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Which daytime talk show host reigns supreme: Oprah Winfrey or Wendy Williams? This debate features returning guests Jonquilyn Hill and Nichole Hill, with Jonquilyn taking up for Team Wendy and Nichole repping Team Oprah. Jonquilyn says that Wendy is unabashedly authentic who will always tell you her truth without any pretense. As for Oprah, Nichole argues that she’s extraordinarily successful in so many different ways and laid the groundwork for people like Wendy. Which talk show queen will Ronald crown this week’s winner?

Follow Nichole @nicholewthanh on Instagram and @nichill732 on Twitter and Jonquilyn @jonquilynhill on Instagram and Twitter.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Ronald young Jr., Jacqueline Hill, Nicole Hill

Ronald young Jr.  00:00

Many have tried their hand at daytime talk shows to varying degrees of success. Ellen DeGeneres, Steve Harvey, Ananda Lewis, Tyra Banks, Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Hudson. But there’s one name that came before all these others, Oprah Winfrey. The Oprah Winfrey Show started in 1986 and ran in national syndication for 25 years. She popularized and revolutionized the genre and paved the way for many of the names that came after her, but there is one person who came after Oprah that had her own style and spicy approach to interviewing her name Wendy Williams. Wendy got her start in radio and eventually grew her brand to a point where she got her own daytime television talk show. She has since been an infamous face in contentious talk interviews and developed a serious following. So today we’re asking which talk Queen reigns supreme, Oprah Winfrey or Wendy Williams. We decide once and for all, right here and right now on Pop Culture Debate Club. I’m Ronald Young Jr.

 

Ronald young Jr.  01:12

So let’s meet our panelists for the day, representing Oprah Winfrey. Our next guest is a writer and show runner of Tracy Ellis Ross’s podcast, I am America and host of the award winning podcast, The Secret Adventures of Black People and my dear friend and colleague, Nicole Hill.

 

Nicole Hill  01:28

hey Ronald, hey everybody. How are you?

 

Ronald young Jr.  01:31

Welcome back. I hope you’re ready to defend Oprah.

 

Nicole Hill  01:34

I’m so ready. She didn’t have to worry about it. She’s got me.

 

Ronald young Jr.  01:38

She should be defending you also joining us. Repping Wendy Williams is an audio producer and host of the popular Vox media podcast. Explain it to me. Let’s welcome my dear friend and colleague. Jacqueline Hill.

 

Jacqueline Hill  01:54

Hello, I am so happy to be here. This is going to be a fun one.

 

Ronald young Jr.  02:00

I’m glad to have you yes, it is I we, when we were talking about this debate, we just had to have the hills.

 

Jacqueline Hill  02:05

Yeah.

 

Nicole Hill  02:06

Had to have, yes

 

Ronald young Jr.  02:07

The Hill sisters.

 

Nicole Hill  02:09

Yes, exactly.

 

Ronald young Jr.  02:11

We’re not […]

 

Jacqueline Hill  02:15

We don’t know. Again, we’re not giving our DNA to a company so we’ll never know.

 

Ronald young Jr.  02:21

We’ve been through this true. It makes sense. All right. Well, Jacqueline, tell me what was your introduction to Wendy Williams?

 

Jacqueline Hill  02:28

Okay, so I was, I’ve always been a pop culture head, like I was that kid who, during the summer, in between reading books, I was watching a lot of VH one and Wendy, you know? And I’ll give it to both these ladies. They are interviewers. And as a person who interviews people for a living, wow, Wendy has a way of getting the people going. And since she would get people going, you know, your Whitney Houston’s, your Mariah Carey’s, I was well aware of her also. I used to read Vibe magazine like it was my job. And so they once did this profile of Wendy Williams that I distinctly remember reading either back in middle school or probably high school. Might have even been Middle School, which why was I allowed to do that? But here’s the secret tip, kids, as long as you’re reading, your parents kind of don’t care what it is exactly.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:17

It’s true.

