being political correctness run amok, but then I mostly read in places where people don't complain much about political correctness.

I still love Archy Bunker.He held the mirror up to those intolerant hypocrits.
Killing Han Solo was WRONG!!! I will never forgive them

movie. It seemed to me that he was very patient with the franchise about getting his character killed off. -And I thought that his original reason was nicely writ large in the recent movie. Back then, he had claimed he had no place left to go with that character. -and then here that character was, still up to the same level of questionable dealings as before, only with gray hair and wrinkles. Neat, I thought. Plus getting killed off by the same unwavering lack of judgment.

There absolutely is racism and sexism in many parts of the entertainment industry. The majority of the genres and mediums that we enjoy today were founded at a time when the standards for representation were very different, and that's a history that should be illuminated and critiqued. Often, it's difficult for a medium to escape its roots, even when it is explicitly trying to do so and its producers are deliberately self-aware of what they are making. Demographics are changing, and of course media will change with it. However, I do think that one major issue, as you've gestured toward in your essay, is that substantive critique of a media product is often deflected as an expression of racism/sexism, etc, which, I feel, is where the SJW label originates from. Claiming political correctness has become shorthand for saying that one is "crying wolf" and trying to detract from legitimate criticism, as such accusations are usually trying to undermine the status of the critics by labeling them as racists, sexists, or homophobes.

While some of the critics certainly are all of those things, there are often legitimate reasons why people dislike radical changes to established properties. You mentioned the Ghostbusters reboot. It is certainly true that a minority of individuals objected to the film based on the all-female cast. There is no doubt about that. However, the vast majority of the outcry derived from the fact that the film just looked bad and many fans saw it as disrespecting the legacy of the original films, which are beloved among a huge community of people. It was more slapstick than science fiction comedy, and had almost no ties to the original. I can guarantee that if there was even an attempt to directly link it to the originals, either by incorporating Annie Potts' character Janine Melnitz as a leader of the group or having it be more of a "legacy" film where at least one of the characters was the daughter of one of the original Ghostbusters, the movie would have gotten a lot more credit from fans. Instead, the majority of critics were told by everyone, even the director Paul Feig, that they were sexist because they preferred the original films to the reboot.

Additionally, I think that the other area where critics have a strong argument is with regard to retcons, particularly in comic books and related media. In the last few years, there have been numerous instances where existing characters with long established histories, dating back up to 70 years, have either had their origins completely changed or been erased from history altogether in favor of newer race/gender swapped versions of themselves. The most glaring example of that was when DC's post-Crisis Flash, Wally West, was completely removed from existence when the publisher rebooted their universe with the New 52, and was instead replaced by a younger, black version of the character with the exact same name. The two literally had nothing in common except for their name, and the latter could have been a completely different character had he not been called Wally West. Keep in mind that Wally had been around for 50+ years, starting as Kid Flash and earning his way up to the Flash legacy, so he was a character that most readers knew and cared about. To have him nonchalantly replaced with a completely different character simply because DC wanted to appear more "diverse" (which they still are not), was an insult to loyal fans and readers that have spent decades buying their comics. Recently, DC finally relented and brought the original character back alongside the new version, after years of criticism. It's on par with what Marvel recently did with Captain America, where they revealed that he was a sleeper agent for Hydra since his inception. It's an insulting product of a tone deaf editorial mandate that has little to do with race, gender, or sexuality, yet people try to use those things as argumentative tools to shut down criticism. That only fuels and gives traction to the Right's charge that political correctness has run amok.

Additionally, I think it's incredibly easy to blame the consumers of media for the critical response to these changes, but a lot of it is also on the production end. The problem is threefold: 1) There is a lack of diversity behind-the-scenes in the entertainment industry, and no amount of corrective representation in media will change that, 2) There is a lack of institutional support for new kinds of products that challenge existing conventions, and 3) Corporations are unwilling to take the necessary losses that are required in the short term to build up new IPs. In other words, a lot of it boils down to money and access. The entire industry exists to make money, and anything that fails to achieve that goal is seen as expendable. There is no incentive to hire more people of color to make films or star in movies because their market research shows that it hurts their bottom line (the Ridley Scott "Exodus" excuse). Creating new IPs is risky, so it's easier to reboot and introduce something brand new that way, instead of trying to build it from the ground up. If something bombs or isn't an immediate success, there is almost no patience to continue, no matter how critically acclaimed it is, because the bottom line is what matters most. We see that over and over in multiple industries, from film to comics to video games, and a lot of the criticism from fans is aimed at the results of these three things.

Just my two cents. Apologies for the lengthy response.