Whoopi Goldberg spoke out against the transphobic backlash over Elliot Page’s role in The Odyssey.
On Tuesday’s episode of “The View,” Goldberg and his co-hosts defended Page, who came out as transgender in 2020, to star in a Christopher Nolan film following criticism from conservatives such as Ben Shapiro.
“I don’t get it. If you feel that way, why go see the movie?” Mr. Goldberg said on his show after footage of Mr. Shapiro saying, “It’s stupid to cast Elliot Page as a bastard.”
The EGOT winner further added, “If you don’t want to see it, don’t go see it. Why do you care who’s in it?”
Goldberg, 70, wondered why people who “hated” Page’s casting as the Greek warrior Sinon had to push their agenda so hard on others.
“You don’t like Elliot Page? Don’t go see that movie,” she said. “Please stop. It’s okay if you don’t go see it.”
Conservative co-host Alyssa Farrar Griffin sided with Goldberg on the topic of “The Odyssey.”
“Twitter is not the real world,” Farrah Griffin said, adding that she felt the film was a “masterpiece” despite some criticism circulating online on the platform.
The new mom also claimed that “nothing happened in this movie.”
Meanwhile, Sarah Haynes pointed out that some of the film’s harshest critics have never even seen it.
“There’s a unique kind of ignorance in people who comment on things they haven’t seen. We’re taught from a young age to research and learn, and then you can be a part of the conversation,” Haynes said.
She added, “You can’t complain about how bad a movie is when you haven’t seen it.”
Page, 39, will star in the big screen version of Homer’s classic epic alongside Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong’o.
There was also some backlash over the casting of Nyong’o, a black woman, as Helen of Troy and her twin sister Clytemnestra.
Nolan, 55, previously said criticism of the casting and complaints about the American accent and modern dialogue in the film were “justifiable.”
“But look, these conversations that happen before people see a movie are always irrelevant because the people having the conversation don’t know what the movie actually is yet,” he told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Page avoided discussing the transphobic reaction to his casting throughout the Odyssey press tour.
During an appearance on The Daily Show on Wednesday, Page admitted that she was “terrified” to play Sinon.
“The character I play in this film is actually not a character that originally appeared in ‘The Odyssey,'” the ‘Juno’ actor explained.
“So for me, it was all about being able to capture him in these few scenes and hopefully make Chris happy.”
