In the 90s Will Smith starred in Independence Day, and absolutely no one complained (as far as I know) because Will Smith is awesome and he deserved the role. See also Blade from the same era.
People get upset when it's clear that a person has been chosen for a role/position just because of their skin colour/gender/sexuality rather than their talent. I can't actually think of any movies that have done this, but plenty of TV shows (Star Trek Discovery).
Obviously some roles require the person to be of a certain race for it to appear authentic. Lots of older films used white actors for middle Eastern roles, which is seen as "white washing" and is therefore wrong. The latest Ghost in the Shell race swapped the main character to be American, and was rightly called out for doing so.
Basically we should be allowed to criticize both ways...
The Dark Tower was a sore spot for me. The protagonist was a character inspired by Clint Eastwood and was depicted as fair skinned in every piece of cover art and spinoff before Idris Elba was cast in the role. Blackwashing a character fans of the story all imagined as white really underscored how little appreciation the movie makers had for the source material.
I'm not sure any amount of acting talent could save Discovery. The problem is the writing.
https://www.indiewire.com/2021/07/independence-day-studio-re...
In this case, though, the roles are reversed. The supposedly "woke" studio system didn't want to put a black guy in the lead, whereas the public were more open to the idea.
Could you prove to us in some way that these actors are chosen because of their skin colour/gender/sexuality, and not because of their skills?
No one in my social circles uses “wokeness” at all, certainly never seriously. It always seems like people upset at “wokeness” are actually just upset that people producing popular media support very simple concepts of diversity. Like when black actors get representation in media previously dominated by white people, to me that is just a good thing, but I see reports that many think this is “wokeness”, which they think is bad. This ultimately reveals that they simply do not like it when white people have to share space with people of other skin tones. Their concerns always seem to me to be… misplaced. In other instances the person may be unhappy about female representation, or trans, queer and non-binary representation. Those are all thinks I think are great. I’m non-binary and it’s really meaningful to me. So when someone calls those things “wokeism” I don’t actually see “wokeism” as the problem I see that persons ideas as the problem.
Hope that answers your questions!