As the fiery debates rage online over The Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, Whoopi Goldberg has not held back in her comments on the racist critics.
Goldberg and her fellow co-hosts on The View spoke of the recent controversy of the two big fantasy franchises, with her dismissing the anti-diversity ambience for what is is: racism. In an empowered rant, she spoke of disappointment of how series which involve “dragons” and “hobbits” are fine, but adding diverse characters makes it too far.
“Dragons, Hobbits, they don’t exist in the real world […] but there are critics who are saying they were “too woke” by adding, yes, diverse characters. Are you telling me black people can’t be fake people too?! Is that what you’re telling me? People, what is wrong with y’all?”
Goldberg bemoaned the critics as having never read the source material in the first place, to which her co-hosts agreed. Former Donald Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin agreed, confused about how such a minute thing like diversity could offend them, then saying they “need to get a hobby.”
Sunny Hostin opined that by not having a diverse range of characters, especially black characters, the companies would be shooting themselves in the foot. Hostin repeated research showing black consumers are a massive part of media consumption. Collectively, the group agreed that fantasy should be diverse, and the criticisms were silly and based in fear.
The Rings of Power critics include the likes of Elon Musk, who tweeted J.R.R. Tolkein would be “rolling in his grave” after watching just two episodes of an eight part series.
Mass audiences seem to mostly not be bothered by the diversity, with both shows getting strong viewership and equally good reviews. The House of the Dragon is available to stream on HBO Max, while The Rings of Power is on Amazon Prime Video.
Published: Sep 6, 2022 08:01 pm