Still Famous

After a few days of relative obscurity, Nadya Suleman, aka Octomom, is back in the news big-time this week. This morning, the morning news shows had video of a pretty spirited argument between Nadya and her mother, from celebrity gossip website radaronline.com. Nadya's father was on Oprah, and now I just learned that Nadya has given a "daytime television exclusive" interview to Dr. Phil, which will be on his show tomorrow and Thursday. Wow.

Based on what I've seen since the octuplets were born a month ago, fame isn't doing this family any favors (think about it - they've been getting death threats,) so why are they all of a sudden all over the place again? My best guess is that they're trying to create a more sympathetic perception of Nadya, presumably to generate more assistance and support. So far, that strategy doesn't appear to be working. I only saw a small clip of the face-off on radaronline.com, and I don't know the context of how the interview came to be, but what I saw didn't reflect well on Nadya or her mother.

I was curious to hear what her Dad had to say, so I videotaped Oprah and watched it while I was eating my lunch. At the end of the show I felt a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Doud. He personally came across as a kind man doing his best to cope with a situation that he didn't create and can't really control. The first thing that struck me was that he clearly wanted to go on Oprah - she said a couple of times that he reached out to her producers and asked to be on the show, and I found myself wondering why. Given how negative the press coverage of his daughter's story has been, why go on Oprah? It seems obvious that he was hoping to change the tone of the coverage, and as I said, hopefully generate more donations.

There's no question that Oprah can mobilize people. If she had had a nice cozy chat with Dad, then announced that she was making a generous donation to the family and encouraged her viewers to do the same, Nadya's financial problems would probably be over. That didn't happen and I believe it was naive in the extreme for anyone to think that it would. Why? Because nice cozy chats make boring television, and the Oprah show is first and foremost a television show. Forget that fact at your own peril. Conflict, confrontation and scandal is what makes good television.

So there was Dr. Oz, declaring Nadya to be "selfishly delusional." There was another fertility expert talking about the guidelines for IVF implantation and how Nadya's doctor exceeded them. Dr. Oz again, saying that people aren't donating money because they don't trust Nadya. "If I send $100 to Mom right now, will it go for a pedicure or will it go to help the kids?" A snarky comment, perfect for television, and it got the biggest applause of the entire show. It really did make me feel sorry for Nadya's father.

As I said in my first post about the octuplet story, the media in America is a very fickle lover, and so far it's been pretty mean to Nadya. Something tells me it's not going to get any better with Dr. Phil. I'm sure it will be very good television, but good for Nadya? Probably not so much.