Speaker 1: There's an episode of Oprah Winfrey's talk show from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight that I always think about because it touches
Speaker 1: on so many things I've also struggled with. It's her
Speaker 1: highest rated episode of all time, and in it, a
Speaker 1: svelt Oprah in tight Calvin Klein Genes dramatically reveals to
Speaker 1: her audience that she has just lost sixty seven pounds
Speaker 1: and tells them how she did it.
Speaker 2: What I did was I fasted without cheating for solid
Speaker 2: six weeks.
Speaker 1: And to demonstrate how much weight that is, Oprah will
Speaker 1: wheel out a visual eight, a classic child's red wagon
Speaker 1: that holds a giant, clear plastic bag filled with fat
Speaker 1: sixty seven pounds of animal fat. To be precise, I'm
Speaker 1: Susie Bannacharam.
Speaker 3: And I'm Jessica Bennett.
Speaker 1: This is in Retrospect, where each week we revisit a
Speaker 1: cultural moment from the past that shaped.
Speaker 3: Us we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about Oprah's little red wagon of fat,
Speaker 1: but we're also talking about the literal weight we all
Speaker 1: carry and the pressure women feel to be perfect.
Speaker 4: So, okay, Susie, there must be you know, thousands of
Speaker 4: potential Oprah moments we could unpack here Why the little
Speaker 4: red wagon of fat.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this about me, but
Speaker 1: I've always been a huge Oprah fan. I loved her
Speaker 1: show and I watched it whenever I could growing up.
Speaker 1: And while I didn't watch this particular moment because it
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen eighty eight and I would have been
Speaker 1: pretty young, I've seen it so many times because it
Speaker 1: was just this like, very famous episode and it's shown
Speaker 1: in all of her retrospectives. And I think the reason
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about it is there something she
Speaker 1: said at the time when she revealed that she'd lost
Speaker 1: this weight. And what she said was, this is the
Speaker 1: most difficult thing I've done in my life. It is
Speaker 1: my greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 3: Wow, her greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's obviously not the case, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: she's accomplished so much since, and she had accomplished so
Speaker 1: much even at that point. So it's a complicated statement
Speaker 1: and definitely one she's walked back since. But it resonates
Speaker 1: for me because I think for a lot of women,
Speaker 1: myself included, this sense that you're measured by your physical
Speaker 1: weight is really pervasive, like something you kind of struggle
Speaker 1: with your whole life. And we'll get into that, but
Speaker 1: I'm curious just before we start, like, were you an
Speaker 1: Oprah fan?
Speaker 4: Well, honestly, I think I'm more familiar with today's Oprah,
Speaker 4: like media mogul, first black woman, billionaire, trailblazer in so
Speaker 4: many ways, and of course someone who can always score
Speaker 4: the first sit down. But you know, I wasn't an accolte.
Speaker 4: I didn't grow up watching her. I wasn't the type
Speaker 4: of person that would, you know, rush home every day
Speaker 4: after school and turn on Oprah.
Speaker 3: But Susie, were you that kind of Oprah fan?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean I think it was just like a
Speaker 1: sort of an appointment. Oprah was on at four pm
Speaker 1: every day, and especially when I was in school, Like
Speaker 1: you know, you come home, you turn on the TV,
Speaker 1: you do your homework, whatever. But that's something that feels
Speaker 1: kind of ever aprisive. When I eventually would have a DVR,
Speaker 1: I would DVR the show. And I remember once having
Speaker 1: like a guy friend over and being like, do you
Speaker 1: dvr Oprah? And like being really embarrassed really about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, because you know, it's like this in
Speaker 4: high school, No, this was like in my twenty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, and I was like really defensive. I
Speaker 1: was like, I have to watch it for work, and
Speaker 1: he was like, what do you mean, Like you're a
Speaker 1: news journalist, and I was like, yeah, I mean but
Speaker 1: I work at ABC, and like it has to I
Speaker 1: have to know what's happening on Oprah. And by the way,
Speaker 1: we did cover Oprah a lot on World News Tonight,
Speaker 1: where I worked at that time, Like, okay, it was
Speaker 1: in fact true that it was useful for me to
Speaker 1: watch Oprah because things would happen on Oprah and we
Speaker 1: would cover them. Right, she covered serious topics and sometimes
Speaker 1: she would have guests that knew that Lelland can get gotten.
Speaker 4: Yes, and I think worth mentioning. Celebrities didn't have a
Speaker 4: direct line to their fans back then. Like if you
Speaker 4: wanted to do an interview or code a thing, or
Speaker 4: get something out or try to recover from whatever shitty
Speaker 4: thing you'd done that you were groveling over, yeah, you
Speaker 4: would have to go sit on Oprah's couch.
Speaker 1: And that was considered like a great booking, right if
Speaker 1: you were a celebrity, you wanted to be able to
Speaker 1: go to Oprah. That was as much a boon to
Speaker 1: you as it was to her, which I don't think
Speaker 1: there's really a comparison to.
Speaker 3: That now, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 4: I mean I still always think about the Tom Cruise
Speaker 4: jumping on her couch moment, even though that was much later.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's such an infamous moment.
Speaker 4: Right, So all these celebrities would go sit on her
Speaker 4: couch and that was a big component of this. But
Speaker 4: there was also something for the audience about community in
Speaker 4: watching that show, isn't that right? Like people would gather
Speaker 4: you were part of a I don't know, would you
Speaker 4: call it a family?
Speaker 1: Yes, you were like part of this Oprah family. She
Speaker 1: really like drew you in. Eventually there was like the
Speaker 1: famous book club. The idea was you were like reading
Speaker 1: a book with her. You were experiencing bra shopping with her,
Speaker 1: like her episode about being properly fitted for bras was
Speaker 1: a really big success for her. Right. She was basically
Speaker 1: just telling you how to live, as she would put it,
Speaker 1: your best life. And there were lots of different ways
Speaker 1: she was teaching you to do that, Like you could
Speaker 1: read this book The Secret that was really popular at
Speaker 1: the time, or the Law of Attraction, and you could
Speaker 1: manifest things in your life, and you know, specifically, you
Speaker 1: can manifest money, which I think was very appealing to people.
