Whoopi Goldberg wasted no time on the season premiere of “The View,” hitting back at the racist criticism of HBO’s “House of the Dragon” and Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”
With the two new fantasy series making their marks and becoming hits, some fans — or wannabe critics — have been claiming the creators were “too woke” in adding diverse characters.
Amazon introduced new racially diverse characters into the series, and some fans argued that J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t have intentions to populate Middle-earth with diverse creatures — despite Tolkien describing Harfoots as having “browner” skin.
Goldberg, 66, responded to the discourse, starting with an acknowledgement that the worlds of the two fantasy shows “are not real,” and “there are no dragons, there are no hobbits.”
“Are you telling me black people can’t be fake people, too?,” she said. “I don’t know if there’s, like, a hobbit club, I don’t know if there are gonna be protests. But people: what is wrong with y’all?”
Goldberg’s co-hosts agreed with her, all chiming in on the topic.
“What I think is fascinating is like, dragons are OK, fire-breathing dragons, and people with white hair that are born like that when they’re little, and violet eyes, but the Black people in it is just a bridge too far for these folks,” Sunny Hostin, 53, said.
Newcomer Alyssa Farah Griffin, 33, said the people making these comments need to “get a hobby.”
“It’s just racist. Call it what it is,” Joy Behar, 79, added.
Goldberg related the response to these big-name shows to what she thinks will eventually happen with the new “The Little Mermaid” live-action film starring Halle Berry.
“Y’all are gonna lose your minds when you see the new Ariel. ‘Cause you know…there are many communities of mermaids of various colors,” she said. “And when I say ‘of various colors,’ I’m not playing. There are violet mermaids, there are pink mermaids, there are Black mermaids, there are Latina mermaids, there are mermaids of every ilk. And you know why there can be? Because it’s the world that we would like to see better.”
The backlash to the casting in “The Rings of Power” was so bad, Amazon had to suspend user reviews for the first 72 hours from “review bombing” the series.
“All of y’all who have problems because there are Black hobbits? Get a job!” she said. “Get a job! Go find yourself, because you are focused on the wrong stuff.
