weks cheek and says, What a difference it would have made to my childhood if I had seen someone who looks like you on television. The host is Oprah Winfrey, and she has been making that difference for millions of viewers, young and old, black and white, for nearly a dozen rs.

　　Winfrey stands as a beacon, not only in the worlds of media and entertainment but also in the larger realm of public discourse. At 44, she has a personal fortune estimated at more than half a billion dollars. She owns her own production company, which creates feature films, prime-time TV specials and home videos. An accomplished actress, she won an Academy Award nomination for her role in The Color Purple, and this fall will star in her own film production of Toni Morrisons Beloved.

　　But it is through her talk show that her influence has been greatest. When Winfrey talks, her viewers an estimated 14 million daily in the U.S. and millions more in 132 other countries listen. Any book she chooses for her on-air book club becomes an instant best seller. When she established the worlds largest piggy bank, people all over the country contributed spare change to raise more than $1 million to send disadvantaged kids to college. When she blurted that hearing about the threat of mad-cow disease just stopped me cold from eating another burger!, the perceived threat to the beef industry was enough to trigger a multimillion-dollar lawsuit .

　　Born in 1954 to unmarried parents, Winfrey was raised by her grandmother on a farm with no indoor plumbing in Kosciusko, Miss. By age 3 she was reading the Bible and reciting in church. At 6 she moved to her mothers home in Milwaukee, Wis.; later, to her fathers in Nashville, Tenn. A lonely child, she found solace in books. When a seventh-grade teacher noticed the young girl reading during lunch, he got her a scholarship to a better school. Winfreys talent for public performance and spontaneity in answering questions helped her win beauty contests and get her first taste of public attention.

　　Crowned Miss Fire Prevention in Nashville at 17, Winfrey visited a local radio station, where she was invited to read copy for a lark and was hired to read news on the air. Two rs later, while a sophomore at Tennessee State University, she was hired as Nashvilles first female and first black TV-news anchor. After graduation, she took an anchor position in Baltimore, Md., but lacked the detachment to be a reporter. She cried when a story was sad, laughed when she misread a word. Instead, she was given an early-morning talk show. She had found her medium.

　　In 1984 she moved on to be the host of A.M. Chicago, which became The Oprah Winfrey Show. It was syndicated in 1986 when Winfrey was 32 and soon overtook Donahue as the nations top-rated talk show.

　　Women, especially, listen to Winfrey because they feel as if shes a friend. Although Phil Donahue pioneered the format she uses , his show was mostly what I call report-talk, which often typifies mens conversation. The overt focus is on information. Winfrey transformed the format into what I call rapport-talk, the back-and-forth conversation that is the basis of female friendship, with its emphasis on self-revealing intimacies. She turned the focus from experts to ordinary people talking about personal issues. Girls and womens friendships are often built on trading secrets. Winfreys power is that she tells her own, divulging that she once ate a package of hot-dog buns drenched in maple syrup, that she had smoked cocaine, even that she had been raped as a child. With Winfrey, the talk show became more immediate, more confessional, more personal. When a guests story moves her, she cries and spreads her arms for a hug.

　　When my book You Just Dont Understand: Women and Men in Conversation was published, I was lucky enough to appear on both Donahue and Oprah and to glimpse the difference between them. Winfrey related my book to her own life: she began by saying she had read the book and saw myself over and over in it. She then told one of my examples, adding, Ive done that a thousand times and illustrated it by describing herself and Stedman.

　　Winfrey saw televisions power to blend public and private; while it links strangers and conveys information over public airwaves, TV is most often viewed in the privacy of our homes. Like a family member, it sits down to meals with us and talks to us in the lonely afternoons. Grasping this paradox, Oprah exhorts viewers to improve their lives and the world. She makes people care because she cares. That is Winfreys genius, and will be her legacy, as the changes she has wrought in the talk show continue to permeate our culture and shape our lives.