Laura Ingraham defended comedian Joy Behar after she was slammed when photos resurfaced of her in dressed up as an 'African woman' for Halloween – pointing to Hollywood's cross-racial casting such as 'Othello' and 'Hamilton' to defend the co-host of 'The View'

Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham said on her podcast that complaints about cultural appropriation stemming from public figures dressing in blackface tend to flow in one direction – citing the smash hit 'Hamilton' for using black actors to play white roles on Broadway.

Ingraham also defended comedian Joy Behar and said she was 'not racist' after photos resurfaced of her in a Halloween costume as an 'African woman.'

Co-host Raymond Arroyo, himself a Fox news contributor, raised Sir Lawrence Olivier's 1965 film performance of 'Othello.'

Olivier played the role in 'head-to-toe greasepaint,' Arroyo recalled.

Speaking on The Laura Ingraham Show Podcast, the talk show host questioned the use of black actors to play historical figures who were white.

'They wouldn’t be able to do that today,' noted Ingraham. 'They would say you would have to have an African-American doing it.'

Joy Behar was slammed when photos resurfaced of her in dressed up as an 'African woman' for Halloween

Sir Lawrence Olivier played Shakespeare's 'Othello' in this 1965 film version, a white actofr in blackface; Ingraham said Hollywood couldn't make this movie today without using a black actor, and suggested actors should be permitted the freedom to perform against typecasting

Ingraham said defending Behar and Olivier could rely on the smash Broadway hit 'Hamilton,' whose original cast featured Leslie Odom Jr. (left) playing Aaron Burr, Lin-Manuel Miranda (2nd right) playing Alexander Hamilton and Christopher Jackson (right) portraying George Washington

'But what about when they did Hamilton and they made white people black people? Is that not culturally misappropriating the other race?'

'If it's just about cultural appropriation, does it only go one way? That's interesting. I didn't think about the Hamilton thing until just now,' she said.

Ingraham came down on the side of allowing artists to portray characters across racial and ethnic lines.

'I love Hamilton. See, I think it's all fine,' she said. 'It's all cool. Like, change it! Switch it up!'

Ingraham is among a group of conservative commentators who have resisted the trend of condemning politicians and entertainers for wearing blackface years, or sometimes decades, ago.

'I will say to my last breath that Joy Behar as represented in a Halloween costume, a costume about an African woman, is not racist. OK? She's not a racist,' she said.

'And to say that she is now, or two and a half years ago, is absurd.'

Ingraham also complained that Americans can no longer 'celebrate someone in costume.'

The conservative author's weigh-in comes as Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is under intense pressure to resign because his personal page in a medical school yearbook included a photo of a man wearing blackface standing next to another wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe.

Ingraham's comments came as Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is under intense pressure to resign after a photograph was found in his medical school yearbook showing a man wearing blackface standing next to another wearing a KKK costume

Initially, Northam said he was one of the people in the picture, but then backtracked, claiming that the photo was put there without his knowledge.

At a news conference, he admitted to putting shoe polish on his face while impersonating Michael Jackson at a 1984 dance contest.

Ingraham said in her podcast that Michael Jackson was one of the most common and popular Halloween costumes in the 1980s.

Media Matters for America, a liberal pressure group often accused of taking broadcast quotes out of context, blasted out a selection of sentences from Ingraham's podcast on February 7.

A spokesprson for Ingraham said in a statement that she has 'repeatedly played the Hamilton soundtrack' on her radio program 'and also repeatedly expressed my love of the production.

Characterizing her view as opposing the show's cross-race casting, the spokesperson said, 'is ludicrous.'

The spokesperson also said Ingraham's comments about 'cultural appropriation' were 'obviously made in jest.'

Her point, the statement read, 'addresses the double standards and stifling effect of political correctness.'