Oprah's New Happiness

Oprah has announced on a few occasions that her talk show is lit for African-American skin, to make it look its cocoa-glowy best. She also says that this particular combination of lights makes everyone look incredible.

I love that about her lights. I love that everyone gets to be beautiful on her show. Even that dumb former child star from “Family Matters” who wound up in porn (“I thought it was just going to be a calendar! I had low self-esteem! I was intoxicated!”) looked attractive. Hell, even the good sense- (and perhaps GED-) impaired couple who rented a stripper to give their 16-year-old son a birthday lap dance got to be cute. Ish.

The only unbeautiful guest she’s had recently was James Frey. They lit him differently. I like to believe that on the day of his show trial, a special one-of-a-kind Truth Spot was installed and aimed solely at him. I like to think that the Truth Spot was a special extra-hot light that burned sweaty shame into his crack-and-booze-starved pores while simultaneously completely blanching his already pale face so that he appeared to be near death.

He deserved it, after all. Who did he think he was, anyway, toying with the woman who makes my afternoon ritual of bill paying, Swiffering and laundry folding more bearable? Why did he think he could get away with it? Why did he make her don what looked like a special Attack Weave on her head for one day only just to make him understand she was serious? Especially when everyone would rather see her with what looks to be a giant curly Wig of Joy?

Frey deserved every moment of heat-lamping he received. The only thing that could have made that a more entertaining hour of television would have been if they’d brought on that surly French Hermés employee — the one who dared not know who Oprah was — for his or her own personal spanking. Oprah could have killed two insolent birds with one righteous stone.

No frowns allowed
I dig Oprah. A lot. And after watching the Frey show three times — my favorite part was when he looked like he might cry, all stammery and “buh-buh-buh”-ing — I was spiritually cleansed, ready to move on and I hoped that she’d be ready too. And thank goodness, she was. She knew it was time to return to her Hair of Joy look (however she accomplishes it, with real hair, full wig, partial, weave, combo or whatever; it looks awesome and she should totally keep it). So she did.

In the weeks that have followed Black Frey-Day, Oprah seems like a woman with a mission, like in the movie “Heathers” when they have the pep rally to usher in “The New Happiness.” Save for the odd moment of heart-wrenching sadness with Susan St. James as she discussed her deceased teenage son, it’s been a nonstop hootenanny of home giveaways, fake celebrity friendship bonding and awkward dancing with Matthew McConaughey, free food and — my personal favorite thing — lots of O-singing. I don’t care whether it’s all phony. I need it.

Remember when Oprah sang her own theme song? Remember how cute and awful that was? She realized after the fact that it was a bad idea, yet she never lost her desire to belt it out. But now she’s found success even here: She simply sings the final words of sentences. Are you a Katrina victim getting a new home from the Angel Network and Habitat for Humanity? Well then welcome to your new home on Angel LAAAAYYYYNNNE!!!!! (It was just more musical-sounding than “Gayle Avenue.”)

Are you Eva Longoria, about to surprise your parents and freshly-pulled-from-the-shadows sister with Down’s Syndrome with a home newly decorated by the adorable Nate? Then you will be introduced as Eva LongGORIAHHHHHHH!!!! Are you the boss of Mattel about to give Oprah her own only-one-in-existence Oprah-Barbie doll? You will be serenaded with a grateful “AH-AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

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