Can we stop creating race/gender/sexuality based tests for movies and shows? Ultimately they're utterly meaningless. Those works are what they are, good or bad on the merits of themselves. If they include minority characters in some capacity or another and do so in a moderately positive manner, then good for them.
I'm not saying we need to praise every film that comes out simply because it features a female character doing something other than having sex nor am I saying that we need to damn every film that doesn't or doesn't do so under overly idealistic circumstances. I'm just saying consider a movie on its own. Don't compare and contrast its theoretical socio-political strengths or faults or distinctions as the be all and end all of the film or work itself. It's a component, nothing more, nothing less. Judge everything by its own standards and with the same specific criteria. If those aspects are overwhelming in the given work or they are a significant theme being explored or addressed and they legitimately lend themselves to analysis, then by all means, analyze and critique away.
But every summer blockbuster and every giant award winning film doesn't need/deserve/necessitate the kind of repetitive, vaguely defined, and ultimately futile haranguing they get. Movies, at the end of the day, are just that- movies. They aren't definitive tent-pole landmarks by which our sociological tendencies should be judged. They are only indicative of those attitudes and ideas in a broad way as it is. Films more often than not are such specifically focused entities, giving off notions and perspectives and opinions that are usually nothing less than the given point of view a select number of individuals (i.e. the cast and crew). If those ideas are ones that you don't necessarily agree with or if they aren't executed in a manner you find particularly effective or positive or ideal then you have every right to address those matters however you see fit. But to act as though the latest Michael Bay flick or the newest Star Wars movie will be the definitive end to the positive depiction of women on screen seems a bit much. Is the argument you're making that those films are inherently or theoretically sexist in some small or large way invalidated? No. But we do tend to live in an age where we use hyperbole and exaggeration far too heavily. These arguments have been made for years and more often have been done so in a manner much more accurately and legitimately critical than in the stuff you so often read in modern op-ed pieces and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. We speak in such broad and vague terms that we never actually get to the heart of the matter. We use an abundance of overly fancy language to make it seem as though we saying something much more important or relevant than we may be.
A decent example of this arose in my Simpsons class during my final semester. We were discussing an extended excerpt from Judith Butler's book Gender Trouble which details her analytical perspectives on they very concept of gender and sexuality. Our teacher admitted that while Butler's points are at the very least interesting and allow for a great deal of discussion on the issues she raises in the course of the book and especially that she does argue and support herself well enough- the prose and the language that is used is almost impossibly difficult to get through. If at the end of the day you're making a more or less valid argument about a legitimately controversial and an enormously complex issue, why hinder yourself by using word choice that distances your readers or at the very least is only really understood by academics?
If your point is that a recent film is bad because it represents a minority in a poor light, that's a completely valid and accurate criticism. In theory. But if all you do in the course of your review/article/discussion is rant in unsupported ways of how this one film specifically can and should be used as the quintessential pinnacle of what's wrong with Hollywood's perspective on _____________ (insert minority group here) then you're kind of missing the point.
These issues are so enormous in their scope and so (essentially) complex in terms of the ways they've been represented over the years in our media that it's simply not adequate to break them down into one film and say "This is the movie that should be used as a point of reference." The issues themselves are just that- issues. They are inherently and aggressively complicated and appear in such a multitude of forms and guises that it's nigh impossible to say that Sucker Punch or Pacific Rim are good or bad because of how they represent women as characters. Far too often I've seen critics and online bloggers discuss these matters in such one-sided ways and with such (surprisingly and laughably) limited perspectives and terms. Entire books have been written on the treatment of African-American and/or female and/or LGBT and/or any minority really characters over the years and they have attempted to encapsulate and carefully define the rise and fall of the various issues attributed to any of those kinds of characters. To just arbitrarily announce that a recent superhero or sci-fi flick or minority-centered drama is the worst thing ever to happen to someone/something is just absurdly inflating the issue to a level it doesn't exist at.
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