Whoopi Goldberg sounds off on Oscar diversity controversy

NEW YORK, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Former Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg has spoken out against the recent boycott of the Academy Awards and has given her opinion as to why the nominee's suffer from a lack of diversity.

Goldberg opened up about the situation Tuesday on The View explaining to viewers why she disagrees with Jada Pinkett Smith's and Spike Lee's boycott of the awards show and why a lack of diversity in the film industry should be discussed yearlong.

"Why is this a conversation that we only have once a year," she asked her co-hosts. "Every year we get all fired up and the rest of the year nobody says anything."

The comedian then explained how Hollywood as a whole is to blame for the lack of diversity and not the Academy who votes on which movies, actors and filmmakers gets nominated.

"It's not that the problem is that the people who are nominated are too white. They're not looking at a movie and saying, 'Oh, that's very white. I'm not going to nominate that black movie.' They're not sitting there like that!" Goldberg said.

"In the history of movies, there has not been a plethora of black movies made, because people think we don't want to see movies with black people in them," she continued. "So, until you start making movies like The Avengers with more than 70 white folks saving the earth — and I am mad about this, you know why? Because I would like to be one of those people saving the earth, but they're not coming to me!"

Goldberg ended by stating how the boycott is unfair to this year's Oscars host Chris Rock."Chris Rock is the host of the Academy Awards and so to boycott him seems just as bad as what everybody is saying," she said. "We have this conversation every year and it pisses me off."

On Saturday, Rock joked about the nominations tweeting "The #Oscars. The White BET Awards," alongside a video promoting the ceremony.

The Academy president Cheryl Boone also discussed the lack of African-American nominations recently mentioning how she is "heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion."