It is half an hour before showtime, and Oprah Winfrey is a lake of calm amid the gusts of activity around her. While a hairdresser and a makeup man are fussing over her, an Oprah Winfrey Show producer, Dianne Hudson, is giving her a ten-minute prep session for this morning’s show. The subject is B.S. — people who use it, people who hate it — and the topic is giving the host some trouble. “I’m trying to relate to it,” says Oprah, a lavender dressing smock draped over her shoulders and a stack of clippings and notes in her lap. “Do most people deal with this in their day-to-day lives?” “The phones rang off the hook when we promoted this show,” says Hudson, a bit defensively. “What did they say?” ” ‘I’m not getting ahead because that other guy is brownnosing the boss.’ ” “So brownnosing is B.S.?” An uncertain pause. “Yes.” “What I’m afraid,” says Oprah, “is that by 9:22 we’re gonna be running out of stuff. I don’t want it to be a B.S. session about B.S.” By 9:10 a.m. Oprah still has plenty of stuff, but she is already resorting to her favorite weapon. “Now’s the time!” she cries to the studio audience during the first commercial break. “It’s ten after nine, your VCRs are rollin’, you’re gonna get home later and say, ‘Why didn’t I say anything?’ If you’re thinking it and you’re feeling it, you should say it!” The crowd begins to chime in, and Oprah responds enthusiastically. To a woman whose example of B.S. is buttering up a college instructor by walking him to his car after class, Oprah asks cheekily, “How far did that walk go?” One guest, a rock-concert promoter, asserts that B.S. is a necessary part of his job. Victor Salupo, author of a book called The B.S. Syndrome, insists that it is the bane of society, damaging everything from personal relationships to politics. “Victor,” Oprah blurts out near the end of the hour, “I only want to say one thing to you. Lighten up!” The show is no disaster, but it is not one of Oprah’s classics — like the segment with women who have borne children by their own fathers, in which Oprah interviewed an abusing father from his prison cell and called him “slime.” Nor is it a newsmaking event, like Oprah’s trip to racially troubled Forsyth County, Ga., where a redneck in the audience calmly explained to the black talk-show host the difference between “blacks” and “niggers” . Nor is it even one of the titillating women’s-magazine subjects that constitute the show’s bread and butter: Casanovas and the women who love them; parents whose children have been hurt by baby-sitters; women who give up heterosexual relationships to become lesbians. Still, Oprah brought it off with her typical earthy ebullience.
