Airheads

Beneath all the retro stereotypes and bogus "you go, girl!" feminism, Oxygen's core message to American women is: Keep shopping!

By Joyce Millman

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Feb 22, 2000 | Oxygen, the new 24-hour cable-TV network for women founded by (among others) Oprah Winfrey and former Nickelodeon and Disney/ABC Cable president Geraldine Laybourne, is billed as a place where women can "take a breath" from the exhausting task of being female.

Being female myself, and usually exhausted, I've been tuning in since Oxygen's Feb. 2 debut to sample the network that was designed (like Ice Blue Secret) especially for me. And this is what I've seen:

  • "Pajama Party," a talk show where the host, guests and on-stage audience, all grown women, are wearing pajamas and giggling about boys 'n' stuff;
  • "We Sweat," which is not a deodorant commercial, but a show about women's sports;
  • "Oprah Goes Online," in which Winfrey and her minion, Gayle King, learn all about that Internet thingie in 12 easy lessons;
  • "Pure Oxygen," a live, midday clone of ABC's "The View," featuring celebrity interviews, astrology forecasts, newsy tidbits, relationship, health, fashion and money advice, a daily "water cooler" topic and a DJ named Monica who takes us into commercials with a snippet of music and the reminder to "take a breath;"
  • "Trackers," a late afternoon teenage girl version of "Pure Oxygen;"
  • "Inhale," a morning yoga show;
  • "Exhale," a prime-time talk show where a very serious Candice Bergen interviews guests like Naomi Judd and Grace Slick on a pillow-strewn, flower-laden estrogen-chic living-room set;
  • and a brand-new version of the hoary game show "I've Got a Secret," which has nothing to with women, per se, but fills up airtime, so what the heck.

Across the bottom of the screen, in the space where ESPN runs scores and CNBC runs stock quotes, Oxygen runs the e-tail addresses of its sponsors.

And after all this Oxygenating, I have come to a perplexing conclusion: I am not woman enough for this women's cable network. I mean, I'm not much of a shopper, I never read my horoscope and I was miraculously able to find the Internet without Oprah's help. I haven't been to a pajama party since ninth grade. I would rather watch a hockey fight -- in fact, I would rather be in a hockey fight -- than watch anything called "We Sweat." I think Naomi Judd is a babbling idiot.

Watching Oxygen, there were times when I actually did have to "take a breath" -- from the sheer, overwhelming, insulting girliness of it all. I reached my breaking point somewhere between the "Pajama Party" segment where the bride-to-be had a bronze mold of her butt made as a gift for her fiance and the documentary about the woman who draws the comic strip "Cathy." So much for my notoriously high tolerance for brain-sucking vapidity.

Oxygen, which is synergistically united with Oxygen.com (a collection of women-aimed Web sites), is very well funded -- Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and AOL are among its major investors. But, so far, funding hasn't resulted in clout; Oxygen is still fighting for space on cable systems, reaching only 7 million to 10 million homes (it's unavailable in New York City and parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco), in contrast to its venerable women's cable rival Lifetime, which reaches 75 million homes. And it hasn't resulted in compelling programming, either. Oxygen is relying mainly on in-house talk and infotainment shows augmented by "interactive" segments where the TV hosts take email questions from viewers in real time. You can get the same exciting visual effect by setting up an armchair in the middle of your office and watching your co-workers type.

Oxygen is a depressing jumble of retro stereotypes and empty "You go, girl!" solidarity. And it's absolutely obsessed with body image. On Feb. 10 and 11, for example, I took down the following program notes: The animated block "X-Chromosome" (actually the most original and impressive of Oxygen's programming) showed "Fat Girl," a cartoon about a sassy, large-and-in-charge woman who clashes with her mean, stick-figure female boss, and "Bitchy Bits," in which a woman grumbled and bitched her way through a bathing suit shopping expedition. Bergen had a show about teenage girls and self-esteem, which included much talk of eating disorders and the entertainment industry's notion of beauty. There was the aforementioned "Cathy" documentary (more bathing suit shopping!), and the "Pajama Party" segment where host Katie Puckrick poked fun at dieting-obsessed women who are afraid to eat. And "Pure Oxygen" had a plus-size lingerie fashion show. Yes, many women have food and weight issues. But Oxygen's schizo attitude ("It's cool to be fat!"; "I hate myself in a bathing suit!") is doing nobody any favors; it just reinforces viewers' love-hate affairs with their bodies.

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