Oprah’s ‘Ignorance’ Irks India

Posted on Jul 24, 2012

Photo by Laszlo Ilyes (CC-BY)

“[M]yopic, unaware, ignorant and gauche” is how one critic described Oprah Winfrey’s India travelogue. Viewers on the subcontinent this weekend got their first look at the program, which was taped in January and aired in the U.S. in April.

Sruthi Gottipati, writing on The New York Times’ India Ink blog in April, said Oprah “wowed the country” with her visit.

The TV host herself may have been impressive, but it seems the presentation of “Oprah’s adventure in India” left something to be desired.

BBC:

Winfrey, 58, drew particular criticism for remarking on the Indian tradition of eating with one’s hands.

“I heard some Indian people eat with their hands still?” she is seen asking a Mumbai family she joins for dinner.

“Using our hands to eat is a well-established tradition and a fact none of us are ashamed of,” blogged Rituparna Chatterjee of the CNN-IBN news channel.

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The India special aired on Oprah’s OWN network, which the talk show host launched after shuttering her hugely successful syndicated daytime show.

—Posted by Peter Z. Scheer. Follow him on Twitter: @peesch.

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