Speaker 3: Still pretty appealing, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: I think it's like something you see a lot on TikTok.
Speaker 1: Now it's part of the vernacular.
Speaker 4: But you know, we should also state the obvious, which
Speaker 4: is that it wasn't just manifesting not her to wear.
Speaker 1: She was.
Speaker 4: She was a trailblazer in so many ways. You know,
Speaker 4: Obra was the first black female host of a national
Speaker 4: talk show, and when she became that, she completely wrote
Speaker 4: the mold for what a quote unquote traditional TV host
Speaker 4: looked like, which was still usually white and mostly male.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean. Oprah tells this story and interviews about
Speaker 1: how when she was first offered this talk show, she
Speaker 1: reportedly said to the man who was offering her the job,
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm black and I'm fat. And so
Speaker 1: she's so aware not just of the racism, which let's
Speaker 1: be honest, that could be a whole other show, but
Speaker 1: she's also aware that thinness is a really essential part
Speaker 1: of being seen as a public figure at this time,
Speaker 1: and so she feels the need to say that even
Speaker 1: as she being offered this huge opportunity.
Speaker 5: Okay, but she takes the job obviously. Yeah, she takes
Speaker 5: the job and it's a huge success. Right, Her local
Speaker 5: talk show gets national syndication and she becomes a household name.
Speaker 5: But really, from the moment she starts to get this
Speaker 5: national coverage, she gets so much attention around her weight.
Speaker 3: So her weight essentially becomes part of this story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always part of her story. And there's a
Speaker 1: great example of this in nineteen eighty six she does
Speaker 1: an interview with Mike Wallace. So it's right after she's
Speaker 1: gone national and Mike Wallace is on Sixty Minutes, which
Speaker 1: at the time is just this huge show. Twenty three
Speaker 1: million people tune in every Sunday night to watch it.
Speaker 1: I remember we would get together as a family and
Speaker 1: watch it on and this is how that interview unfolded.
Speaker 2: When she was twenty two, she moved to Baltimore and
Speaker 2: became an anchor woman on a local TV news show.
Speaker 2: This was sixty pounds ago. She were sixty pounds lighted
Speaker 2: sixty pounds ago.
Speaker 1: I think of my life in terms of my thighs. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is just one example of how Oprah's always sort
Speaker 1: of had to be very public about her weight. It's
Speaker 1: almost impossible to tell how much the conversation was driven
Speaker 1: by media coverage and how much she just decided to
Speaker 1: share it to preempt kind of all this criticism she
Speaker 1: knew was coming. And I think it's also partially why
Speaker 1: she's so successful. She's really vulnerable and relatable, but that
Speaker 1: comes with a cost.
Speaker 4: So I want to get back into the moment itself,
Speaker 4: the little wagon a feat moment.
Speaker 1: Do you have any memory of it? Like, is this
Speaker 1: something that jogs a memory for you?
Speaker 4: It's funny because I don't know this exact moment, but
Speaker 4: I do have this very like eighties image in my
Speaker 4: mind of Oprah standing looking very svelt in like a
Speaker 4: black turtleneck and these kind of like chic mom jeans,
Speaker 4: like high waisted kind of mom jeans. So I must
Speaker 4: have seen that image in magazines or in retrospective Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's just one of those images
Speaker 1: that really follows her around for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: And this episode is still to this day the highest
Speaker 1: rated one, and I'm going to walk you through it
Speaker 1: just because it's fascinating on so many levels.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: So this episode airs in November, and there's already been
Speaker 1: a lot of build up because when she returned for
Speaker 1: her show that season in September, she is noticeably thinner.
Speaker 1: She has already lost like thirty or forty pounds, so
Speaker 1: everyone kind of been asking how did she lose the weight?
Speaker 1: How did she lose a weight? And so she keeps
Speaker 1: sort of assuring the audience that she's going to tell
Speaker 1: them how she does it. And so like the AP
Speaker 1: sends a reporter then like to the show, to the show,
Speaker 1: like it's become a national story, and because it's already
Speaker 1: a national story, and Oprah, because she's a genius, is like,
Speaker 1: I will not tell you until sweeps, which is when
Speaker 1: what sweeps sweeps is when Nielsen does its annual kind
Speaker 1: of assessment of ratings. So you're advertising dollars are connected
Speaker 1: watches the show and sweeps, and she is a smart woman,
Speaker 1: so she's like, I will tell you when it is
Speaker 1: most cost effective for me. So the show starts and
Speaker 1: Oprah is wearing like a red coat that is the
Speaker 1: last time I was in the Calvin Klein size tingeens
Speaker 1: until too Yeah, and she's like to da, and she
Speaker 1: dramatically like flings off this coat, reveal her like new
Speaker 1: spelt wait felt, Look this black turtleneck and she's wearing
Speaker 1: these Calvin Klein beans that she hasn't been able to
Speaker 1: fit into for years. She's saved.
Speaker 3: They're her jeans. They're herjeanes that she's like saved.
Speaker 1: They're her like thinging okay, and she was like I
Speaker 1: will fit into these again, and now she can fit
Speaker 1: into them. And she's tucked her jeans into these like
Speaker 1: kind of like cool high field. Yes, yes, yes, So
Speaker 1: it becomes this very iconic image of her. Okay. So
Speaker 1: this is kind of this wild moment in the study.
Speaker 1: The audience goes wild. They've been given pom poms. They're
Speaker 1: like shaking pom poms like they're like yay, like it's
Speaker 1: so exciting, and they've given they've given pom poms.
Speaker 3: And then the wagon is behind her.
Speaker 1: So that's the This is the first segment of the show.
Speaker 1: She comes out, she reveals, and then she's like commercial again, okay,
Speaker 1: and she's not gonna like give you everything up front.