 

Jacqueline Hill  03:18

I’m sure there are parents who wish their kid was sitting on the couch reading the coldest winter.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:26

Nicole, what about you? Tell me, what was your earliest memory of Oprah Winfrey?

 

Nicole Hill  03:31

You know so she was always on in the background, like she’s just always on TV. So it was just sort of like, Oprah’s on. And everybody was always saying Oprah’s on, but I didn’t know what that it just was sort of like, okay, whatever. That’s a thing grown ups do. And then, you know, as a kid, I started speaking at like, you know, you have to do little readings at church things. And for school, I was selected as the dare ambassador, and so I read a speech to the fourth grade about never doing drugs and alcohol. And I never did. And I was reading my speech, and everybody was like, Oh, you’re a young Oprah. You’re a young Oprah. And so then I was like, oh, I should pay attention to her. So that was like, when I first, I think Elementary School is when I first became aware of her. And then she’s just like a fixture. Like, you come home from school, Oprah’s on. You watch an interview. She’s got every celebrity anybody you would want to talk to is there. And then she sort of started to pivot into like, now she’s in movies. Now she’s doing then. Now she’s got a magazine. Now she’s this. Now she’s that. She just sort of kept growing and growing and growing and like, what she was doing and where she was showing up in the world, and getting richer and richer and more powerful. And so it did become like, she just was like, Oprah. Like, it went from like, oh yeah, after school. Like, which talk show will I watch to like, Oprah.

 

Ronald young Jr.  04:46

Yeah. Okay, with all that in mind, are y’all ready to fight?

 

Jacqueline Hill  04:50

Let’s go.

 

Nicole Hill  04:51

Let’s do it.

 

Ronald young Jr.  04:52

All right. So we’ll start with you, Nicole, give me your opening argument. Oprah is better than Wendy Williams, at her job?

 

Nicole Hill  04:55

Oprah, oh, at her job? Oh, no, see […]

 

Ronald young Jr.  04:56

I only said that because I don’t want, I don’t want to do that thing. We’re just saying one’s better than the other in person. Specifically at the job, okay? At their brand, with just the brand of Oprah.

 

Jacqueline Hill  05:19

The brand, do the brand.

 

Nicole Hill  05:20

okay? I mean, Oprah is the OG influencer. She did not set out to necessarily guide you to the promised land or get everything right, but she did set out to have a lot of influence, get a bunch of brand deals, make a ton of money, and elevate whatever topics she was most interested in. She did it to extraordinary success among our first self made black billionaires, and everybody knows her name. I mean, I don’t really think you can beat that.

 

Jacqueline Hill  05:53

Okay, here’s the thing about Wendy Williams. I am not here to argue that she is a good person. You know? I know she has, as we will get into she has beefed with a lot of people, but I am here to argue that in a world of fakes and phonies, she is messy, and she owns that messiness. She has never lied about who she is or what she does. And you know, when it comes to impact, when it comes to the kind of product they’re putting out. I don’t know if we can say the same for Miss Winfrey. I think, you know, there’s a little bit of pretense there. There’s a little bit of, like, there’s a little bit of, you know, going above what we actually are. And I will argue that when it comes to Wendy, she has, you know, she’s a little rough around the edges, and she’s that way because that’s the way she is. She will tell you at least her truth.

 

Ronald young Jr.  06:50

Jacqueline, we know that Wendy Williams started at the radio station, which we’ll get into more more closely, but talk about her transformation to the figure that she is today. How important is her start at the radio station to the kind of interviewer, professional that she would eventually become.

 

Jacqueline Hill  07:10

Listen again for better or worse? And you know, maybe this is me painting myself into a corner, but we would not have the Shade Room. We would not have baller alert. That’s throwback, right there. We would not we literally take out Media Takeout. We literally would not have, we literally would not have Charlamagne, the God without Wendy Williams, in part because he started off as her mentee, like Wendy has kind of laid the blueprint for this tabloidy, splashy, a little bit messy celebrity interview, and I would argue, in an era where celebrities are more polished than ever, they’re, you know, going directly to their audiences via social media, like she And what she has done represents a really like classic, old way of doing things we owe the celebrity gossip machine so much there probably would not be a who weekly without Wendy Williams.

