This feels both sacrilegious and scary, but I have a bone to pick with Oprah Winfrey
Of course, criticising someone for throwing in their lot with Bezos shouldn't be in the least controversial. The gross parade of wedding guests attending his marriage to Lauren Sánchez in Venice last weekend looked like a catwalk of shame. There was Leonardo DiCaprio, hiding his face with his hat (we still see you!), in the company of his positively geriatric 27-year-old girlfriend, Vittoria Ceretti. There were the Kardashians, not hiding their faces. There was Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. And there, accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, Gayle King, who walked several paces behind her as is proper, was Oprah Winfrey.
Why shouldn't Oprah go to the wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez? It's a big splashy event that, given the chance, wouldn't any of us have gone to as well? (Honestly? Probably.) Still, we hold Oprah to higher standards. It's Oprah, for god sake, the woman we grew up adoring, who burst through so many ceilings, who Tina Fey correctly cast as a god-like figure in that episode of 30 Rock (where her character, Liz Lemon, took too many pills, got on a flight, and hallucinated that Oprah was sitting next to her in club class). In that scene, Fey did what we would all do if encountering Oprah while our inhibitions were lowered: she sniffed Oprah's hair, told her she loved her and went on a deranged monologue that included the phrases 'I eat emotionally' and 'I saw your show about following your fear and it inspired me to wear shorts to work'.
And it's not only love that staunches our criticism of Oprah. We also fear her. It has been the case for years now that the quickest and most effective way for a screen personality to curb press criticism is to launch a book group, guaranteeing that every hack touting a book – which is every hack in existence – nurtures a tiny flame of hope they will be chosen and whisked away from all this. Who among us has a bad word to say about Sarah Jessica Parker (hello!), or Reese Witherspoon (hi!), or the apex predator of celebrity book groups, the original and best, Oprah.
Likewise: who can forget the cautionary tale of what happened to Jonathan Franzen in 2001 when he expressed doubt that being selected for Oprah's Book Club was the best thing ever to have happened to him? Granted, Franzen's criticism was graceless. (He suggested Oprah's picks were a bit low-brow.) But his broader point about TV consuming literary culture was given no credence whatsoever. This was a few years before James Frey's makey-uppy memoir was exposed, and Oprah's book club brand briefly damaged. Instead, Franzen was burned alive for his remarks, not least by Joyce Carol Oates, whose novel, We Were the Mulvaneys, was chosen by Oprah that season and who told me at the time: 'Jonathan Franzen perceives the Oprah book readers as mainly women, and he would prefer a male readership.' Brutal.
Anyway, back to Rosie O'Donnell, an icon in her own right who is now living in Ireland after making good on her threat to leave the US if Trump was elected. 'Is Oprah friends with Jeff Bezos,' she asked rhetorically on Instagram in the wake of the wedding. 'Really? How is that possible? He treats his employees with disdain. By any metric he is not a nice man.'
That was it. Doesn't look like much, but it was seismic given the general timorousness around Oprah. And this despite years of evidence that a woman who was once a trailblazer for good has drifted into murkier waters, from her promotion of shonky showbiz medic, Dr Oz, to her enabling of cranks like Jenny McCarthy, and the power of positive thinking pseudoscience of Rhonda Byrne, to showing up at the wedding of one of the world's richest men, who begrudges his minimum wage workers their pee breaks.
Going back further, you can even take issue with the aspirational tone of Oprah's original brand, the only sustained critique of which I've read is by Janice Peck, an academic at the University of Colorado, who wrote a book called The Age of Oprah in which she questioned whether the media titan's dare-to-dream ethos was so apolitical as to skew heavily rightwing. Per Oprah's narrative, said Peck, 'she was poor and living in sackcloth someplace and then became Oprah Winfrey and everything in between and the whole historical context, all the conditions that made it possible for her to succeed, disappear. The American dream is based on that notion of: if you just put your mind to it.'
I understand this point, although I also think there's room for dare-to-dream cheerleading alongside rigorous, data-supported policy platforms. But whichever way you see these things, the bottom line is we should be able to criticise Oprah, right? This should not be hard. And yet as I type this, now, I have a small knot of dread in my stomach. Oh, god. I've done the wrong thing, haven't I. Oprah! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I still love you! Please pick my next book for your book club!
