I am really strongly uncomfortable with the idea of 'artistic responsibility' when it comes to modelling good behaviour (especially for the kiddies), apparently more so than you. (I like warnings, though, because I don't want to trigger anyone, and because there are both things I seek out and things I don't want to read, and warnings help me do both.)
I don't personally have different standards for TV writers than I do for myself, because I'd feel, well, hypocritical about that. My problem with SPN lies not with the writers but with the casting department, who refuse to have any female recurring characters who aren't 'hot' and who have caused us to lose both Ellen and Missouri, whom I liked (although Missouri may qualify as a Magical Negro, and G-d, I hate even typing that word).
Here's the thing, though--I am totally fucking irritated about the skanky race, class and gender issues on Heroes (even though I can't stop watching it as long as it is keeping Adrian Pasdar employed). But that's in part because the presentation is not realistic, and while I do not believe in 'artistic responsibility' to model good behaviour for the kiddies even a little bit, I believe in 'artistic responsibility' to write people believably as who and what they are--and there isn't any artistic truth in the way CoC are portrayed on that show, except for Hiro in S1--they are pretty much all reprehensible stereotypes: the Black ex-con who can't keep a job and his white stripper wife, the Latino drug addict who spends all his time strung out and the smart Black woman who puts up with his bullshit anyway until a white guy rescues her from it and then, oh yeah, she gets killed for sleeping with both of them. There are not enough palms in the world for my face after watching some of this. The gender crap is terrible too--the toughest character on the show is female, but she has to be rescued by a guy she could pretty much turn into a pretzel--why? That's the kind of writing that I find upsetting, and yet somehow the actors make me care anyway, and I sure as hell don't know how to handle it in a fic, which is why I write about the Petrellis, because of a) my crush on Adrian and b) my lack of ability to figure out who those other people are. (And S2 was even worse. More CoC, but omg, they're so badly drawn they might as well not have bothered because Maya and Alejandro were just one giant insult to everyone ever born south of Texas.)
I guess that's why I have a problem with Heroes and not with SPN--in SPN I can relate to the characters, even when they do things that make me cringe or are badly drawn, but in Heroes, I so often can't and find myself only following certain characters who...are slightly less badly written than the others, or are played by actors I adore.
Re: part 2
I don't personally have different standards for TV writers than I do for myself, because I'd feel, well, hypocritical about that. My problem with SPN lies not with the writers but with the casting department, who refuse to have any female recurring characters who aren't 'hot' and who have caused us to lose both Ellen and Missouri, whom I liked (although Missouri may qualify as a Magical Negro, and G-d, I hate even typing that word).
Here's the thing, though--I am totally fucking irritated about the skanky race, class and gender issues on Heroes (even though I can't stop watching it as long as it is keeping Adrian Pasdar employed). But that's in part because the presentation is not realistic, and while I do not believe in 'artistic responsibility' to model good behaviour for the kiddies even a little bit, I believe in 'artistic responsibility' to write people believably as who and what they are--and there isn't any artistic truth in the way CoC are portrayed on that show, except for Hiro in S1--they are pretty much all reprehensible stereotypes: the Black ex-con who can't keep a job and his white stripper wife, the Latino drug addict who spends all his time strung out and the smart Black woman who puts up with his bullshit anyway until a white guy rescues her from it and then, oh yeah, she gets killed for sleeping with both of them. There are not enough palms in the world for my face after watching some of this. The gender crap is terrible too--the toughest character on the show is female, but she has to be rescued by a guy she could pretty much turn into a pretzel--why? That's the kind of writing that I find upsetting, and yet somehow the actors make me care anyway, and I sure as hell don't know how to handle it in a fic, which is why I write about the Petrellis, because of a) my crush on Adrian and b) my lack of ability to figure out who those other people are. (And S2 was even worse. More CoC, but omg, they're so badly drawn they might as well not have bothered because Maya and Alejandro were just one giant insult to everyone ever born south of Texas.)
I guess that's why I have a problem with Heroes and not with SPN--in SPN I can relate to the characters, even when they do things that make me cringe or are badly drawn, but in Heroes, I so often can't and find myself only following certain characters who...are slightly less badly written than the others, or are played by actors I adore.