 

Ronald young Jr.  08:14

Nicole, is that important? Is it important that we are in this place? Do you think that this is a good thing that Wendy Williams has led us to, or is this more like what has Wendy will? What has in Wendy Williams?

 

Nicole Hill  08:24

I think that it’s important that you have an Oprah to balance it out, that you’re not going to get me to say it’s bad to have messiness. It is […] So you’re not going to get me to say it’s bad. But you but you need an Oprah to balance it out, because people do not understand that we contain multitudes. We sometimes don’t remember that we do. You have an Oprah representing that you can change into as many different things as you want to. She started off on the weather, then she’s just like a talk show host, and then she’s like, I mean, she’s so diversified right now, she’s producing some show about AI, for better or for worse. That’s what she’s doing. She’s like, monetize all areas of her life, which for better or for worse, but she is telling us that you can be a ton of different things, including a messy Wendy Williams, I mean, I don’t know if she’s clear in that or like, co signing that. But she the people that she interviews, the movies that she makes, the people who make it into her magazine, the people that she crown represent a movement through class, a movement through social issues, a movement a movement through identities for black people that very few other people have set that example.

 

Jacqueline Hill  09:37

We also, I feel like we also can’t forget that, like Oprah kind of got her start in a windy, adjacent role, like the Oprah Winfrey’s show used to be messy, and then there was the Ginny Jones murder. And everyone was like, oh, we should not do this. And Jerry Springer and a little bit more Maury were the only ones who were like, actually, we’re gonna keep giving the people what they want.

 

Nicole Hill  09:59

But the like the consequences. At some point, all of these celebrities who do, who go down this messy route face the consequences, and either you’re gonna dig in, or you’re going to like Charlemagne, like Oprah. You’re gonna be like, You know what? Let’s rebrand. Let’s turn this into something that’s a little bit more elevated, I guess, if you will, a little bit more and something that gives me more access to capital. I’m not arguing that a ton of access to capital is the best thing, but as a as an influencer, as the OG ultimate influencer that Oprah is. She saw all these opportunities to gain more capital and influence, gain more capital influence until she is a king maker, crowning the President of the United like the next President of the United States.

 

Jacqueline Hill  10:41

She also crowned Dr Oz, who is […]

 

Nicole Hill  10:45

Crowned some people that every […]

 

Ronald young Jr.  10:49

Let’s jump in and let’s talk about problematic apprentices and mentees. Jacqueline, oh yeah, if we’re talking, if we’re going to talk about Dr Oz, tell me is Charlemagne, a good is, and where I’m coming back to you, Nick is Charlemagne, the God is He? Did we unleash something good on the world when we unleashed, uh, Charlemagne?

 

Jacqueline Hill  11:12

Um, the you said the word good is interesting. What I will say is, I have my critiques of Charlemagne, as I’m sure most people in media do, and especially as a hard news girly I have my critiques that, being said, His presence often reminds the mainstream that black people, and in particular, black men, exist politically Like he’s considered a huge political voice now in politics, he’s kind of speaking for what I call this, the barbershop politics is what I call it. Honestly, those are the kind of people like I’m in community with, and sometimes I’m like, I don’t want to hear you, but they do deserve to be heard. So I would, I would make it a net positive.

 

Ronald young Jr.  12:03

So you did a lot of, there was a lot of bojangling down there in order to make Charlemagne a good thing. And I’ll accept that, Nicole, I think you have your work cut out for you to make either dr oz or Dr Phil positive parts of the Oprah Winfrey cinematic universe.

 

Nicole Hill  12:22

Problematic universe.

 

Ronald young Jr.  12:24

Yeah, probably there you go.

 

Jacqueline Hill  12:26

Problematic.

