Oprah Winfrey’s and Whoopi Goldberg’s appearance together at the Academy Awards, to introduce a tribute to the late music arranger/producer and Hollywood mogul Quincy Jones, was the strangest way to begin Women’s History Month. Loping side by side, the famous frenemies paused on their marks to perform a vaudeville routine of shared purpose to honor Jones — except that Winfrey, noted misandrist and Michael Jackson–hater, conspicuously omitted Jackson’s name when she listed the artists associated with Jones’s greatest success. But Goldberg added: “When we talk about black excellence, we talk about Quincy.”
Almost immediately, the racialized insistence of this reunion reminded the public of the cultural betrayal that has taken place in show business in the era of diversity, inclusion, equity (DIE). Winfrey and Goldberg, ages 71 and 69, were presenting themselves as political avatars rather than the companionable media figures of their first renown.
Both actresses had made their film debuts in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 movie adaptation of the Alice Walker novel The Color Purple. Goldberg played the lead role of melodramatically mistreated Celie, impregnated as a teenager and constantly abused by men (“systematically, . . . like Oliver Twist,” she announces while reading Dickens in the film’s strikingly sophisticated narrative). Celie grows into maturity and self-sufficiency through sisterhood — her Christian faith that she would be reunited with her sibling Nettie (Akosua Busia), the romantic initiative provided by blues singer Shug (Margaret Avery), and the risky example of bodacious, pugilistic neighbor Sofia (played by Winfrey).
The Color Purple should be the lasting career touchstone for both Goldberg and Winfrey, its genuine popularity sustained through perennial TV runs and word of mouth, despite critical and industry controversy. (It lost Academy awards to the old-guard liberal sentiment and colonialist love story of Meryl Streep’s and Robert Redford’s Out of Africa — a striking irony for the era of anti-apartheid activism.)
Given their unique modern folk-culture status, Goldberg and Winfrey became career competitors. Goldberg would appear in several popular movies — Jumpin’ Jack Flash, The Sister Act franchise, and, in an Oscar-winning role, the lamentable Ghost. Meanwhile, Winfrey, via her syndicated television talk show, became a media potentate — an unavoidable figure of female achievement and trust across the globe.
Yet, becoming a media-fabricated godhead has its drawbacks. Personal idiosyncrasy and hubris — not The Color Purple’s humility — became Winfrey and Goldberg’s defining characteristic. Goldberg moved in on Winfrey’s territory by joining the cast of the ABC network’s chat show The View in 2007. This infringement could not be assuaged by Winfrey’s acting career, which was foundering. She had produced Jonathan Demme’s film version of Toni Morrison’s Beloved in 1998, a culmination of her TV book club objectives and truly the crowning achievement of her acting ambitions. But Beloved — a veritable cinematic masterpiece — flopped. Its rejection was shocking. Oprah’s faithful multitudes still haven’t accepted its avant-garde characterizations, visionary audacity, and historical complexity — a refusal that foreshadowed a devastating personal and cultural decline.
The new millennium saw Winfrey and Goldberg become embittered rivals — publicly at odds when the former slighted the latter at a 2005 “Legends Ball” celebration for black divas at Winfrey’s Santa Barbara, Calif., estate. The Quincy Jones tribute didn’t patch up the envy, but it was on display during spontaneous jousting: each claimed The Color Purple’s legacy for herself.
This cultural contest resulted from an interpersonal breakdown. Winfrey and Goldberg had become intra-racial foes — no longer likable examples of black American excellence but strident political operatives who exuded exceptional dishonesty: That Quincy intro lacked sisterhood. Goldberg has flipped her once-charming smile into an ogre’s grimace through daily attacks on national civility from the Democratic Party bully pulpit of ABC-Disney’s The View. Following her interview with Meghan Markle, and other recent ruses, Winfrey lost all credibility by stumping for presidential candidate Kamala Harris and denying her remuneration, thus denying her true motives. Being the first Obama, culturally speaking, means that Winfrey was never endowed with the immense power of the actual Obama.
Oprah’s and Whoopi’s misadventure — flaunting their wealth and fame, using both as racial intimidation — tells of more than just rogue celebrity. It forsakes the decorum and graciousness that once made pop figures exceptional. It’s another example of the cultural betrayal committed by so many celebrities who mistake their good fortune and offend the public’s goodwill.
This betrayal seems connected to the same kind of psychological breakdown, advanced cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome, that appeared so obvious in the cultural-political betrayals of Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, and their ilk. The twin psychoses shared by Oprah and Whoopi should offer some kind of lesson as the ultimate legacy of The Color Purple and Beloved, and it is this: success and celebrity has cost them their integrity. The history of disappointment and disillusionment behind such misbehavior cannot be disguised by the phony bonhomie of DIE solidarity.