Speaker 4: And so it's great to have your TV knowledge in
Speaker 4: the background of this, because like, I don't think about this,
Speaker 4: you wait till after the commercial.
Speaker 1: Right, like you're just constantly trying to keep people reasons
Speaker 1: to continue to tune in or stay tuned in. Yep,
Speaker 1: she gives you the reveal at the top, which becomes
Speaker 1: a very common talk show trope, right this like body reveal,
Speaker 1: Judy has lost a total of twelve pounds. Judy, let's
Speaker 1: see the new you today. Junior can probably say he
Speaker 1: lost the most weight of anyone on today's show. Let's
Speaker 1: bring out the new Junior. Eventually, it actually becomes pretty
Speaker 1: common to do these kinds of reveals in a bathing suit.
Speaker 1: And there's actually another really famous episode of Oprah with
Speaker 1: Christy Alli where she also does this big reveal.
Speaker 2: Exactly one year ago, Kersy bowed to walk on our
Speaker 2: stage in a bikini once she reached her goal weight,
Speaker 2: and she did.
Speaker 1: That was a very famous one, but there was a
Speaker 1: lot of very famous kind of examples of this. And
Speaker 1: so here she is, she's lost all this weight. There's
Speaker 1: a cut to a commercial break, and she knows that
Speaker 1: she's got to keep you entertained. So what is the
Speaker 1: idea she has had for the second segment of the show.
Speaker 1: It is that she comes out and she's wheeling this
Speaker 1: little red wagon full of fat.
Speaker 3: Now, they didn't think it was a literal wagon.
Speaker 1: No, it's like a literal red wagon, like a child's wagon.
Speaker 1: Her staff has gone to a local barbecue joint, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you the name of the joint
Speaker 1: because I discovered it in my research. I had never
Speaker 1: Chicago before. In Chicago, it is called Moo and Oin.
Speaker 1: That's the name of the place where they get the fat.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's fine for the name of a barbecue joint.
Speaker 1: It is in the context of it being like the
Speaker 1: weight I've lost. It's like literally, like in some weird way,
Speaker 1: referring to yourself as like a cow or a pig.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. It just really struck me as unfortunate.
Speaker 1: That's the name MoU and oink. So she wheels out
Speaker 1: this wagon with this clear plastic garbage bag filled with
Speaker 1: animal fat, and she's standing next to it addressing the audience.
Speaker 2: I have lost as of this morning, sixty seven pounds
Speaker 2: since July seventh, sixty seven pounds.
Speaker 1: I think this is the first time she gives you
Speaker 1: the actual number. Okay, you know, because she's again and
Speaker 1: she's try trying to keep you engaged, and she also
Speaker 1: ticks through her measurements and says, wow, you know, I've
Speaker 1: lost thirty inches from my bust, my waist, Emma hoops.
Speaker 1: And then she gives you the specific six seven on
Speaker 1: my bust, twelve on my waist, eleven on my head.
Speaker 1: She's like pointing and.
Speaker 2: This, this is what's sixty seven pounds.
Speaker 1: She's literally like, look at this. I used to carry
Speaker 1: this around and I can't even lift it up down
Speaker 1: because she lift it up and it's so disgusting. Is
Speaker 1: this growth or what I mean? She's really inviting the
Speaker 1: audience to examine and stare at her body in a
Speaker 1: way that I personally would never choose. And I think
Speaker 1: is just a super interesting fact about this. Right, Celebrities
Speaker 1: in general, female celebrities, especially their bodies are under such
Speaker 1: a microscope, and in this case, she has kind of
Speaker 1: embraced that and is putting her own body under this
Speaker 1: microscope for the audience.
Speaker 3: Okay, so what comes next?
Speaker 1: So what comes next is a segment where Steadman, her
Speaker 1: boyfriend at the time, calls in to congratulate her. But
Speaker 1: Steedman himself is kind of an interesting character in this
Speaker 1: because he's her longtime partner. They are still together. They
Speaker 1: never got married, but later on she will say he
Speaker 1: is the reason she embarked on this particular weight loss journey. Okay,
Speaker 1: it will be reported at some point that over dinner
Speaker 1: one night, she asked him, you know, if it ever
Speaker 1: bothered him that she was overweight, and that there's this
Speaker 1: long pause, and he says something along the lines of, well,
Speaker 1: it's an adjustment.
Speaker 3: Oh god, this makes me so sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she sort of feels this as a gut punch.
Speaker 1: I think she says, at some point, my instinct was,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be somebody's personal growth journey, which
Speaker 1: is just a way of saying, like you've basically told
Speaker 1: me I'm not enough or I'm an adjustment, which is
Speaker 1: just a horrible thing to say to someone. And so
Speaker 1: shortly after that conversation, she embarks on this very intense
Speaker 1: diet that leads us to this particular moment. Okay. So,
Speaker 1: and another thing that happens in this particular episode is
Speaker 1: that she reads from her journal entries, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to read you a little piece of this section of
Speaker 1: her journal that she reads what is the bigger issue here?
Speaker 1: Self esteem. I realize this fat is just a blocker.
Speaker 1: It is like having mud on my wings. It keeps
Speaker 1: me from flying. There's been a way of staying comfortable
Speaker 1: with other people. My fat puts them at ease, makes
Speaker 1: them less threatened, makes me insecure. So I dream of
Speaker 1: walking into a room one day where this fat is
Speaker 1: not the issue, and that will happen this year, because
Speaker 1: the bigger issue for me is making myself the best
Speaker 1: that I can be.
Speaker 3: It is very vulnerable.
Speaker 1: It's very vulnerable.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can you can imagine the audience, mostly
Speaker 4: women probably who have probably struggled in one way or another,
Speaker 4: because haven't we all really feeling like this resonates?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this obviously residents for me. I'm someone
Speaker 1: who struggled with my weight my whole life, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of women and a lot of
Speaker 1: men also can really relate to this feeling of if
Speaker 1: I just lost ten pounds, everything would be perfect. If
Speaker 1: I just lost five pounds, everything would be perfect. There's
Speaker 1: this sense that our weight is very defining for us,
Speaker 1: and it is always this nagging thing we are trying
Speaker 1: to fix in ourselves. But I think also this vulnerability
Speaker 1: that Oprah demonstrates is why she becomes such a big success.