 

Nicole Hill  12:27

I simply cannot say that they are good products of her mentorship and her like platform. I don’t believe that Oprah set out to unleash hell on earth. I believe that she is a lot of touch. I believe she trusted some interesting people with some strange ideas, and this is the result of not having enough, honestly, probably black people around to be like, No, not. That’s not the one don’t do it. But she is using her platform to elevate the ideas that she believes we should know about she and her dear, dear friend, Gail. I think Gail’s okay until she’s like, elevated Gail. She’s worked with a lot of incredible Hollywood talents, and initially her couch, she brought on so many black celebrities and interviewed them like actual people and gave them an opportunity to shine in ways that they would not have had anywhere else, or would have had very few other places. So it’s like the worst that people that she’s elevated have, of course, gone as far as they could, all the way to the White House, I guess, and get a lot of attention. But when you’re elevating so many people, like, let’s say 100 people, there’s gonna be a couple terrible ones in the batch. Do you stop elevating everyone to avoid make some mistakes, or do you keep doing it in the hopes that mainly you’re getting it right?

 

Jacqueline Hill  13:50

Okay, I will say two things. One, Oprah, if you are looking for a successor, I’m around call the […] but I think at the same time, like Oprah has done a lot for black people, but that anti blackness be popping out. I mean, the way she has talked about hip hop in the past, not great. So I think we have to keep that in mind as well.

 

Nicole Hill  14:16

I do think that Oprah, when she does talk about things like that, she’s coming at it from a place of is this causing more harm? It is respectability. It is like a lot of old school thinking. But I think when she, like went on this whole thing about the way that hip hop talks about women, now, years later, we’ve we’ve been able to push so hard that they don’t talk about women like that anymore. When she was doing it, it was annoying, the way she did it was annoying, but the issues that she was raising around it and like those, were on point. Her relationship to the N word, that’s a whole other thing she’s wrong about that we’re never gonna stop.

 

Ronald young Jr.  14:54

If we keep talking too long. Right now, everybody got the show. Yeah, let me ask y’all a question that may seem like it’s not specifically about this debate, but I assure you that it is, what should Black Media be? Should it be messy? Should it be buttoned up? Which one is more important for black people as a whole? Jacqueline, I’ll come to you first.

 

Jacqueline Hill  15:21

Oh, man, okay. I feel like, what should it be, and what is more important is two different things, because on one hand.

 

Ronald young Jr.  15:27

Answer both.

 

Jacqueline Hill  15:28

We deserve to have it all. We deserve to have trashy mctrasherson, and we deserve to, like, have the best in depth, Pulitzer, prize winning, reporting like we deserve to have it all.

 

Ronald young Jr.  15:42

Nick What do you think our Do you agree with chocolate? What should we have?

 

Nicole Hill  15:44

You know what? It’s tough because she is my opponent, but I have to agree we need to be able to have both, because both are occurring in our lives. Both are news, and so if we only do one, the other will continue to happen. We’ll shame it. We’ll say it’s wrong, we’ll say it’s bad, but it will happen because we’re human beings. We’ll feel shame around it. We’ll be hypocritical around it. We’ll do all of these terrible things that people do when they’re pretending to be something that they’re not. So I do think that we need both. I think there is an urgency around the news that kind of informs us about, like the fight and about like what we need to be doing to be doing to protect ourselves and what we need to be doing to like, be advancing our causes and things like that, that is more urgent to me than the gossipy, trashy thing. But that does not make it as important. No, it’s not as important, but it doesn’t make it not valid. If I had to rank them news one trash do.

 

Jacqueline Hill  16:41

I mean, I get it and but the thing is, what’s the news if no one’s watching, what is it if no one’s tuning in? Like, love Oprah down my favorite things. Love a book club. I would come home from school my little model. You in, I walk in, my mama got Oprah on the TV while she’s making dinner. But like, that crowd was full of a lot of white people. Oprah has always interviewed black stars, but Wendy was in like she was getting cussed out by Whitney Houston. She was talking about Diddy fighting for her life, talking about Diddy before anyone knew anything. So much so, to the point that total rolled up to the studio, waiting outside to jump her.

