memes

If the reason people were mad about aeriel had more to do with it being a bad movie, just another example of disney remaking shit, then why was the dialogue so far on the side of the race swap, that it drowned out all other possible complaints, to the point that they were rarely brought up, except as a reaction to being called racist?

Yes, pointing to one example, where the thing didn't happen, is cherry picking. There will always be exceptions. You need to establish a strong pattern of behavior, over time, one common enough to be a counter weight. There very much is a long history, with a strong pattern, of whitewashing being shrugged off by the same general crowd whining about race/gender swaps away from the white normative. However the opposite is far less common.

I didn't address the first three items in the meme because the community that does, in fact, know better, was the community most angry about the race swap away from white/male characters, and largely silent about these example. From the local comic/gaming shop, to the online fora, to the indy media focused on the subject, there was a barrage of hate towards things being shifted away from white, near silence on whitewashing, and lots of bad faith arguments like "but what if panther white?" to the point where it made valid criticism of these media a distant second, at best, talking point, and, as I previously stated, became the major talking point, in any given conversation, when people pointed to the racism in the reaction. I had already touched on that.

Also, as a side note, I find it weird that you point to liberals, also doing things, as some defense against it being racist. There are plenty of liberal minded people, with BLM signs in their yards, that call the police the moment they see a black guy, they don't know, walking in their neighborhood.

No I don't think everyone who has lodged a complaint about making a charater another race/gender/sexuality is a bigot for it. There is a discussion to be had about the negative impacts of things like rainbow capitalism. However, outside of predominently leftist spaces, that is rarely the conversation. When a movie comes out, that has a minority swap, in general spaces, for the communities of fans of the material, the zeitgeist of those topics is large reactionary, racist, anger.

Are there reasons to be critical of this type of thing, that isn't bigoted at the roots? Sure. Are non-bigoted arguments against it, the primary ones being brought forth by the fan communities? Fuck no.

If all you want is to not think about the bad aspects of the things you like, just say that. No one is stopping you.