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
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Tillis, who announced he would not run again in his politically competitive state, gave a rousing speech about the perils of Medicaid cuts and voted against the bill. Collins and Paul remained in opposition. With few other options, Democrats tried to delay the vote by requiring the entire bill to be read out loud on the floor the night before the vote. But in the end, with Murkowski's vote, the Senate had a tie, allowing Vance to cast the deciding vote. Given the total opposition of Democrats to the bill's passage, Republicans in the House could lose no more than three of their own to get the bill to the finish line. On Wednesday, the last push still felt dubious. Even the procedural vote that is required to move to an actual vote was delayed for hours, as some Republicans considering holding their vote. 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The Guardian
41 minutes ago
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‘The film wouldn't even be made today': the story behind Back to the Future at 40
The actor Lea Thompson has had a distinguished screen career but hesitated to share it with her daughters when they were growing up. 'I did not show them most of my stuff because I end up kissing people all the time and it was traumatic to my children,' she recalls. 'Even when they were little the headline was, 'Mom is kissing someone that's not Dad and it's making me cry!'' Thompson's most celebrated role would be especially hard to explain. As Lorraine Baines in Back to the Future, she falls in lust with her own son, Marty McFly, a teenage time traveller from 1985 who plunges into 1955 at the wheel of a DeLorean car. Back to the Future, released 40 years ago on Thursday, is both entirely of its time and entirely timeless. It was a box office summer smash, set a benchmark for time travel movies and was quoted by everyone from President Ronald Reagan to Avengers: Endgame. It is arguably a perfect film, without a duff note or a scene out of place, a fantastic parable as endlessly watchable as It's a Wonderful Life or Groundhog Day. It also, inevitably, reflects the preoccupations of its day. An early sequence features Libyan terrorists from the era of Muammar Gaddafi, a caricature wisely dropped from a stage musical adaptation. In one scene the young George McFly turns peeping tom as he spies on Lorraine getting undressed. To some, the film's ending equates personal fulfilment with Reagan-fuelled materialism. It caught lightning in a bottle in a way that is unrepeatable. 'If you made Back to the Future in 2025 and they went back 30 years, it would be 1995 and nothing would look that different,' Thompson, 64, says by phone from a shoot in Vancouver, Canada. 'The phones would be different but it wouldn't be like the strange difference between the 80s and the 50s and how different the world was.' Bob Gale, co-writer of the screenplay, agrees everything fell into the right place at the right time, including the central partnership between young Marty (Michael J Fox) and white-haired scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). The 74-year-old says from Los Angeles: 'Oh man, the film wouldn't even be made today. We'd go into the studio and they'd say, what's the deal with this relationship between Marty and Doc? They'd start interpreting paedophilia or something. There would be a lot of things they have problems with.' Gale had met the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, at the USC School of Cinema in 1972 and together they sold several TV scripts to Universal Studios, caught the eye of Steven Spielberg and John Milius and collaborated on three films. The pair had always wanted to make a time travel movie but couldn't find the right hook. Then Gale had an epiphany. 'We put a time travel story on the back burner until I found my dad's high school yearbook and boom, that was when the lightning bolt hit me and I said, ha, this would be cool: kid goes back in time and ends up in high school with his dad!' Gale and Zemeckis pitched the script more than 40 times over four years but studios found it too risky or risque. But Spielberg saw its potential and came in as executive producer. After Zemeckis scored a hit with Romancing the Stone in 1984, Universal gave the green light. The character of Doc Brown was inspired by Gale's childhood neighbour, a photographer who showed him the 'magic' of developing pictures in a darkroom, and the educational TV show Mr Wizard which demonstrated scientific principles. Then Lloyd came in and added an interpretation based on part Albert Einstein, part Leopold Stokowski. Thompson was cast as Lorraine after a successful audition. She felt that her background as a ballet and modern dancer gave her a strong awareness of the movement and physicality required to play both versions of Lorraine: one young and airy, the other middle-aged and beaten down by life. 'I was perfectly poised for that character,' she says. 