Virginia Postrel, Columnist

Oprah, American Girls and Other Binge Dreamers: Virginia Postrel

May 26, 2011 at 11:21 PM UTC

Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”

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In her 25 years hosting her eponymousshow, Oprah Winfrey changed lives, most notably her own, but shedid not change American culture. Rather, she revived andextended an old American phenomenon: the tradition of middlebrowself-improvement that many observers assumed had died in theanti-authority turmoil of the 1960s. While anything but radical,this achievement was nonetheless remarkable.

To understand its significance, positive and negative,consider two other media institutions that also debuted in 1986.The first is Spy magazine, defunct since 1998. Enormouslyinfluential, particularly in New York media circles, Spypioneered the snobby, snarky cynicism that many writers under 50still equate with sophistication. Spy did change the culture.