I have a take and an observation on the topic. My take - write a character and a story and make it good. I understand how some people feel excluded or different for one reason or another. The point of most characters that are good are that they are "sympathetic" not "identical". If you can sympathize with the critical aspect of a main character in a situation, then they are a well written character, regardless of their other traits or flaws. Hell, my main character isn't human (or human adjacent). I have about 1600 active readers. Those people are NOT represented by the character, but they can sympathize with aspects of them.
I've never had issue "putting myself in the shoes" of characters with different genders, orientations, races, or species. I do not, however, have to empathize with a character who does something stupid or entirely self-serving. There is a difference between a character who has goals, and a character who IS a goal (the aforementioned check box).
My biggest personal gripe with most of this is that individuals have the freedom to identify however they want, and most people choose to make their identity the smallest possible group. Something like "I'm a trans quadriplegic with two souls who goes by Amfur/Amfurry". You've CHOSEN to be a hyperminority at that point if you make that your identity. I could identify as "A Factorio and Dota player and a Writer". That's pretty small also. Then I too could have issues with representation. I don't though. I identify first and foremost as an American, and a midwesterner shortly under that. That is a pretty big group that I choose to identify as. (My big gripe is that often times people put themselves in a hyper segregated minority, rather than any number of majorities they are actually in first).
My observation is that Hollywood and Netflix have screwed themselves. There are examples in history of diversity done right. I don't remember the movie, but someone said "If this was made today, conservatives would say it's woke, but because it's old they don't."
That is correct, they would, it's because the well is now poisoned. Imagine you make the new Ghostbusters (with the women), and it bombs. It's bad writing, mediocre acting, in a story that wasn't asked for, in a series that was already established. Then you tell people the reason it bombed isn't those things, but that people hate diversity.
Now imagine you live along a nice lake, you fish there, you relax etc. A company comes in, and starts building hotels all around the lake, industrializes the area, and puts in a bunch of parking lots, and the lake is overfished and becomes unpopular. You tell the company that they ruined the lake, and they tell you that actually, your unwillingness to share the lake is what ruined it. Just look at this other lake that wasn't ruined in the past. You then feel obligated to warn people that this company "might" ruin other lakes. Further, you're now mad, and any hotel around any lake makes you suspicious that it might be bad.
The water hole is now poisoned. It's impossible to see it any other way. Any "bad" movie will have the diverse cast blamed. Even if it wasn't the cause. To the writers there isn't a way back either, because the only way back that they could conceive is to actually exclude diversity of any kind for 5 or 10 years until people forget about forced diversity (which would be even worse). The real way back is for the writers and or actors to admit they fucked up on bad films (hint, they won't), so they'll continue the blame cycle.
Hollywood basically swallowed the poison pill on this one. They can rot in hell for trying to use minorities as a shield for their own poor writing.
