'It's my job.'
Whoopi Goldberg isn't singing The View's praises.
In a recent New York Times profile, the 63-year-old morning show host gave fairly concise and unflowery answers about the job she's held since 2007.
When the Times asked Goldberg if the show addresses her creative impulses, she simply replied, "no." As for if she gets creative fulfillment from The View, she stated, "It's my job."
"I get [fulfillment] from the fact that I’m doing anything," Goldberg added later in the interview.
When it comes to how she views herself on the series, and whether or not she sees it as an acting job of sorts, Goldberg expanded her answer.
"What you’re asking is, 'Is The View enough?' It’s not," Goldberg candidly said. "Ten years is a long time, and now I’m starting to do other stuff. I’m doing books. I’m adventuring into THC products. I'm creating the clothes."
"... In a way, I am playing a role," she added. "These are not conversations that I’m having with my friends. If they were, we’d be doing it differently. My friends and I can talk about things in depth in a different way than you can on television."
The concept of The View -- people of different beliefs discussing a wide array of topics -- isn't one that Goldberg considers new, rather one that she sees as an old practice that's gone out of style as of late.
"I’ve never had any problem with having friends who had different opinions from my own. So The View hasn’t been different for me," she said. "But my vision of America when I was young was different, because everything was changing. Black and white people were going out together, and it didn’t matter what the adults said. And suddenly you were hearing about whole groups in neighborhoods that felt disposable -- those are the guys who were going to Vietnam. So for me, it’s only been in the last few years that people seem to have stopped listening to one another."
"There aren’t a lot of reminders of the past. I grew up during a time when there were still World War II veterans around, there were still Holocaust survivors around. Then all those folks started dying off," she continued. "People don’t know about all the hard-won battles anymore: gay folks fighting for their rights, the separation of church and state. So the answer to your question is that for a good long time we had a national conversation about things that now we’re having to reiterate."
Goldberg, who said she doesn't "really watch the show" and "didn't watch the show before I was on," speculated that its success is a result of there being "nothing else like it" on TV.
"Because it’s live, I’m always surprised when people say the things they say. But, you know, it’s five people talking, and then there’s this fascination with women and fighting," she said. "I don't spend a lot of time thinking about [why people are fascinated by women fighting]. Grow up. It's a show. This is what we do for a living."
Watch the video below for more on The View.
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