Wednesday, November 4, 2009

MacKenzie Philips (in the flesh)

Looks like Australian TV finally decided to air the MacKenzie Phillips episode of Oprah.
It's so hard to watch, she's so vulnerable.
She's talking, and I can see now why people questioned the whole 'reveal.' Oprah is so straightforward and casual, and MacKenzie is holding her shit together, using actual words, which is admirable, but misleading.

Are people really so blind? Do they not realise that the only way to talk about painful or difficult things is to remove yourself, to just talk, use words. You're expected to break down, cry, shake, show emotion, but if you do that, you'll rip yourself apart, so you hold your shit together. Oprah, she's direct, and she's cool, and that speaks volumes of her own past experiences.

I see all this, and I see now how easy it was for so many people to interpret her situation the way they did, and it frustrates me, because people have so little empathy and that's not something that's easy to change.