This is the problem. I don't care about the gender or race of a character, but I do care about pandering and virtue signalling. This happens all over media and people don't understand that the negative reaction has nothing to do with racism, but they can't let racism go and so they constantly steer the conversation back to it.

I went to see a broadway musical in New York some time ago and one of the characters was played by a white child at the start, then she grew up and was played by a black woman as an adult. I was confused until I heard someone call the character by name and made the connection. My assumption was simply that the white child and black woman gave the best auditions and so they were hired for the roles, and they just hoped people would make the connection easily enough. No problem, she was a fantastic singer, she deserved the role. Nobody made a big virtue signalling fuss about it, so I had no reason to think it was anything other than merit-based. All is well.

Then there was the whole Harry Potter musical thing with Hermione being played by a black woman. Except now it was being used as a PR/marketing gimmick. They used the black actress to virtue signal in their advertising. Now it's pandering and now I'm annoyed. And honestly I think the woman playing Hermione should have been annoyed too. If I got a role, and I was so proud of myself for landing it, and then I turn around and they're advertising "look how progressive we are, we hired THIS person after all!" I'd be like... What the actual fuck? Do you see me as a charity case? Am I actually not a good performer? I'd be pissed, I'd feel terrible.

But heaven forbid you tell them to cool it on the virtue signalling circle jerk, or you're racist nazi scum.