I’ll try not to drone on, but this is a pet subject.
Barry is right, the powers that be do steer us in the direction of what we should find entertaining and what we should be offended by. The purpose of traditional storytelling is to establish social mores and norms. The social mores and norms presented to us by modern entertainment as acceptable has a lot to do with the disintegrating conditions of the world around us today.
I also agree with Wstol about lazy writers and actors. Everyone goes for the big boffo laugh. There is no subtlety. We get eccentricities, not characters. No one is content to be a supporting actor, everyone wants to be a star. Even non-actors, I can’t tell you how many people I see walking around in public clutching their phones playing music as if they have their own personal theme tune. When everyone is out to advance themselves above all else the communal project is going to suffer, be it a tv program or society at large.
For a moment though, I’ll play devil’s advocate for the writers. It’s not easy. I think Captain brought up a few months ago that ITV was passing a requirement that all writing teams have at least one woman in them. That in itself is challenge enough. The next goes back to the first point. In writing books, especially children’s books, if you make it through the slush pile and the process of proposing a book or story, the powers that be will send you a list of words you may or may not use, a very strange age-appropriate vocabulary list, a list of inclusions YOU MUST make in your characters and subject manner, and a format of expected story development. Script writing is no doubt similar. There is very little leeway for original creativity. We were talking about cartoons the other day, anyone who has seen The Magic School Bus knows exactly what I mean. Obviously, inclusion and equality are good things, but at a certain point once you plug in all these requirements there isn’t room for a decent story to breathe.