'I understood both the dark and the light of Lorraine McFly and understood the hilarity of being super sexually attracted to your son. I thought that was frickin' hilarious. I understood the subversive comedy of it.' Thompson has previously worked with Eric Stoltz, who was cast in the lead role of Marty at the behest of Sidney Sheinberg, a Universal executive who had nurtured Spielberg and put Jaws into production. But over weeks of filming, starting in November 1984, it became apparent that Stoltz's serious tone was not working. Gale recalls: 'He wasn't giving us the kind of humour that we thought the character should have. He actually thought the movie turned out to be a tragedy because he ends up in a 1985 where a lot of his life is different. People can argue about that: did the memories of his new past ripple into his brain, did he remember both his lives? That's an interesting conversation to have and it gets more interesting the more beer you drink.' Eventually it fell to Zemeckis to inform Stoltz that his services were no longer required. Gale continues: 'He said he thought that possibly Eric was relieved: it was not like a devastating blow to him. This is just hindsight and speculation but maybe Eric's agents thought that it would be a good career move for him to do a movie like this that had Spielberg involved. Who knows?' Stoltz's abrupt departure came as a shock to the rest of the cast. Thompson says: 'It was horrible. He was my friend and obviously a wonderful actor. Everybody wants to think that making a movie is fun and that we're laughing for the 14 hours we're standing in the middle of a street somewhere. 'But it's also scary because you need to feel like you've made a little family for that brief amount of time. So the minute someone gets fired, you're like, oh wait, this is a big business, this is serious, this is millions of dollars being spent.' Stoltz was replaced by the young Canadian actor Michael J Fox, whom Zemeckis and Gale had wanted in the first place, and several scenes had to be reshot. Fox was simultaneously working on the sitcom Family Ties so was often sleep-deprived. But his boundless charm, frazzled energy and comic timing – including ad libs – were the missing piece of the jigsaw. Thompson comments: 'He is gifted but he also worked extremely hard at his shtick like the great comedians of the 20s, 30s and 40s: the falling over, the double take, the spit take, the physical comedy, the working on a bit for hours and hours like the greats, like Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. Michael understood that. 'Being a dancer, I was fascinated and kind of weirdly repelled because it didn't seem like the acting that we were all trying to emulate: the De Niro kind of super reality-based acting that we were in awe of in the 80s, coming out of the great films of the 70s. I feel like Eric Stoltz, who is a brilliant actor, was trying to do more of that. Michael was the face of this new acting, especially comedy acting, which was in a way a throwback and a different energy.' It was this lightness of touch that enabled Fox and Thompson to carry off moments that might otherwise have seemed weird, disturbing and oedipal. When 1950s Lorraine – who has no idea that Marty is her future son – eventually kisses him inside a car, she reports that it is like 'kissing my brother' and the romantic tension dissolves, much to the audience's relief. Thompson says: 'It was a difficult part and it was a very dangerous thread to put through a needle. I have to fall out of love with him just by kissing him and I remember Bob Zemeckis obsessing about that moment. It was also a hard shot to get because it was a vintage car and they couldn't take it apart. Bob was also worried about the moment when I had to fall back in love with George [Marty's father] after he punches Biff. 'For those moments to be so important is part of the beauty of the movie. These are 'small' people; these are not 'great' people; they're not doing 'great' things. These are people who live in a little tiny house in Hill Valley and to make the moments of falling out of love and falling in love so beautiful with that incredible score is fascinating.' Back to the Future was the biggest hit of the year, grossing more than $200m in the US and entering the cultural mainstream. When Doc asks Marty who is president in 1985, Marty replies Ronald Reagan and Brown says in disbelief: 'Ronald Reagan? The actor? Then who's vice-president? Jerry Lewis?' Reagan, a voracious film viewer, was so amused by the joke that he made the projectionist stop and rewind it. He went on to namecheck the film and quote its line, 'Where we're going, we don't need roads,' in his 1986 State of the Union address. Thompson, whose daughters are the actors Madelyn Deutch and Zoey Deutch, was amazed by Back to the Future's success. 'But when I look at the movie, I do understand the happy accident of why it's become the movie it's become to generation after generation. The themes are powerful. The execution was amazing. The casting was great. The idea was brilliant. It was a perfect script. Those things don't come together usually.' And if she had her own time machine, where would she go? 'If I could be a man, I might go back to Shakespeare but as a woman you don't want to go anywhere in time. Time has been hard on women. So for me, whenever I'm asked this question, it's not a lighthearted answer. I can only give you a political answer.' The film ends with Doc whisking Marty and girlfriend Jennifer into the DeLorean and taking off into the sky. But Gale points out that the message 'to be continued' was added only for the home video release, as a way to announce a sequel, rather than being in the original theatrical run. Back to the Future Part II, part of which takes place in 2015, brought back most of the main characters including the villain Biff Tannen, who becomes a successful businessman who opens a 27-storey casino and uses his money to gain political influence. Many viewers have drawn a comparison with Donald Trump. Gale explains: 'Biff in the first movie is not based on Donald Trump; Biff is just an archetype bully. When Biff owns a casino, there was a Trump influence in that, absolutely. Trump had to put his name on all of his hotels and his casinos and that's what Biff does too. 