Not quite the same thing. Yes, movies have been selling us on a message or provide social commentary for ages. Sometimes with the message subtly embedded in the movie, sometimes the movie was the message. And they've done the race or gender swap thing before as well: tell a familiar story from a different perspective.
But in most cases, the old writers and directors stuck to their artistic integrity, putting the movie first rather than the message. That has changed. In "woke" productions (for lack of a better word), artistic integrity takes a back seat. Plot, dialogue, casting are affected in order to serve "the message", even when it detracts from the production's quality, as it often does. It's not every production, and there's certainly no reason to start foaming at the mouth whenever they cast a lady for a part originally written for a guy or whatever... but it does happen.