Alan Moore is a GOAT misanthrope but he’s hit on something here. Any nuance gets flattened to fit back into these simple mindsets.
I don’t blame media. Not exactly. Think it’s social networks supporting these mentalities. Nobody gets an audience on social networks by being rational. If they were, they step out once, get a buzz from all the attention, and adjust to feed that hit. That’s before talking about the insidious way studios bet on all this. It’s all a cycle.
About conservatism, divorced from politics. Nerdsfolk have lost the plot years ago by making this all political. Same people mad about the Transformers movies, Superman, Devil May Cry, et al. being different from their childhood, lacking any self awareness or introspection, called others mad about Ghostbusters or whatever, sexist and racist. That shit led to the mess going on now. Conflating two different things, you drove them together, which is the social network problem again. Republicans ranting about banal shit like a Step by Step reboot with a black Frank Lambert, it’s a consequence of blending those ideas.
There’s absolutely an element of racism and sexism involved. Just that it wasn’t the primary motivation, until it was. Two examples. The Rocky reboot-of-sorts Creed came out in 2015. Nobody complained about Michael B Jordan taking over the franchise. Successful in every respect. Couple years back, a reboot of Buffy with a black lead was planned. Guess which people were mad about that one.