'But when people say, oh, Biff was based on Donald Trump, well, no, that wasn't the inspiration for the character. Everybody has a bully in their life and that's who Biff was. There's nothing that resembles Donald Trump in Biff in Part I.' Back to the Future Part III, in which Marty and Doc and thrown back to the old west, was released in 1990. A year later Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the age of 29. He went public with his diagnosis in 1998 and became a prominent advocate for research and awareness. He also continued acting, with roles in shows such as The Good Wife and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and in October will publish a Back to the Future memoir entitled Future Boy. Thompson, whose brothers both have Parkinson's, sees Fox twice a year. 'He's endlessly inspiring. He's very smart and he's done the spiritual work, the psychological work on himself to not be bitter about something awful happening to him but also be honest: this sucks.' Time's arrow moves in one direction but Back to the Future found a way to stage a comeback. One night after seeing the Mel Brooks musical The Producers in New York, Zemeckis's wife Leslie suggested that Back to the Future would make a good musical. Gale duly wrote the book and was a producer of the show, which premiered in Manchester in 2020 and has since played in London, New York and around the world. Gale says: 'It was total euphoria. The first time I saw the dress rehearsal with the DeLorean, before we had an audience, I went out of my mind how great it was, and then to see the audience going completely out of their minds with everything was just such a joyous validation. 'I'm so blessed to have a job where I get to make people happy. That's a great thing to be able to do and get paid for that. I don't ever take any of this for granted. I'm having a great time and the idea that Back to the Future is still with us after all these years, as popular as it ever was, is a blessing. I think about it all the time that if we had not put Michael J Fox in the movie, you and I probably wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.' Why, indeed, are we still talking about Back to the Future four decades later? 'Every person in the world wonders, how did I get here, how did my parents meet? The idea that your parents were once children is staggering when you realise it when you're about seven or eight years old. 'Your parents are these godlike creatures, and they're always saying, well, when I was your age, and you're going, what are they talking about, how could they have ever been my age? Then at some point it all comes together. If you have a younger sibling and you're watching them grow up, you realise, oh, my God, my parents were once screw-ups like me!' And if Gale had a time machine, where would he go? 'I don't think I would go to the future because I'd be too scared,' he says. 'We all see what happens when you know too much about the future. My mom, before she was married, was a professional musician, a violinist, and she had a nightclub act in St Louis called Maxine and Her Men. I'd like to travel back in time to 1947 and see my mother performing in a nightclub. That's what I would do.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Michael Madsen – a life in pictures
Michael Madsen in his high school yearbook photo Photograph: Alamy Madsen in the TV series Our Family Honor, in New York in 1985 Photograph: Walt Disney Television Photo Archives/ABC Madsen in Kill Me Again, 1989 Photograph: ITV/Shutterstock Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock Val Kilmer (center) and Michael Madsen (right) in The Doors, 1991 Photograph: Tristar Pictures/Allstar Madsen with actors Susan Sarandon (center left) and Geena Davis, and director Ridley Scott on the set of Thelma And Louise, 1991 Photograph:Madsen in Reservoir Dogs, 1992 Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Feature From left, Michael Madsen, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Chris Penn, Lawrence Tierney, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi and Edward Bunker in Reservoir Dogs Photograph: Rank Film/Allstar Madsen in The Getaway, 1993 Photograph: Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy From left, Dennis Quaid, Linden Ashby, Kevin Costner and Michael Madsen in Wyatt Earp, 1994 Photograph: Kobal Collection From left, Michael Madsen, Forest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley and Marg Helgenberger in Species, 1994 Photograph: MGM/Allstar Madsen in Mulholland Falls, 1996 Photograph: Kobal Collection From left, Chris Penn, Nick Nolte, Michael Madsen and Chazz Palminteri in Mulholland Falls Photograph: THA/Shutterstock From left, James Russo, Al Pacino and Michael Madsen in Donnie Brasco, 1997 Photograph: Tristar/Sportsphoto/Allstar Photograph: Mark Liley/Allstar Madsen at the 43rd Monaco TV festival in Monaco, 2003 Photograph: Alain Benainous /Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images Madsen in Blueberry, 2004 Photograph: AJ OZ Films/Allstar Madsen in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, 2004 Photograph: Miramax/Allstar Madsen in Hell Ride, 2008 Photograph: Dimension Films/Allstar Madsen at the closing ceremony of the 67th Cannes international film festival in 2014 Photograph: DPA Picture Alliance/Alamy Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Guardian Madsen at the 2015 Ambi Gala in Toronto, Canada Photograph: Arthur Mola/Invision/AP Madsen in Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, 2015 Photograph: Andrew Cooper/Weinstein Company/Allstar Madsen in the Red Bull racing garage during qualifying for the Formula One Grand Prix of Austria at Red Bull Ring in July 2016 Photograph:Madsen in Dark Feathers: Dance of the Geisha, 2024 Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Guardian