 

Nicole Hill  17:20

That’s right, well, listen, well, it depends on what you want to do. I think that Oprah feels a charge to make things better for the community, and so I do think that she has been very brilliant and strategic in let me give you all a little bit of sugar before I give you these vegetables. Now, the vegetables are very mushy, and this is unclear exactly what they are, but I do think that she she has certain causes that she wants to make sure are elevated for the black community. And instead of just coming on and being like, listen up everybody, you better die, she’s like, Oh, my favorite things, you get a car. You get a car. Ooh. But then also, beloved.

 

Ronald young Jr.  18:02

We’ll be back with more Pop Culture Debate Club after this break.

 

Ronald young Jr.  18:20

For the black community, knowing that public media figures are important, ie, the community will support and uplift Oprah as one of us, even if they don’t engage with their content the way that they circulate and engage with the content of Wendy Williams, why that distinction? Why is that separate? Why is it not one? Why cannot the Oprah also be the Wendy Williams?

 

Jacqueline Hill  18:47

I mean, it’s just honestly, respectability politics. We very we very much. And when I say we, I don’t just mean black people. I think society in general, we struggle to hold two things at once, like it is very hard. I’m trying to think of a person who does a good job bouncing between Gail honestly. I mean, she’d be asking hard hitting questions.

 

Ronald young Jr.  19:08

She gave us the R Kelly interview.

 

Jacqueline Hill  19:15

Robert […] Yeah, it’s just, it’s difficult for people to hold those two things at once, and so we separate them out into two different things. Like, it’s like, I don’t know if these we contain multitudes, but like, I’m not trying to see those multitudes in one person. No, it’s grand confusion.

 

Nicole Hill  19:39

Exactly, people don’t know what to do. America is founded by Puritans who were so radical that the English were like, Could you please leave like, we are not a chill society. That’s just like, be you. Be free, do your thing. And so a person who is both like, button up and together and then like, in the streets, you don’t know what to do. It’s like, well, then you’re. Just for the streets. You can’t the button up together part Forget it. So I think that we’ve divided them up into two different tracks, and they’ve divided themselves up into two different tracks, because that’s the model we have here.

 

Ronald young Jr.  20:10

Nicole, what would the landscape of media be if there was no Wendy Williams?

 

Nicole Hill  20:19

Honestly, I think it would be the same?

 

Jacqueline Hill  20:21

Oh.

 

Nicole Hill  20:22

I don’t know that. I believe that there could not have been somebody else who would have popped up and done what she did. I can’t honestly say, I don’t think that somebody else could. Now, she was very unique. She’s very special talent, like Wendy is definitely has a unique talent and gift. I think especially now, you a lot of influencers can do that. I think, like, you gotta, yeah, that’s my position.

 

Jacqueline Hill  20:52

No, okay, I don’t think so. And I think in part, it’s because it’s a little bit of a bygone era. And I think some of it faded when, like her show started to go away. But so so much journalism is access journalism, and Wendy was able to interview these big names, and she didn’t necessarily have to play nice to do it like nowadays. You know, there’s like, some interview with Destiny child where she keeps referring to it as Beyonce and the girls. And you hear Beyonce, like, it’s not Beyonce and the girls, it’s Destiny Child. She’s like, okay, well, it’s Beyonce and the girls and that sort of thing. And now, like, no one would ever, I mean, myself included, be a little bit like, I’m like, oh, like, I can’t say and the hard stuff and the oh, or like, I was listening to an interview she did with Whitney Houston, where, you know, she and Whitney, they would get bugged. They would go toe to toe. But one thing Whitney said, she’s like, but you do play my records and like, we don’t have that anymore. So much of influences, you know, this access, not this hard hitting, just a sort of, like kissing the ring of celebrity. And don’t get me wrong, like Oprah asks hard questions. Like, I think of her talking to Tony Braxton and being like, Okay, but why did you have Gucci plates? Why did you have maybe they weren’t Gucci. I think they were Versace plates. Why do you have Versace plates? You were going bankrupt, and like Tony crying, Oprah wasn’t necessarily kissing their ring, but they were kissing Oprah’s ring because they were powerful. And I don’t know that we have this sort of scrappy like, I don’t care. I’ma say what I have to say. Type of interviewer anymore. Charlamagne kind of gets at it, especially what I was gonna say, especially with men in particular, like, I think of the Soulja Boy interview that went viral. I think of like his takes throughout the Drake and Kendrick beef, which has been, wow, what a time we live in. Wow. And maybe it’s not so much that she changed the media landscape, but her absence, I think, really shines through. We are missing an important piece of something.