Speaker 6: That's so interesting. I've never thought about it that way.
Speaker 6: I mean, I admire her ability to be so vulnerable,
Speaker 6: because I've always found it really hard to talk about
Speaker 6: this subject. I mean, I can talk about a lot
Speaker 6: of things, but I gained a lot of weight in
Speaker 6: my late twenties and early thirties, and I was diagnosed
Speaker 6: with PCOS, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is now
Speaker 6: something you know, people have heard of, but it wasn't
Speaker 6: really well known when I was diagnosed, and even now
Speaker 6: it's still pretty poorly understood by the medical establishment. So honestly,
Speaker 6: I didn't tell anyone at the time or even really
Speaker 6: talk about it with my friends, like much less announce
Speaker 6: it to the whole world. Like it's really a lot
Speaker 6: right to go out and reveal so much about yourself.
Speaker 4: In some ways, that's so different from what we tend
Speaker 4: to see now, especially on social media, where like vulnerability
Speaker 4: or I don't know, foe, vulnerability is almost a currency
Speaker 4: in some ways. But it sounds like that was definitely
Speaker 4: not the case back then, and certainly not in the
Speaker 4: talk show landscape in the nineteen eighties, right, Like how
Speaker 4: common was that at the time.
Speaker 1: It was pretty uncommon. I mean even Oprah's initial shows
Speaker 1: were pretty tabloidy, right. The talk show atmosphere in general
Speaker 1: was much more tabloidy. It was like Phil Donahue and
Speaker 1: Sally Jesse, Raphael and I mean not being father, You're
Speaker 1: not the father. That becomes like a trope a little
Speaker 1: bit later on. But you know, she is kind of
Speaker 1: elevating the medium in a way, and she will slowly
Speaker 1: do that over time until there comes a point where
Speaker 1: the Oprah Show is actually seen as kind of like
Speaker 1: a premium product rather than what it initially is, which
Speaker 1: is kind of like a tabloidy talk show. And one
Speaker 1: of the ways in which she does that is by
Speaker 1: being really vulnerable about these things in her life, like
Speaker 1: about sex abuse she experienced as a child, about her weight,
Speaker 1: Like she really pioneers a thing that now is so
Speaker 1: common because of reality shows and social media, which is
Speaker 1: that if you open up your own experiences, people feel
Speaker 1: much more connected to you. And she leads on a
Speaker 1: dialogue that's just not very common at that time, right,
Speaker 1: you know, she's talking about sex abuse when that's still
Speaker 1: a very taboo subject. She's acknowledging these issues with her
Speaker 1: weight when I don't know how common it was to
Speaker 1: just say that you're fat and you're trying to lose weight.
Speaker 1: She will go on to talk about mental health issues,
Speaker 1: about race. She'll do these really difficult race shows where
Speaker 1: she will have on racists who will say terrible things
Speaker 1: to her face, and she will like explore that. So
Speaker 1: this is kind of where you start to see that
Speaker 1: shift happening.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, but this episode isn't intended to be particularly serious, right,
Speaker 4: it sounds like it was pretty festive. Does she end
Speaker 4: up getting into the details of how she actually lost
Speaker 4: the weight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she does talk about that. She essentially starves herself
Speaker 1: to lose this weight. She drinks protein powder shakes of
Speaker 1: roughly four hundred calories a day. Like, if you're trying
Speaker 1: to lose weight and you're a woman who's like she's
Speaker 1: like five six, I think the usual standard is that
Speaker 1: you're eating somewhere between twelve hundred and fourteen hundred calories.
Speaker 1: That's to lose weight. You're eating that she is medically supervised.
Speaker 1: It's a medically supervised diet, okay, But I think it
Speaker 1: also just reveals the way that the medical establishment approached
Speaker 1: weight for a long time in this country was pretty barbaric,
Speaker 1: Like they would never give you this diet now, it's insane.
Speaker 1: But she not only kind of says, here's how I
Speaker 1: did it. She literally pulls up the protein shakes and
Speaker 1: the company that they, yeah, it wasn't sponsored. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's before people realize you could get sponsors
Speaker 1: for stuff. Okay, but shows it and their sales go
Speaker 1: through the realm. I mean, like everything crashes for them.
Speaker 1: It's a big day.
Speaker 4: And then later on she's not able to keep the
Speaker 4: weight off, Like how.
Speaker 1: No, she can't keep the weight off. I mean she
Speaker 1: so she basically does this for four months. She says
Speaker 1: later on, I literally starved myself, like I did not
Speaker 1: eat anything. Basically, I didn't have a morsel of food.
Speaker 1: And then she will say at some point that this
Speaker 1: just basically shot her metabolism and that two weeks after
Speaker 1: she returned to eating food, she had already gained ten pounds.
Speaker 3: I mean that's not a surprise, right.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, like this kind of thing is unsustainable.
Speaker 1: You can't just dring shakes for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: So you know, now they'll tell you that you have
Speaker 1: to do it in a different kind of way. But
Speaker 1: back in the eighties, there was just this idea that
Speaker 1: losing weight in any way, no matter how drastic, was
Speaker 1: always good.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I feel like it's worth pausing for a
Speaker 4: moment to talk about what was going on in the
Speaker 4: world at this time.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'd love to know more about it.
Speaker 3: It's nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 4: Like, you know, there's no like Lizzo body Positivity, Big
Speaker 4: Girls Show, There's.
Speaker 3: No I Love my Curvy wife guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and thank god that guy.
Speaker 4: Was totally We're not having like debates about whether fat
Speaker 4: or curvy, or plus size or overweight is the right
Speaker 4: and most inclusive terminology. Like this is the eighties, Like
Speaker 4: this is the era of Jane Fonda and Lea'sard's.
