Lee Siegel
Lee Siegel
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth5 December 1957
CountryUnited States of America
amateur love popular
I love the idea of the amateur - that's what popular culture is all about. But what the Internet's doing is professionalizing everyone's amateuristic impulses.
bondage charity encounters escape hard hope life moral oprah redemption single takes terrors vicarious violent visions
A single week of Oprah takes you from bondage to all the violent terrors of life, to escape through vicarious encounters with celebrity, to visions of charity and hope, to hard resolve, to redemption and moral renovation.
burdened comfort feels role viewer
The sitcom's traditional role has been to comfort the viewer who feels burdened by the unreality of American expectations.
decency reflect
Television has to reflect back to you your own sense of security. It also has to mirror your sense of your own decency and your own limitations.
aspiration hardly hope tv website
Oprah's aspiration to inspire her audience with hope - elaborated on her TV show, in her magazine, and on her website - is hardly ignoble.
address became flow inevitable itself life mundane ordinary problems time
It became inevitable that television would address life's mundane problems because television itself is so mundane, part of the ordinary flow of time the way those problems are.
america based became beginning change country cultural entered human nature oprah quiet stages
In 1986, human nature in America started to change. That year, 'The Oprah Winfrey Show,' based in Chicago, became nationally syndicated, and the country entered the beginning stages of a quiet cultural revolution.
readers
The Web critic relies on his or her readers for attentiveness and approval.
definitely dread everyday feels political present terrorist threat
The terrorist threat is so cloudy, faceless, and vague, so manipulable by political purposes, so definitely present but indefinitely manifested, that it sometimes feels interchangeable with everyday dread itself.
develop fleeing people
Everyone seems to be fleeing from the responsibilities that come from being who you are. I think that is why the blogosphere is thriving. It allows people to develop a fantasy self.
primarily
'Hotel Rwanda' is an American product, not a Rwandan one, made primarily for American audiences.
anonymity convention expedience
Anonymity is a universal convention of the blogosphere, and the wicked expedience is that you can speak without consequences.
tantrum throws
I react very badly when mediocrity throws a tantrum of entitlement.