 

Nicole Hill  23:05

But Isn’t she a shock jock? In which we have shock jocks, and we wouldn’t have always had a shock jock.

 

Jacqueline Hill  23:10

But not I mean, like you have your Howard Sterns, and part of this is like radio in general has kind of gone by the wayside, even though a medium close to my heart, but she just represents a golden era, especially a golden era of New York radio, in particular, like New York radio and still, still is kind of like a king maker. I think that’s why Charlemagne has such a reach. It’s because, you know, the Breakfast Club is distributed in all these places. New York radio is still king, to the degree that radio can be king. And you know, it’s not like we have the Tom Joyner Morning Show anymore. Shout to all the Jack and Jill parents that love listening to that in the mornings. But, yeah, it’s a bygone era. Like she represents a golden age, and also a golden age of, like, music journalism, of hip hop media. Like we don’t have that anymore.

 

Nicole Hill  24:02

I would support the music journalism piece of it, though, I think that music journalism would be very different without her, which maybe it’s all what she was doing. I guess through that lens, I see it a little different, but not much.

 

Ronald young Jr.  24:13

Jacqueline, what would the media landscape be without Oprah Winfrey?

 

Jacqueline Hill  24:19

Oh, man. I mean, okay, it’s Oprah, like, I’ll be here for Wendy, but, I mean, I can’t deny Oprah. Is Oprah? Oprah be doing her thing again. Both these women fantastic interviewers. And I think you know, for all the billionaire for all the pseudoscience, the thing that keeps people coming back, Oprah is an excellent interviewer. Like, who else is gonna give you? Were you silent or were you silent? Like, you know, gotta give 10s where they’re due. Um, that being said. I mean, look at Dr Phil. Look at Dr Oz. Look at all these television programs, all this pseudoscience. So I uh, like the landscape looks different, but those differences aren’t necessarily bad.

 

Ronald young Jr.  25:11

We’ll be back with more PCDC after this break.

 

Ronald young Jr.  25:29

Let me ask, I’m still torn. I have not, I’m still not that place where I feel like, yeah, y’all really got me like, well, because I think it, the question really comes down to like it’s, it’s obviously that we’re, we’re in a state where it seems like we can’t have it all. So I guess it then boils down to, if we can only pick one, what is more important. And in your closing arguments, I need y’all to convince me what is more important. And Nic, we’ll start with you.

 

Nicole Hill  26:03

Okay, I mean, if we can only have one, then we need to have Oprah. I think that within Oprah’s repertoire, you’re going to find a little tiny bit of the Wendy Williams effect and what she’s bringing, and you’re also going to find a lot of other things. Like I said, she’s so diversified in all of the ways throughout her career, in her interest in the things that she elevates. Like I said, sometimes she gets it way, way, way wrong, but she has had her hand in everything. And I think that that’s the example that we want to be setting. You can be messy on the couch asking wild questions out of left field, like just you can do that. And you can also sit down with Barack and Michelle and be like, okay, you can be the President of the United States. Attention. Everyone. Pick him, and then everyone does. I think that that diversity is ultimately what is best for all of us.

 

Ronald young Jr.  26:52

Jacqueline?

 

Jacqueline Hill  26:54

Okay, here’s the thing about respectability politics. They don’t work it, it do it do not matter. It doesn’t matter. Like, how you sit with the couches, whatever. I remember Oprah got into with somebody because, like, they wouldn’t let her in the Gucci store in, like, the South of France once, which, okay.

 

Nicole Hill  27:15

But like, problems too. Those are problems too. And Oprah, we respect them.

 

Jacqueline Hill  27:19

Yeah, we respect it. I’ll go with you to the south of France at the Gucci store Oprah.

