She's funny all right, an all-round entertainer, a wonderfully gifted mimic. But does she feel responsible at all for spawning the likes of Jerry Springer - whose show, in which trashy folk trash the furniture and one another, she describes as a "vulgarity circus" - and an entire Planet Freak of confessional television and radio fakirs? "No. I don't. Just like Phil Donahue wasn't responsible for me, I wasn't responsible for Geraldo. Everyone has their own choices in life. And Jerry", she says, lowering her voice and deliberately enunciating every syllable, "Jerry will be payin' later for his. There are consequences for all of our actions, no matter who you are. You put that on the air everyday and you say `Oh, we're just entertainment', or `Oh, everybody knows that it's just a joke' - well, you've got to pay for that. As I have. As I have. I can say I don't have any regrets only because I learned from them. We were used when I did Ku Klux Klan members because I felt as a black person, it was my responsibility to Make Them Pay. Then I realised one day - they are not gonna change. I'm thinking by having them on, I'm gonna convince them that `it was wrong of you to do all those heinous acts against black folks' when all I'm really doing is giving them a platform. So now I'm very conscious of who I allow the power of the media to. I might think I'm exposing them, but then if there are other people who are aligned in the same kind of thinking, then all I'm doing is giving them valuable publicity. I'm very conscious of that now as I was not many years ago. Many years ago, my impression was" - cut to anguished, whiney, self-parody - " `people need to know about this, people need to know this is going on'. Now I think people know it, people don't choose to change it, that's their issue, not mine".
The unworthy suspicion crosses the mind that this new Age of Enlightenment in Oprahland might be just a great new marketing wheeze, an opportune convergence with the New Agey move away from victim-hood and into self-improvement. Her "Change Your Life TV" and the women's network she is launching on cable called "Oxygen", are prime examples of the genre. And yet, listening to her, it's hard to maintain that scepticism. The way she tells it, she has (regretfully) signed a contract that keeps her talk show on air up to September 2000; meanwhile, she has decided that if she - with all her fame, notoriety and credibility - can't afford to take some risks, then nobody can. "I'm not here to play TV any more. I'm here to use it as a medium for change. I'm in a position that ratings don't matter." What if it doesn't work? "Then it's over."
This is a woman who survived being raped at the age of nine; endured sexual abuse by three family "friends" for the next five years; became pregnant at 14 and lost a baby boy at birth, before eluding her mother's attempt to place her in a detention home. In spite of that, she has built herself into a living legend, has more money that she can ever spend and appears to have found happiness in a 12-year relationship with Stedman Graham, a successful businessman. It would seem unduly cynical to doubt her now.
The competitiveness is still there, by her own lights, she still things but there's no doubt that she is tired, dog-tired, and utterly disillusioned. The advent of Springer may be partly responsible for that. "Can public taste keep on sinking?" she asks rhetorically. "Yes, it can. I have to get out".
But her long, painful and obsessive journey with Beloved - Toni Morrison's extraordinary novel about an escaped slave who is haunted, literally, by the past and the terrible choices to which it has driven her - may have been a final straw. Having been humiliated and rejected by Hollywood's best and brightest (Peter Weir, Jane Campion, Jodie Foster et al), and finally got it onto film with director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), she set out to sell it to America. "It will be a long time before I touch another movie about race," she concludes flatly. Well outsold by Bride of Chucky, it made a miserable $8 million on its opening weekend in the US and has grossed less than $30 million since. "In America, I have found people just don't want to talk about race. They just don't."
When DNA tests proved that President Thomas Jefferson did indeed father children by the slave, Sally Hemmings, she invited white and black Jefferson descendants on her show. "But I got all these complaints from white people - `Here she goes again, trying to make us feel guilty . . .' About what? It just is. Anytime the discussion of race comes up, it causes people to feel a sense of agitation. I think that people - those who haven't seen it - think that Beloved is a movie about slavery and that we're blaming white people for it and so they don't want to see it, don't want to look at it. Black people, a lot of them feel that they don't want to be reminded it even existed. So much shame is still associated with slavery, many, many people choose to be in denial about it."
Then, she adds, "in America, you have a lot of people who want everything simply laid out for them". And this, you fancy, is what really needles her - partly, perhaps, because many of them make up her own core audience. The story of Beloved revolves around a strange young woman whom the escaped slave, Sethe (played by Winfrey), believes to be her dead child returned to her. Readers/audiences are supposed to draw their own conclusions. "But", says Winfrey, "I was so annoyed by people who'd go" - cue slow, stupid, whiny tone - " `well, who is she? Is she a ghost? Well, can you see her. Well, does she go through walls?'. And I'd say, No. Did you see her walk through any walls? No. So no, it's not like Casper the Friendly Ghost who goes through walls, it's not that kinda movie. And they go" - the whiny voice again - " `well, what kinda ghost is she?' "
After some time of this, one begins to understand perfectly why pre-conditions might be attached to interviews about serious topics. You also appreciate why Winfrey is a chastened woman. Then again, maybe it's the best thing that ever happened to her. Because there she goes, with all that money, and all that power, and all that stamina, and all that determination, allied to all these brand new insights - newly hell-bent on dragging up America by the bootstraps.
Beloved opens on March 19th