Get Real, Oprah!

   Oprah Winfrey ... you know. She's the one who is currently ranked as one of the world's richest women, earning over $300 million U.S. a year. She has apparently decided to go slumming. Her plan is to spend a month in a run-down apartment in one of Chicago's poorest areas. The experience will be filmed to provide her with footage to air. While I am sure the woman has great intentions, she should realize it will be anything but "reality" TV. For one thing, little Miss $300 million isn't going to be out there facing it all on her own, like the others who dwell in those apartments do. You know that, for sure. There will be camera crews focusing on her face and security guards close by. A spokesperson for the media mogul says the guards will be there to ensure Winfrey's safety. "In every other respect she will have to fend for herself," continues the spokesperson, "just like the many people who have to live in these sub-standard conditions." That's a joke. Those guards are going to take every bit of reality out of this little exercise in playacting.
   We might as well get a makeup artist and a lighting crew in on it, too. Wait a minute ... there will be all of the above. Say, maybe those great intentions aren't quite so great after all. Maybe she is after ratings, above all. If she wants to help the people who live in such places, there are much better ways to do it. Oprah already gives to others less fortunate, so she knows how to pursue philanthropic ends without making the people who need help into rating grabs. She's really falling short of the mark, this time.