Speaker 2: Jane Fonda's workouts are constantly improving the science of staying.
Speaker 4: And slim fast, which had been pulled from the shelves
Speaker 4: in the nineteen seventies, is now back on the market.
Speaker 1: Give us a week, we don't take off the weight.
Speaker 3: Jenny Craig has launched, which was like another subscription.
Speaker 1: I did Jenny Cregg.
Speaker 2: We hope you lose weight and teach you what you
Speaker 2: need to know.
Speaker 4: To keep it all Lean Cuisine, those disgusting TV dinners
Speaker 4: that were like on suburban American TV.
Speaker 1: Why describing that to me as if I've never had
Speaker 1: leave Amy.
Speaker 3: Our audience is younger than us.
Speaker 1: It's not just the caloriesaid count, it's the taste. But
Speaker 1: I also want to tell you that in my most
Speaker 1: anarexic phase, my best friend from college, Claire, remembers and
Speaker 1: always talks about this moment when I was like really
Speaker 1: really having like disordered eating and which is not an
Speaker 1: expression I knew at the time, And she spent a
Speaker 1: weekend with me and I ate half a Lead Cuisine
Speaker 1: pizza and was like, oh, yeah, I'm so full. Wow.
Speaker 1: And she was like, there's no way you're full from
Speaker 1: that like tiny piece of bread you just consumed.
Speaker 4: Fascinating, Okay, which brings me to this is also five
Speaker 4: years after Karen Carpenter, who was one half of the
Speaker 4: folk duo The Carpenters, had died from you know, complications
Speaker 4: related to anarexia.
Speaker 2: Basically a Carpenter died this morning, the victim of cardiac arrest.
Speaker 3: The Grammy Award winning singer was only thirty two years old.
Speaker 4: So we're sort of just waking up to this idea
Speaker 4: that diet culture is a thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know even if it's that or if it's
Speaker 1: just that we're slowly beginning to realize that not all
Speaker 1: weight loss is just an objective good. Yes, right, I
Speaker 1: think up until this point of just like losing weight
Speaker 1: is an objective good, and that is really like part
Speaker 1: of housewife culture for a long time, right. But I
Speaker 1: think what happens in the eighties is that it becomes
Speaker 1: just a broader sort of national obsession where everyone's like
Speaker 1: learning to exercise.
Speaker 4: And so there's a Senate report put out in the
Speaker 4: late nineteen seventies that basically says, like Americans needs to
Speaker 4: just stop eating so much fat.
Speaker 1: I have such a connection to that because my mom
Speaker 1: was always trying to lose weight. So I just remember
Speaker 1: all of these diets. But I remember kind of the
Speaker 1: intensity of that in the eighties, how much we were
Speaker 1: constantly like being bombarded by these images of you need
Speaker 1: to lose weight, you need to lose weight, and like,
Speaker 1: here are the ways in which you could be doing that.
Speaker 3: In that context, honestly, Oprah's diet doesn't seem that shocking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the thing we know now is that Oprah
Speaker 1: will struggle with her weight and this will be an
Speaker 1: ongoing topic of discussion for her for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: That kind of leads us back to the point I
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top, right, which is the reason we're
Speaker 1: talking about this, which is that she says, and I'll quote,
Speaker 1: this is her greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 4: I think it's worth pausing to just review some of
Speaker 4: Oprah's accomplishments because you know, at this point, she's starred.
Speaker 3: In the color Purple, Yeah, which was nominated for an Oscar.
Speaker 1: She was nominated for an Oscar, like she was actually
Speaker 1: for her particular role, and it was a Steven Spielberg movie.
Speaker 1: So even if she hadn't been nominated for an oscar,
Speaker 1: just being in a Steven Spielberg movie is a huge accomplishment, right,
Speaker 1: It's like something to be proud of. Also, she's just
Speaker 1: launched this talk show. Right, It's only been two years
Speaker 1: when this episode airs, and she's already getting sixteen million
Speaker 1: people who regularly watch the show. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: huge number even by those standards, like that would be
Speaker 1: an insane number today, but at that time even it
Speaker 1: was a wildly successful number. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: the New York Times reported that the year that she
Speaker 1: made this episode, she made twenty five million dollars. Wow.
Speaker 1: She will also go on to become the first black
Speaker 1: female billionaire two thousand and three. There's really not many
Speaker 1: people who can say they've accomplished as much as Oprah.
Speaker 1: But let's pause here and do what Oprah would do,
Speaker 1: which is pick up after the break.
Speaker 4: Okay, Susie, So I want to talk a bit more
Speaker 4: about your personal connection to this moment. You know, you
Speaker 4: mentioned earlier on in the show that you struggled with
Speaker 4: your weight and that was part of why you wanted
Speaker 4: to take this subject on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen. I think weight was always a
Speaker 1: big topic in my house. It was always a big issue.
Speaker 1: I think because my mom struggled with her weight, and
Speaker 1: I sort of first became conscious of weight in relationship
Speaker 1: to her and the struggles she was having and how
Speaker 1: much she was constantly kind of trying to lose weight.
Speaker 1: And much like the Stedman story, I think some of
Speaker 1: that did come from my father and her sense that
Speaker 1: he might in some ways be displeased by her not
Speaker 1: being as thin as she once was. And then slowly,
Speaker 1: over time I took in those messages and then eventually
Speaker 1: I turned them on myself. And what's fascinating is when
Speaker 1: I go back and look at pictures of her from
Speaker 1: this time, she was, by no objective measure fat, but
Speaker 1: she kind of was teaching me unintentionally because it was
Speaker 1: something she was struggling with herself that, like what she
Speaker 1: looked like was unacceptable, and so I remember being like, oh,
Speaker 1: she is fat, kind of accepting her version of what
Speaker 1: she was. And in some ways, that's why I try
Speaker 1: never to talk about my issues with my weight like
Speaker 1: you and I have never really talked about this particular
Speaker 1: thing for me, because I think one thing I have
Speaker 1: very consciously done as an adult is try not to
Speaker 1: project this struggle outwards, because I don't want everyone to
Speaker 1: kind of be focused on my weight. And I feel
Speaker 1: like if I'm talking about it all the time, I'm
Speaker 1: inviting it's kind of like the opening, right, I'm inviting
Speaker 1: everyone to have an opinion about my situation. And I
Speaker 1: think also I had gained a bunch of weight right
Speaker 1: before middle school, and then my dad actually died right
Speaker 1: before I was in middle school, and I remember my
Speaker 1: mom saying to me, he was really worried about your weight.
