Why "woke" TV reboots don't work: "Diversity isn’t a varnish you can apply to what’s familiar"

Wired

Past TV shows rebooted to emphasize diversity, like Charmed or the upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot are bound to be problematic, says Emma Grey Ellis. "This is where the of vast majority of woke-ified reboots fail," she says. "They respond to calls for change by retreading old ground—an insulting move on a few different levels. Reboots, remakes, and sequels abound because they’re easy to get greenlit: Executives feel safer shelling out cash for things they know have worked before, things that have a built-in audience. Which is already unsatisfying, but somewhat worse when you consider that many of these reboots have female showrunners and/or showrunners of color, some of whom have explicitly stated that doing a remake of an existing show is the only way to get their stories greenlit. The implication: Stories about women and minorities aren’t seen as marketable enough to stand on their own, unless they are standing on the shoulders of a story by and for white men. Which, even just from a box office numbers standpoint, is plainly wrong."