[ABC News]
Oprah Winfrey is facing a barrage of criticism from disappointed Indian viewers who say she resorted to “sterotypes and cliches” in the episode of her show “Oprah’s Next Chapter” dealing with her visit to the subcontinent.
“Watching the Oprah in India thing on TLC and getting more and more irritated by the minute,” one viewer in India tweeted.
The two-part episode, which aired in India this weekend, depicts Winfrey’s first visit to the country, featuring lavish parties with Bollywood stars and Indian royalty, a visit to a Mumbai slum and a sari fitting with a top designer. The episode opens with shots of crowded roads filled with painted elephants, snake charmers and cows roaming the streets.
“It’s all the stereotypes and all the clichés the West has, between the elephants and the palaces and the snake charmers and cows,” Aseem Chhabra, a freelance journalist and columnist for the Mumbai Mirror, told ABC News. “That exists in India, but it’s this imagery of India that some people seem to have, and I think I expected a lot more from somebody like Oprah Winfrey.”