Speaker 1: And I think that's when it really started to take
Speaker 1: hold for me, where I was like I started to
Speaker 1: always be on a diet, and then I went to
Speaker 1: boarding school, and I think there's like this period, this
Speaker 1: relative period where I'm fine, I don't remember kind of obsessing.
Speaker 1: I was pretty thin at boarding school. The focus at
Speaker 1: boarding school was like on why I wasn't blonde and
Speaker 1: blue eyed, So it was like I wasn't constantly obsessing
Speaker 1: about my weight. But then slowly after college I started
Speaker 1: to gain weight again, and probably in my late twenties
Speaker 1: and early thirties, I really struggled. And I think in
Speaker 1: some ways that's why I picked this moment, because I
Speaker 1: was always aware of this moment, right, and I was
Speaker 1: always aware of how much Oprah's weight was part of
Speaker 1: her kind of journey. But I think as I got
Speaker 1: older and I started to feel those same feelings that
Speaker 1: nothing I did would ever really be a success unless
Speaker 1: I also could take control of my weight, right, Like
Speaker 1: I really felt a lot of shame about it. I
Speaker 1: really struggled with dating, which I had not really struggled
Speaker 1: with before, because I really saw it as like a
Speaker 1: personal failing in myself that I had started to gain
Speaker 1: this weight even though there were very clear medical anyzings,
Speaker 1: Like it's not rational, right, but I had this really
Speaker 1: intense sense that I was failing in this really big
Speaker 1: way and that that is why nothing else in my
Speaker 1: life was perfect.
Speaker 4: It's so interesting the way you put that, because it
Speaker 4: both feels so closely aligned to what Oprah said about
Speaker 4: this being her quote greatest accomplishment, but also how this
Speaker 4: is something of a universal experience among women, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like if it's not our weight, it is something else
Speaker 4: we feel holds us back from I don't know, maybe,
Speaker 4: as Oprah would put it, living our best life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nothing is ever quite enough. So it's like I'm
Speaker 1: hugely successful, but I never had kids. I'm hugely successful,
Speaker 1: but I'm fat. I'm hugely successful, but I never got married,
Speaker 1: or I'm divorced. There's always You're always looking for the
Speaker 1: thing in yourself that is the flaw that keeps you
Speaker 1: from being able to feel perfect, perfect and whole and successful.
Speaker 1: And as the years have gone on, this moment has
Speaker 1: resonated for me more and more as I've seen it,
Speaker 1: as I've sort of had the context for it, right,
Speaker 1: I sort of go back and relook at this moment
Speaker 1: and re examine it and rewatch it, because it really
Speaker 1: starts to feel like a thing I can see myself
Speaker 1: having done in her position. Like there is a lot
Speaker 1: of ways in which we could look back and say
Speaker 1: Oprah contributed to diet culture, and she did, but she
Speaker 1: was a victim of that culture, right. She made people
Speaker 1: feel less alone in that journey, but she also reinforced
Speaker 1: the idea journey that they needed that journey.
Speaker 4: It sounds like she was trying to make this her story.
Speaker 4: People could come cover this event whenever, but it was
Speaker 4: going to be her event. She was going to kind
Speaker 4: of control this narrative. Definitely's profit on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that's definitely the case. But
Speaker 1: what it also does is instead of giving her ownership
Speaker 1: over the story, which may have been what her intention was,
Speaker 1: she actually completely loses control of the story.
Speaker 4: And you said before that this episode was super successful, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean eighteen million people watched this episode. It
Speaker 1: was the most watched episode ever in her twenty five
Speaker 1: year run.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: But then she is for months and months after this
Speaker 1: just absolutely hounded by paparazzi who want to take pictures
Speaker 1: of what she's eating, who want to comment on whether
Speaker 1: or not she's continuing to gain weight again. There is
Speaker 1: just this like huge ongoing conversation in the media with
Speaker 1: nutritionists and doctors and commentators talking about like was this
Speaker 1: a healthy way to lose weight? Can she keep the
Speaker 1: weight off? What will happen? And so instead of actually
Speaker 1: taking control of the story, she's kind of given the
Speaker 1: story over in a way, and it spins wildly out
Speaker 1: of her control. And she does really resent that. I mean,
Speaker 1: she says later on how harmful it felt to her
Speaker 1: to have this conversation about her all the time, and
Speaker 1: all this coverage kind of prompts this real defensiveness in
Speaker 1: her right where she is saying things like I never
Speaker 1: was happy being fat, I'll never be fat again. Never.
Speaker 1: She becomes really irritated when people are commenting on this stuff,
Speaker 1: and she says things like, asking me if I'll keep
Speaker 1: the weight off is like asking me, will you ever
Speaker 1: be in a relationship again where you allow yourself to
Speaker 1: be emotionally battered. I've been there and I don't intend
Speaker 1: to go back.
Speaker 4: She talks about herself almost as if it was her
Speaker 4: former fat self and her present skinny self, like she
Speaker 4: has severed these two parts of herself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. It is just this real distinction
Speaker 1: she draws where she talks about that person with disdain,
Speaker 1: is like, I am now fixed. This is like an
Speaker 1: inflection point. I will never go back to being that person.
Speaker 4: Which, if you think about it, so then when you
Speaker 4: do go back to being that person, because everybody fluctuates, yes,
Speaker 4: and you've completely publicly said that that person is disgusting, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like what does that do to your right?
