Opinion of new versions of fiction in which the protagonist is not white cisgender heterosexual male

[buritobr]

Some >30 conservative nerds are very angry about these new versions. They say "it destroyed my childhood".
Others think that inclusivity is very important.
What do you think?

[Big Abraham]

If you care about inclusivity, come up with your own work with original characters.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Usually a way to jazz up a lowest-common-denominator remake. Spinoffs featuring more diverse protagonists have a better record, as do existing properties with mainstream appeal. See Black Panther and Shang-Chi tearing up the box office.

[beaver2.0]

I think it really depends.  There is a way to do it without shoehorning someone in.  Take James Bond.  He's a macho man action hero.  There's really no reason I can see that he needs to be a white guy.  If you can find someone of any other race that gives off that some Bondian energy, that guy can play him.  There's the argument that he's always been white, and if the movie was going to be set in the 1960s then yeah the actor will probably be white as there were not many non-white people living in Britain.  If it's set in 2021 it's pretty natural for him to be from another race as Britain is much more diverse now.

I really don't watch too many movies so I'm not sure off the top of my head what an example of shoehorning is, but I can absolutely envision it.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

If you care about inclusivity, come up with your own work with original characters.

why not both

[Big Abraham]

If you care about inclusivity, come up with your own work with original characters.

why not both

Because the last thing that Hollywood needs is more canned unoriginal ripoffs that continue to oversaturate the media market.

And the result is usually atrocious. If you want to watch the all-female Ghostbusters, have fun with that.

[John Dule]

If you care about inclusivity, come up with your own work with original characters.

why not both

Because being derivative is a fundamentally bad thing.

[Хahar 🤔]

If you care about inclusivity, come up with your own work with original characters.

why not both

Because being derivative is a fundamentally bad thing.

Now this just isn't true.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I think it really depends.  There is a way to do it without shoehorning someone in.  Take James Bond.  He's a macho man action hero.  There's really no reason I can see that he needs to be a white guy.  If you can find someone of any other race that gives off that some Bondian energy, that guy can play him.  There's the argument that he's always been white, and if the movie was going to be set in the 1960s then yeah the actor will probably be white as there were not many non-white people living in Britain.  If it's set in 2021 it's pretty natural for him to be from another race as Britain is much more diverse now.

I really don't watch too many movies so I'm not sure off the top of my head what an example of shoehorning is, but I can absolutely envision it.

This is a good point, and it's not one-size-fits-all. There's no real reason Idris Elba or Oscar Isaac couldn't pull off Bond (well, besides Isaac being not-British, I guess). But I would also argue that Bond's energy is so unmistakably, deliberately male that you couldn't gender-swap the character in the same way you could race-swap them and keep the same character.

[John Dule]

If you care about inclusivity, come up with your own work with original characters.

why not both

Because being derivative is a fundamentally bad thing.

Now this just isn't true.

But Howard Roark said so, so it must be true.