Cultural critic Ira Madison III appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, The Wendy Williams Show and drama NetflixYour. Now, a writer and podcast host Keep it collects his thoughts in a new collection of essays.
IN Pure innocent funout February 4, 2025 from Random House, Madison examines her own life through the lens of pop culture, by The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Britney Spears.
Author Ira Madison III.
Kit Karzen
Madison, a black gay man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “feels the impact of some of his formative experiences, including learning about gay sex from his mother’s Lil’ Kim CD; the most devastating choice of his adolescence – Jennifer Hudson 2004 american idol elimination — and never got a driver’s license in high school, which makes him just like Cher Horowitz in Clless: “The virgin who doesn’t know how to drive”, according to the synopsis of the book.
Below, in an exclusive excerpt from Pure innocent funMadison reflects on how Oprah Winfrey influenced his body image.
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‘Pure Innocent Fun’ by Ira Madison III.
Random House
One day, Oprah will pay for her crimes. I’m not talking about snake oil salesmen like Dr. The famous Oz and Phil or the 2018 film adaptation A wrinkle in time; I’m talking about her documentation of weight loss from the 90s to today. If you were born in the 90s, then Oprah was pretty much the same size for most of your adolescence and adulthood. But for older millennials, born in 1986 or earlier, and anyone older, Oprah’s journey with her weight is very specifically suffocating.
Oprah’s weight loss odyssey began on a November 15, 1988 episode (titled “Dreams Do Come True”) of her daytime talk show The Oprah Winfrey Showwhen she announced that she had lost a lot of weight in four months. With a feathered bob and wearing a pair of size 10 Calvin Klein jeans, black boots with a sexy but sensible heel, a glittering belt and a skin-tight black sweater, Oprah looked like your aunt who let you go to the corner store and buy her Newports rather than the oversize-blazer-and-pant-suit-in-high-school energy of the science teacher he used to serve.
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Oprah on the November 15, 1988 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Oprah.com
And to further confirm the fact that she has lost a lot of weight, she dumped the exact amount of animal fat onto a small red cart. She was not just a host The Oprah Winfrey Show; she was working shows, baby. Oprah showed up, and as a result, “Dreams Come True” became the highest-rated episode in the program’s 25-year history (and remains so).
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Oprah later expressed regret for the moment. In 2024, she was running ABC’s The Oprah Special: Shame, Guilt, and the Weight Loss Revolution to discuss her use of Ozempic, an anti-diabetic drug also used for weight loss, and how she finally overcame her weight problems. In the special, she blames the media for forcing her to go on fad diets, starve herself, etc. and how ashamed she is of throwing out that wagon of animal fat. In fact, she started gaining weight the day after filming “Dreams Come True”.
I’m not here to hold Oprah to some morals I don’t have myself — I used the version of Ozempic prescribed to me in 2023. It worked fine for a few months, until the Writers Guild of America went on strike and I ran out of money for it (and the membership fee at the gym), even with a discount from my insurance, so that was the end of it! The only problem I have when Oprah discusses her weight shame and then does a special about how Ozempic finally helped her is how it’s really just about helping her. Which would be fine if the whole point of her talk show was to help people. Every time she talked about her weight over the years, it was all to justify to the public why she was on the latest fad diet. With Oprah, when she has something to sell, objectivity always seems to go out the window.
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Oprah Winfrey’s first episode from 1986.
SplashNews.com
The Oprah Winfrey Show debuted on September 8, 1986, and became incredibly influential because it sold a connection rather than a sideline. 2002 Christianity today she described how she essentially became a spiritual leader to her viewers. Her friends became their new mentors. dr. Phil became their therapist. Suze Orman became their financial planner. dr. Oz became their doctor. Iyanla Vanzant became their life coach. Whatever books Oprah read, people read them.
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This backfired after it was discovered that writer James Frey had fabricated or exaggerated parts of his memoirs A million little pieceswhich was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. In order to save face, she invited him to the show for a public chat. I don’t even remember if Oprah said the words “I feel like I have been duped” to Frey, but I always remember her saying them, so they’re real enough for me. Oprah taught me to go with what I feel, even if it’s not necessarily true. Oprah could convince us to do anything—and this authority expressed a warm connection. She has inexplicably become America’s weight loss guru because Americans are experts at accepting personal anecdotes as fact.
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What Oprah hasn’t truly apologized for is that when she pumped 67 pounds of animal fat into millions of homes* via television, she encouraged an entire generation of people to eat unhealthy diets. It was about fighting the media’s portrayal of her, yes, but there’s a reason Oprah’s Book Club selections sell out instantly. She has Mida’s touch. But, sis, you know you suffered physical pain with every single fad diet you went on, but you still went on TV and suggested other people try them. Maybe Oprah’s misery wanted company: “If I have to starve myself to look good, then f—, so does everyone else.”
* The year 1988 is too early to remember, but how many times have I seen it replayed through archival footage on pop-culture TV shows I love the ’80s Variety made it clear that this was Oprah’s criminal.
From PURE INNOCENT FUN: Essays by Ira Madison III, to be published February 4, 2025, by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025, Ira Madison III
Pure innocent fun by Ira Madison III is out on February 4, 2025 and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.
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