Speaker 1: You've described this version of yourself as like a bad
Speaker 1: version of yourself, and then you do eventually go back
Speaker 1: to that version. And at the same time, you're dealing
Speaker 1: with your own sort of internal struggle with the fact
Speaker 1: that you clearly like hate this version of yourself so
Speaker 1: much that you wanted to like hold up a bag
Speaker 1: of like animal fat and be like this was me.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you're also being inundated with
Speaker 1: headlines about look, you've gained weight again, Look what your
Speaker 1: weight is, why are you gaining weight? What did you
Speaker 1: do wrong? And that messaging, which I mean I cannot
Speaker 1: imagine with my own weight issues having that layered on top.
Speaker 1: I mean that has to feel insane. And there's this
Speaker 1: fascinating quote in the BBC from this profile in twenty
Speaker 1: eleven that I found, where it literally says if Oprah
Speaker 1: is remembered for anything, it will be her body shape,
Speaker 1: which mirrored America's obsession with its own body shape, Like,
Speaker 1: how can that be what she will be remembered for?
Speaker 1: She is quite literally one of the most successful women
Speaker 1: on the planet. You know what we've never talked about, though,
Speaker 1: is I don't actually think I know anything about your
Speaker 1: relationship to your weight or weight loss or body issues.
Speaker 3: I mean, I.
Speaker 4: Feel like to some extent growing up in eighties and nineties,
Speaker 4: like was it possible to come out of that with
Speaker 4: a healthy body?
Speaker 6: Imass?
Speaker 1: I certainly did not.
Speaker 4: I had come up in this sort of nineties Seattle
Speaker 4: run right kind of heroin weak.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, basically heroin chic.
Speaker 4: And I remember specifically having this tag from a pair
Speaker 4: of Calvin Klin underwear, like I wasn't allowed to buy
Speaker 4: name brand stuff. I had saved my money to get.
Speaker 4: Do you remember those Calvin Clin underwear that had the
Speaker 4: band on the top and they would sort of show
Speaker 4: above your genes And Kate Moss was the model for them,
Speaker 4: And so she was on the tag and it was
Speaker 4: her in the underwear and her perfect wafee probably anorexic stomach.
Speaker 4: And I kept that tag in my underwear drawer so
Speaker 4: I could look at it and compare how my stomach
Speaker 4: was compared to that.
Speaker 3: You know, my parents would be horrified to get.
Speaker 4: Like, had they found that, they would have had to
Speaker 4: have a serious conversation with me about weight. But and
Speaker 4: I was thinn so it wasn't a concern. We didn't
Speaker 4: really talk about it. But like, yeah, we all dabbled
Speaker 4: in starving ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think it really was impossible to be
Speaker 1: a girl in this country. Or maybe it's still impossible.
Speaker 3: That's the question.
Speaker 4: So like, okay, now we talk about dieting as health
Speaker 4: and wellness, and now we're you know, we just want
Speaker 4: to be healthy and just when our intermittent fasting.
Speaker 3: Is because it's actually like better for our brain yee.
Speaker 1: It's like biohacking. Now, like that all the Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: dudes are dieting, but they don't call it dieting. They
Speaker 1: call it bio hacking. And that makes it more acceptable
Speaker 1: because it's less feminine, right, diets girls.
Speaker 4: And we can celebrate that all body types are wearing
Speaker 4: crop tops now, and then if you actually look into
Speaker 4: the data, you find that, yeah, like rates of anorexia
Speaker 4: have not gotten.
Speaker 1: Down, No, they've gone up actually.
Speaker 3: So it's like we've packaged it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've just repackaged it in a way to make
Speaker 1: it less embarrassing to talk about. Like, one of the
Speaker 1: things that drives me crazy is that we just replace
Speaker 1: the word diet with fasting, and fasting is acceptable, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going on a liquid fast. It's like, no, that's
Speaker 1: not good for you. Drinking juice for four or five
Speaker 1: days or whatever is not actually good for you. And
Speaker 1: anyone who knows anything about like nutrition will say to
Speaker 1: you that it's a terrible way to lose weight. But
Speaker 1: because we call them cleanses juice cleanses, no one can
Speaker 1: say to you, hey, is that a good idea? Because
Speaker 1: it's like, you're just trying to be healthier and who
Speaker 1: could argue with that. But it is this really complicated
Speaker 1: thing because on the one hand, we're like body positivity
Speaker 1: and on the other hand, Selena Gomez goes to an
Speaker 1: award show and then is inundated with comments about how
Speaker 1: she looks like she's gained weight. So I don't think
Speaker 1: celebrities feel less scrutiny about this. I think we just
Speaker 1: pretend there's less scrutiny.
Speaker 4: It's interesting too, So it's like, then, once you become
Speaker 4: a celebrity who is larger, the culture turns on you
Speaker 4: if you do is the way like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean sort of similar to what happened to Oprah.
Speaker 1: Right when she lost the weight, there was like a
Speaker 1: little bit of a backlash to it, and when she
Speaker 1: started to gain it back, people in the audience would
Speaker 1: be like, we love you fat. That is kind of
Speaker 1: this complicated thing at Dell lost a bunch of weight,
Speaker 1: and I feel like there was this real, sort of
Speaker 1: like complicated relationship with it. But the most notable example
Speaker 1: of that is I think you know, Lizzo is vegan
Speaker 1: now and at some point she shared on her TikTok
Speaker 1: this shake she was having, and there was this enormous
Speaker 1: backlash like you're supposed to be a body positive you're
Speaker 1: promoting unhealthy eating, et cetera, et cetera. And that also
Speaker 1: feels unfair because Lizzo is allowed to make decisions about
Speaker 1: her body without being judged.
Speaker 4: Well It's sort of like all diets have been framed
Speaker 4: as wellness, but then when a person is actually doing
Speaker 4: it for health, we criticize them for dieting one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: And now, of course we're in the age of ozempic.
Speaker 4: This is the diabetes term weightless drug. It's on magazine covers.
Speaker 4: Seemingly everyone is on it, and there's all this backlash
Speaker 4: to celebrities who are believed to be taking it.
