Oprah & exploitation

Since appearing on a Nov. 11 taping of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Charla Nash’s destroyed face has become an Internet sensation.

Nine months ago, Nash was attacked by a 200-pound chimpanzee. The chimp ripped off her nose, her lips, one thumb and a large part of her scalp. Surgeons had to create a hole in her face so she could drink meals through a straw. In her first interview since the highly publicized attack, Nash appeared on Oprah adorned in a black veil. During the early part of the interview, Nash explained that she wears the veil so as not to scare people away.

Then Oprah went too far. In a move that has the stench of “sweeps” all over it, Oprah prodded Nash to lift the veil and reveal the swollen, scarred remains of her face. In a moment, Nash’s destroyed face was beamed around the world. It did not take long before Nash’s terrible suffering was turned into comic fodder. The New York Daily News observed, "If Charla Nash still had eyes, she too would be horrified."

No one can deny that Oprah is a master of the interview. But this circus-like exploitation of the disfigured is too much. Oprah simply went too far in trotting out Nash’s disfigured face for the gawking edification of America. Nash has already endured enough. Was it really necessary to subject her to yet another indignity?


Williams can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Power 169 from 9 to 10 p.m. EST.

Visit www.armstrongwilliams.com .