 

Nicole Hill  27:29

We need our Gucci slipper.

 

Ronald young Jr.  27:33

Oprah’s paying

 

Nicole Hill  27:35

My ancestors.

 

Jacqueline Hill  27:39

But, it’s like the respectability politics. They just they don’t work. So you might as well do what you enjoy. You might as well be your full self. You might as well, you know, get to the messy heart of it. There’s no use beating around the bush, like when Oprah was hanging out with the cospies, like Wendy was calling out Bill Cosby. So much so that, like, I the radio station, like, made her apologize because Bill Cosby was calling the radio station. Was like, Hey, don’t say these things. Turned out, though our girl was correct. And you know, it’s better, I think it’s better to be right and to be real than to play nice. And that’s one thing about Wendy. She was never playing nice, but she 100% kept it real, even on her show, because her little producer would be on the side to remind her, allegedly, allegedly. That was the best part. I love it, allegedly, allegedly. And the killer. Those are the two things the killer is gonna get you the killer. Like, you gotta watch out for the killer. And like, she just it’s that thing of keeping it raw, keeping it real, keeping it unfiltered. And I think there’s real value in that you never want to become too polished. And also because, like that, Polish doesn’t do anything now you just polish, but you still can’t get in the Gucci store.

 

Ronald young Jr.  28:55

Man, are you all ready for my ruling?

 

Jacqueline Hill  28:58

Do you have a decision?

 

Nicole Hill  28:59

Do you have a decision?

 

Ronald young Jr.  29:01

Y’all, it’s about to happen in real time.

 

Jacqueline Hill  29:04

Here we go, Tyra.  In my head, there’s one photo.

 

Ronald young Jr.  29:09

Yeah, in my head, there’s one photo. No, there’s, it’s wow. You know, to be a  three black people working in media, we really did discover a true conundrum here, which is it comes down to, what if we can’t have it all? What should we be? And I think far too often, the answer to that question is to be Oprah. And that’s something that black folks have been told for decades is that we need to be Oprah. We need to sit up straight. You need to keep your hands out of those pockets when you go into the store. You better put on the suit when you go up there. We really do have to work twice or three times as hard to be half as good. And I think that’s something that really bothers me. As I’ve watched Oprah’s ascent while I have been rooting for her, I remember at the Democratic National Convention in which she gave a speech, and everyone was like Oprah for President, and I remember really enjoying it, but also at the time saying, I don’t think I want Oprah to be president. I don’t think that she would be very good at that job. I think she’s good at what she’s doing now, which is influencing, convincing people to do things, that type of thing. So that’s Oprah on one side. On the other side is Wendy Williams. And I’m wondering if I’m having a struggle within myself about Wendy Williams, about the things about black people that I don’t necessarily want to share with the rest of the world, that Wendy was well on her way to doing I mean, if we talk about every step that Wendy Williams took, she was becoming more polished with every step. By the time she got to the end to her daytime talk show, there was certain things that she couldn’t do anymore. There was certain behaviors and ways that she was supposed to act, whereas she pushed it as far as she could go in daytime television. But it wasn’t going to be like a fight with Whitney Houston or, you know, on ABC at 3pm that just wasn’t going to happen. They wanted the type of drama that is Tom Cruise jumping on the couch. That’s what they want on ABC, they want something that is viral. They don’t necessarily want controversial unless it’s going to give them more views in a way that’s also not going to make them responsible for anything, which makes it tougher if you’re a shock jock, like being in that world. So on the one side, we have things that I hate, like the Shade Room. I follow it, but I hate it. I hate it so much. Like I was telling nick the other day, some of the worst people on the planet are in the comments of Shade Room.

 

Nicole Hill  31:37

It is a cesspool in those comments.