Speaker 1: So I think the Ozempa conversation is interesting because it
Speaker 1: just shows another way in which we want to control
Speaker 1: how women deal with their bodies. We want our celebrities
Speaker 1: to be thin, but not if they're not doing the
Speaker 1: hard work right getting thin, you have to earn thinness.
Speaker 1: Thinness is something to attain, to work hard at, and
Speaker 1: it's felt like it's cheating to take this diet drug.
Speaker 1: There is this sense in America that you should be
Speaker 1: able to overcome your problems just with like sheer toughness,
Speaker 1: and so that's how we feel about mental health, and
Speaker 1: that's also how we feel about weight loss.
Speaker 3: I think that's so right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what's interesting is we've been working on this
Speaker 1: you know episode for a while and thinking about these issues.
Speaker 1: And then Oprah just recently released this special on her
Speaker 1: site Oprah Daily, and the specials called The Life You
Speaker 1: Want class The State of Weight, and it's about ozepic
Speaker 1: and Manjaro in these class of drugs, and she talks
Speaker 1: about this exact thing that we think about weight as
Speaker 1: a matter of willpower, but really it's a medical issue.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things I carry, you know,
Speaker 2: so much shame because I was publicly shamed about it.
Speaker 2: And even when I first started hearing about the weight
Speaker 2: loss drugs at the same time, I was going through
Speaker 2: knee surgery and I felt, I've got to do this.
Speaker 4: On my own.
Speaker 2: I've got to do this on my own, because if
Speaker 2: I take the drug, that's the easy way out.
Speaker 4: It's so interesting to hear her say that because there
Speaker 4: have been so many rumors that she of late is
Speaker 4: on ozempic.
Speaker 3: Does she address that directly in the special?
Speaker 1: She doesn't address it directly, And I think she doesn't
Speaker 1: have to write it's like those are just rumors. She
Speaker 1: doesn't have to explain to the world how she is
Speaker 1: or isn't losing weight. I mean, that's very much the
Speaker 1: thing she's been fighting against, right But what's so interesting
Speaker 1: about the special to me is that it really focuses
Speaker 1: on how we're just now as a culture, really coming
Speaker 1: to understand that obesity is a disease, right, it's not
Speaker 1: this behavioral thing. And you know, even though the American
Speaker 1: Medical Association declared obesity a disease like ten years ago,
Speaker 1: that really hasn't taken shape. So I get that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so they're on the special. There are these doctors
Speaker 1: like from Harvard and NYU lingon, and there's actually the
Speaker 1: CEO of weight Watchers, right because you know, even they
Speaker 1: now need to understand that it's not just a matter
Speaker 1: of keeping track of points.
Speaker 4: That's so interesting because it wasn't Oprah at one point
Speaker 4: a spokesperson or an investor in some way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think she owns a stake in weight Watchers,
Speaker 1: and that's mentioned in the sort of conversation with the
Speaker 1: weight Watchers person. But you know, I think that is
Speaker 1: the issue, right, is that for years, if you did
Speaker 1: weight watchers, lost weight and then regain the weight, you
Speaker 1: thought that the problem was you, but in fact that
Speaker 1: these are actually your genetics at play or your brain.
Speaker 1: There's lots of scientific reasons why you may struggle with
Speaker 1: weight loss and also with maintaining weight loss. And you know,
Speaker 1: even for Oprah, who has followed this for so long,
Speaker 1: she says that, you know, it's an idea that even
Speaker 1: she is now just starting to embrace.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I've been so ashamed, shamed
Speaker 2: myself about, and was shamed in the tabloids every week
Speaker 2: about for twenty five years is not having the willpower.
Speaker 4: It's just crazy to hear her say that, because it
Speaker 4: truly has followed her.
Speaker 3: That's what we've been talking about here throughout her career.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really feels like this moment, this Red Wagon moment,
Speaker 1: is some thing that set a tone for the way
Speaker 1: people felt like they could talk about her and her weight,
Speaker 1: and it's something she looks back on with a lot
Speaker 1: of regret, right like, over the years, when she talks
Speaker 1: about this episode, this Red Wagon episode, she says it's
Speaker 1: hard to watch and when she watches it, she wants
Speaker 1: to say to herself, like, don't do it, even though
Speaker 1: it's a great TV moment, And that really gets to
Speaker 1: the heart of this story. I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the most watched episodes in arguably the most popular
Speaker 1: talk show of all time, but it's definitely not something
Speaker 1: Oprah would now say was one of her greatest accomplishments,
Speaker 1: which makes sense right. It opened up a conversation about
Speaker 1: her that she was then plagued by, and I want
Speaker 1: to let her have the last word on how she
Speaker 1: thinks about it all. Now here's what she said in
Speaker 1: her recent special.
Speaker 2: Whatever your choice is for your body and your weight health,
Speaker 2: it should be yours to own and not to be
Speaker 2: shamed about it. As a person who's been shamed for
Speaker 2: so many years, I'm just sick of it.
Speaker 1: I'm just sick of it. I'm just sick of it.
Speaker 2: And I hope this conversation begins the unshaming.
Speaker 1: This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there a
Speaker 1: cultural moment you can't stop thinking about and want us
Speaker 1: to explore in a future episode. Email us at inretropod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com or find us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: in retropod.
Speaker 4: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
Speaker 4: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
Speaker 4: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
Speaker 4: which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
Speaker 1: and at suzib NYC. Also check out Jessica's books Feminist
Speaker 1: Fight Club and This Is Eighteen.
Speaker 4: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media.
Speaker 4: Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
Speaker 4: engineer and sound designer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and
Speaker 4: associate producer.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is from Pentagram. Additional editing help from Mary
Speaker 1: Doo and Mike Coscarelli, Sound correction and mastering by Amanda
Speaker 1: Rose Smith. We are your hosts Susie Vannecarum.
Speaker 4: And Jessica Bennett. We're also executive producers. For even more
Speaker 4: check out in retropod dot com. See you next week.