Whoopi Goldberg has a reminder for anyone upset about the casting of Black actors in two new fantasy TV series: The shows are “not real.”
The “View” co-host was responding to racist criticism of Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and HBO’s “House of the Dragon.” Some fans of the original “Lord of the Rings” novels and films have lashed out over the choice to feature a diverse cast in the new series, even “review bombing” the show on sites like Rotten Tomatoes. And “House of the Dragon” actor Steve Toussaint has said he faced racist abuse when his casting was announced for the “Game of Thrones” spinoff.
But given that the shows are fantasies featuring hobbits and dragons, Goldberg wondered why it’s the presence of Black people that fans suddenly have a problem with.
“Are you telling me Black people can’t be fake people, too?” Goldberg asked. “I don’t know if there’s a hobbit club. I don’t know if there are going to be protests. But people, what is wrong with y’all?”
Goldberg later linked the backlash to the criticism Black singer-actor Halle Bailey received following news she would star as Ariel in the live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”
“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,” Goldberg said. “We would like to see as many people represented in fantasy as exist.”
You can watch the rest of the discussion about the two fantasy shows below.