Movies and TV Shows

I appreciate the way you responded to this and I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t have much to add because I feel like you covered it all to be honest. I think my view of what you described was how the comics have done it, Tim Fox is black Batman, Spider-Gwen is female Spider-Man etc. so there is something for everyone.

Edited: Accidentally used the wrong name for Tim Fox, I used the authors name instead of the characters.

You're playing into corporate's hands by assuming audiences cannot relate to a narrative if the actors don't resemble them in some fashion. Their interests are served by having you buy into such a notion. They run social media sock-puppet accounts espousing it everywhere you care to look (like throwing spaghetti at a wall, if we just talk about it enough maybe some of it will stick!). The problem is that the notion is bullshit.

I love The Wire. It's the best show about policing. I have nothing in common with black Americans barely living above the poverty line, though. Not behaviour, not worldview, not skin tone, not dress sense. Yet these characters make up three quarters of the cast; and I empathised and sympathised with them all the same. By the same token Lord of the Rings has a broad, enduring reach well beyond the Anglosphere.

I think much of the fuss over representation in modern media comes down to content producers trying to tailor the consumer to their product. They want us preoccupied with it. And when they're caught out or backed into a corner on the matter, rather than fess up and admit they have industrial and institutional pressures to deal with (actor employment, Blackrock ESG gamification, etc), they suggest critics are racist instead. Perhaps that really is a better strategic approach than a policy of honesty and respect for the public's intelligence. But it doesn't make it true.