\nI believe the general trend in the American Media has been to keep plot and characters simple. As long as this is true, there will be a need by writers to use negative stereotypes. This stereotype may be the unethical, greedy businessman (offening people in the business world), a Pagan using \u201cblack magic\u201d (offening Neo-Pagans and Wiccans), or any racial stereotype (obviously offending that particular racial group).<\/p>\n
I see two solutions to this problem. The first is to take a sort of sci-fi approach and either create alien races or meta-humans (genetically modified or somehow superhuman) who would then take the role of \u201cbad guy\u201d. This approach is only a temporary solution, as aliens or meta-humans have a rare possibility of becoming a real part of our society in the future. In that case, this entire argument would be back to square one, with mainstream society subjugating the new members of society.<\/p>\n
Solution number two (and without a doubt the better solution) would be for writers to create characters who are complex. A \u201cbad guy\u201d who is shown to have good intentions, or believes that what he is doing is somehow in the right, is much easier to sympathize with. A truly human and \u201cgrey\u201d character would offend less people when given a specific race and gender. In addition, grey characters show people that any one person is a blend of stereotypical \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad\u201d and never one or the other (as our current media portrays).<\/p>\n