On Tuesday’s episode of “The View,” Whoopie Goldberg introduced a topic about the new movie “Wicked” which is based on the hit musical and is now a hit as a movie. The topic was not really about the movie at all though. It was about an interview that “Wicked” stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo did with Out magazine’s Tracy E. Gilchrist.
During the interview, Gilchrist mentions that many people who have seen the film are “holding space” with the lyrics of the song “Defying Gravity.”
The ViewIn response to Gilchrist’s comment, Erivo says, “I didn’t know that was happening. That’s really powerful.”
In response to Erivo’s comment, Grande reaches over and holds Erivo’s index finger.
You can watch this moment from the Out magazine interview below.
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Back to “The View,” co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin did their own impression of this moment between Erivo and Grande with the finger embrace.
The co-hosts discussed their thoughts about this moment from the interview becoming a meme, and Hostin even shared a definition of what “holding space” means. Basically, it means listening and empathizing with others and their experiences.
Meanwhile, Goldberg, who introduced the topic, decided it wasn’t worthwhile to actually listen to the discussion and faked a nap, putting her chin in her hands and closing her eyes.
Joy Behar noticed and commented, “Whoopi took a nap throughout this entire segment.”
Tying it all together, Hostin quipped, “She’s holding space for her self-care!”
Watch this segment from “The View” in the video below.
Gilchrist has since defended her words and shared her own definition of “holding space.” She told Variety, “‘Holding space’ is being physically, emotionally and mentally present with someone or something. For me, it means being in the moment, not being distracted and feeling something on a cellular level. I think you can hold space with lyrics of a song – one you’ve heard hundreds of times – and it can suddenly take on new meaning when you’re a queer person.” She added that this was especially powerful to her since the interview took place shortly after election day.
She also added context about how she came up with the question. She explained, “Most of it actually came from a conversation with a friend. I was using that to tee up the question, and I was a little thrown off by [Cynthia’s] response because it was so sincere and real. I was a little flustered. I could have said, ‘I have all these friends, and this is our conversation.’ But instead I said, ‘I’m in queer media.'”
