The Power of Love

Let's get one thing straight right away: I do not think Celine Dion is the best singer in the world. She has a nice voice, and she seems like a very nice person, but her cornball rating is off the charts. The woman is certifiably nutty, which I guess is what happens when you're French Canadian.

"The best singer in the world" title comes from the Ana Gasteyer sketch from SNL in the late 90s. I found only one video, so let's hope it stays up on YouTube for a while:

So, Celine had some twins. And she has a giant mansion in Florida, complete with a lazy river and some water slides. It looks awesome. But soon she'll be back in Las Vegas for three more years at Caesar's Palace. In 2005, I went with Ellen DeGeneres and a bunch of mothers for a Mother's Day weekend in Vegas. We stayed at Caesar's, and everyone got to see Celine's show. I was there when all the mothers met Celine before the show, and she was super nice, but I couldn't bear the idea of sitting through her show. So I gave up my ticket and won $467 at craps instead. That's what I call a win-win.

In case you want to see some of that meeting with Celine, I managed to find a YouTube video of it. I haven't transferred my own tapes to the computer, so we have to deal with what I can find online. Basically, most of the audience reaction shots in the segment (once they get to Vegas, which is about 1:55 into the video) are ones I shot.

Oprah interviewed Celine for the first 20 minutes of the show, which was odd. Seems like a waste of the "Oprah & Celine" graphic made for the show, especially since Celine's name was almost as big as Oprah's this time around. This was her 27th appearance on the show, and Katie said that the guest's name just gets bigger every time. It's a good thing this is Oprah's Farewell Season, since if Celine kept showing up on that stage, Oprah would have to just give her the show.

Oprah saw a picture on the internet of a couple and their sextuplets, and she wanted to have the family on the show. This couple had lost their twins due to pre-term labor (the babies were born alive, and died when the doctor cut the cord, which is horrifying), then tried again and got pregnant with sextuplets. They're all cute and healthy, and the mom has quite a system worked out to keep her house clean and organized. The dad owns his own business, McGhee's Carpet Cleaning, in Columbus, Ohio, which Oprah hyped up a bunch in the hopes of getting him more business. But they still need help, so Oprah got Wal-Mart to give them $250,000 in store credit. And then Celine came back to help Oprah surprise the couple with a honeymoon to Vegas.

Oh, and then Celine sang. She sang a Billy Joel song I don't know, "Lullaby," and there were pictures of her family, and it was all predictably dramatic. We fast-forwarded through that, and the show was over.

Tuesday's show featured a little girl who was rescued from her family over ten years ago, after police discovered that she had been forced to live in a cage. The girl is now 21, and hasn't really been in therapy, which Oprah did not like at all. I don't blame her. If ever there were a time to talk to someone about your feelings, it's probably when you spent the first seven years of your life in a cage, being hosed down by freezing cold water whenever you were "bad." 

Oprah sent the girl back to her old house, where she recognized the basement where she had been kept, and flashed upon memories. But it wasn't as interesting as you might think.

In fact, I was more interested in the next story, about a little girl named Hailey who had been born a boy named "Harry." Before she was two years old, she was exhibiting female tendencies, and before she was three years old, she told her parents she was a girl. Her mom was quite evolved in the matter, and cool with it, while her dad at first thought his son was just gay. He was not happy about that, but when it turned out his daughter was really transgender, he wished the kid had just been gay. 

The father said something that always pisses me off in situations like this: "The first time I heard that my son was transgender, I was incredibly angry. Obviously. Every man would be." 

I hate that. I hate the implication that only a man could be upset if his son turned out to be a girl, or even that every man would naturally be upset in that situation. And I have a hard time believing the guy would say the same thing if it turned out his daughter wanted to be a boy. You would think a dude who has a transgender child would perhaps be a little more in tune with the absurdity of gender roles, but apparently not. Later, Lisa Ling referred to the father as a "man's man" because he watches football or something. Because only men do that. And if you don't do it, you're not a man. Please don't get me started on this crap. I just think it's weird that you come on the show to talk about how maybe gender is not as confining as this society makes it seem, and then fall right into the same bullshit about what's expected of you if you happen to have a penis.

Wednesday's show was part two of the Iyanla saga. I couldn't bring myself to watch it after watching the previous two back-to-back, so you'll have to wait to find out what else Iyanla "Crazytown" Vanzant had to say.