Show notes
In 1987 Oprah Winfrey read a book that changed her life. What happened to her as a result of reading that book, the unanticipated lesson she learned, remains fresh and urgent for her 38 years later.
The book, by author Toni Morrison, was a novel called Beloved in which Morrison attempts to show what it was like to be a slave. What did slavery do to the enslaved person’s inner life, to their psyche, to their soul? How did slavery shape not only the enslaved person, but also their descendants—even when slavery was over?
When Oprah Winfrey first read the novel, she fell in love with it. She just knew that she had to make a movie based on this book. Toni Morrison had never allowed any of her novels to be made into a film, but the author succumbed to the charms and persuasive powers of Oprah Winfrey.
Oprah worked on the film Beloved for more than ten years. She herself played the lead. She used her power and influence to get the film made. The film was 3 hours long, was intense, hard, and sad—and did not have a happy ending.
How did the film do? Alan Stone, a professor of law and psychiatry at Harvard Law School at the time, saw the film in Harvard Square when it first opened. He wrote:
Ten minutes into the film, I began to hear audible groans from my two companions, who subsequently predicted Beloved’s demise at the box office. They hated the film: they could not follow it…Baffled by the narrative…they like most filmgoers, missed the experience that Oprah wanted them to have.
Alan Stone’s friends would prove prophetic. The film cost 80 million dollars to make. It took in 22 million dollars at the box office. The first weekend it came out, even with Oprah’s star power, the film was beaten at the box office by a horror movie called The Bride of Chucky. It took ten years to make. It was pulled from the theatres after four weeks.
Oprah had been completely invested in this project. She worked on it for more than ten years. She believed in it. She really cared. And after all that personal care and investment, her beloved film Beloved did not land.
The failure of her film devastated Oprah. When she learned that Beloved got beat at the box office by Chucky, she shared that stayed home and ate a prodigious amount of macaroni and cheese, and she experienced a major depression. She observed: “It was the only time in my life that I was ever depressed, and I recognized that I was depressed because I’ve done enough shows on the topic. ‘O, this is what people must feel like who are depressed.’
All of which happened in 1998. Why am I bringing it up now?
Author John Maxwell observed that life’s greatest lessons always come from our failures, not from our successes. The more painful our failure, the more important it is to extract a life-enhancing lesson from that failure. That is just what Oprah did.
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