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Oprah Winfrey has been a great many things over her incredible career: talk show host, fashion icon, actress, health inspiration and magazine publisher.
Now Winfrey is adding another role to her resume: spiritual seeker. Last year Oprah broke new ground with “Belief,” a documentary series broadcast on her Oprah Winfrey Network. Her new project, Greenleaf, is both an extension and departure from the premise that inspired the series.
According to The Associated Press, Greenleaf is a fictionalized dramatic take on the “questionable ethics of a family at the center of a Tennessee megachurch …”
Winfrey told the AP she sees Greenleaf as, “another platform to really offer the message that we are more alike than different; to offer the message that being grounded in knowing what you believe is important. I'm not trying to tell you what to believe or how to believe.”
Bishop Greenleaf runs a tight and palatial ship, with all the trappings of extreme wealth. Most of his family have come along for the ride, but one adult child moved away, leaving the family and the church. Winfrey is a member of the cast, playing bar owner Mavis, who she says is based on Maya Angelou … but may have just a touch of Whoopi Goldberg’s fan favorite character from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Winfrey said the show explores religion and spirituality without being disrespectful to church tradition. In many ways the program is being promoted, smartly, as a journey through faith with Oprah as your tour guide. While the character dynamics are not quite clear yet, it’s reasonable to see Winfrey’s Mavis character as a stereotypical wise and erudite wit behind the bar, a common TV trope that could be put to good use as the unbiased witness to all the trials and travails of the other characters working out their faith.
The drama sets a definite trend line for Winfrey, who is clearly doing some personal spiritual exploration of her own. Less, “what does it all mean,” and more “what can it mean for me.”
She insists neither her documentary nor this new program are meant to convince, guilt or convert anyone, simply to challenge people to think about what they believe. It’s a question Oprah seems to be asking herself as well.
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