I don’t think the problem is with white people so much as it is with the bureaucrats and marketers who underestimate white people in an attempt to play it safe financially. (In fact, they have a similar attitude about women black or white. Ever notice how many action shows have one character who is “the Girl”? Even the Smurfs have only one Smurfette. But that’s another story.) These people believe that you can never go broke by underestimating the American public, and for generations they have been complicit in making sure that the nobody challenges the status quo, whether it was racist, sexist, or just plain dumb. These were the people who made sure that Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke slept in separate beds throughout the 50s, that no one ever saw a pregnant woman on a movie or TV screen, and that all protagonists were white males surrounded by women who stood by their men, and had POC friends and servants as sidekicks and comic relief.

The fact of the matter is, however, that people get bored with the status quo in entertainment, which is why the really big money is made by the people with the guts to break those taboos. The old formulas are now being broken or turned on their heads, and people are eating it up. Movie after Movie, and show after show, has been breaking these marketing rules, and making more money than the shows that play it safe. The Marketing people resist this at first, but eventually the figures become impossible to ignore.

Once one movie breaks the old rule, breaking the old rule becomes the new rule. Now these bureaucrats spend their time overestimating possible woke outrage with the same cowardly caution that they overestimated racist outrage. I think there will be a sensible reaction to that exces caution eventually, but we will never go back to the ways things were. Let me welcome all formerly marginalized people to the privileged center of modern narratives. You can have it. I’m happy to be represented by clueless comic sidekicks from now on.