 

Ronald young Jr.  31:41

And the thing is like that, but we all agree that is like the Herald, you know what? I mean, it was like, kind of like the beacon of what’s going on within the black community that we care about. That’s where we’re gonna get it from, from these types of sources. Yet we have people that look at these types of sources that say, man, why we always gotta have all this mess? Why can’t we be better than this? Why are we always acting like this? And the truth is, like, we are connected to our culture, and our culture is very important to us. So, like, with all of that being said, it like it comes down to, unfortunately, it’s another very narrow victory for the winner here, because the truth is, while I have listened to the the adage that we should all be Oprah, that I just made up, the adage that everyone this whole time, exactly that black folks should be Oprah, I think, while I don’t think that we should be Wendy Williams, I think the culture and the realness, and this is where you brought it home, Jacqueline Hill, when you said, it’s better to be right and to be real than it is to play nice. And I think although that can cost you in the long run, that effect is more important to me than what’s going on with Oprah. Because I think ultimately the billionaire status is very individualistic, and I feel like Wendy Williams was more for the people, therefore I have to give this one to you.

 

Nicole Hill  33:13

Now we’re you love the ratchets.

 

Ronald young Jr.  33:18

Convinced me, but y’all know good well. Y’all know me well enough to know, like, I would talk trash exactly. I would talk trash about Tyler Perry and Wendy Williams. But like, I’m looking at these arguments, and I’m just like, well, I mean, these are good points. With all that being said, Nicole Hill, where can folks find you? If they’re looking?

 

Nicole Hill  33:35

Ny goodness, you can find me on Blue Sky. Now @NicoleHill, I’m up there. You can find me on Instagram, Secret Dimensions of Black People. And in February, you can find me at the new show that I’m launching. It’s called our Ancestors Were Messy. It’s all about black history from the perspective of the gossip columns of black papers written pre civil rights era. And you can find Jacqueline Hill on there too. We’re not debating in that case, but we are having a very spirited discussion about respectability, about class, about a Victorian era love triangle. I will just say my family demanded to hear it over Thanksgiving. We listened in the car, and then everybody yelled at me and told me to call you Jacqueline And make it longer they want, like, more from this.

 

Jacqueline Hill  34:22

I can pour another glass of Uncle near us, make something happen, and I got the old ladies whiskey now too. We can do some stuff, but.

 

Nicole Hill  34:29

You’ll really be so on brand now, yeah, so that’ll be coming out in February, 2025.

 

Ronald young Jr.  34:34

Nic I can’t wait to hear this show. I’ve been excited. I’ve been watching you make this for years, so I’m excited to see this come out, and I know right […] him, so I’m excited to see this actually to come to fruition. So I’m excited about that. I’m excited to see you on there, Jacqueline, and where can the folks find you if they’re looking?

 

Jacqueline Hill  34:52

Yes, okay, so every week you can hear me on Explain It To Me the podcast that I host for vox.com where we. Answer listener questions. You can call question in, you can email it in, and then I give you a call, find some answers, and then call you back. So subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Also leave a nice review, saying how cool the show is because it is. And then on social media, you can find me @JocquelineHill, all one word at all the places I want to be found. So your blue skies, your threads, your Instagrams, even the dark place known as Twitter. I be there sometimes I look at the mess, and then I’m like, I’m stressed, and then I’m like, all right time to leave. Let me go back to blue sky so you can find me all those places.

 

Ronald young Jr.  35:34

Thank you both so much for being here.

 

Jacqueline Hill  35:36

Thanks for having us.

 

Nicole Hill  35:37

This is fun. One and one.

 

CREDITS  35:45

Thanks again to Nicole Hill and Jacqueline Hill. There’s more Pop Culture Debate Club with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like Kyla Marchelle and Jenny Eliscu from our All I Want for Christmas vs Last Christmas episode discussing their first memories of Mariah Carey and George Michael. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts. Pop Culture Debate Club is a production of Lemonada and the BBC.   It’s produced by Jamela Zarha Williams, Kryssy Pease,  Dani Matias and me, Ronald young Jr. Our mix is by Noah Smith. Rachel Neel is VP of new content. Our Senior Vice President of weekly content  and production is Steve Nelson. Commissioning editor for the BBC is Rhian Roberts. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer.   Follow Pop Culture Debate Club, wherever you get your podcasts.