The push for diversity in media is picking up speed. It’s part of an overdue movement toward building a world in which more of us have more access to our share of the glory.

It’s important because what we see as children is what we are trained to accept in adulthood. After all, to become a doctor you must first be able to imagine yourself as a doctor, right?

There are lots of threads to this movement; caucasians being cast in asian roles, african american women being stereotyped, gay men being muted – but the one that is (after some hard work) hitting social media lately is the lack of screen time and quality of roles for women.

The push back against the call for more women in meaningful roles is frightening.

Take the Mad Max reboot for example. Now, Mad Max was never my thing, but I saw the original and I saw the new one. I can’t say I cared about either. I also can’t say that the addition of the Furiosa character made a difference to how I felt about the second. That’s the point. She’s just a character. The actor’s skills, the writing, the directing, the script – these all matter. Her gender didn’t.

I’ve just endured the same rage filled hue and cry about the ruining of the ‘classic’ Ghostbusters brought one by remaking the film with *gasp* women. And AGAIN; sure Ghostbusters amused me as a young teen, but watching it now I can’t say I would have used the word ‘classic’ to describe it. I caught the new Ghostbusters with a friend then I sat down and rewatched the original. My takeaway? 1. Could Bill Murray have been more flat in his Ghostbuster’s reboot cameo? Meh.

Sadly this ridiculous outrage is not limited to women in film. The internet also lost it’s shit when there was a possibility of a black Bond and when London’s West End got a black Hermione.

There is no quantifiable, objective reason that white male is our default poster child for
everything done in the public sphere. It’s a social construct that we need to socially
destruct and rebuild.

That’s it. No amount of angry little boy outbursts are going to stop the world from changing.

Next up, my review of the outrage over Oceans Eight…