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Notes -
There is a phenomenon i notice in media but never hear named. Call it, "Representation As Inherently Problematic."
Examples: There are no mentally handicapped people or trans people on shows that are not specifically about these topics. The reasons for this for mental disabilities are fairly obvious: mental handicaps are considered intrinsically undignified. If you show a mentally handicapped person doing or saying something dumb on a show, this counts as mocking a protected group. Thus: total absence.
Similarly: If you have a trans person on a show you need to make it clear to the audience they are trans, which either requires it to be a plot point (making it a sort of Very Special Episode) or making the trans person not pass (which is undignified and thus opens the writers up to criticism.) Thus: total absence.
Similarly, morbid obesity is undignified, and the morbidly obese are close to being a protected class (being as it is a physical disability). Thus, having them on a show is undignified and opens up the writers to criticism. Thus: total absence.
Another example: land o' lakes mascot, a native American woman, gets criticism for being stereotypical, which is synonymous to being visually identifiable as a native american. So she was removed from the labeling.
Another: Dr. Seuss gets criticism for visually identifiable depiction of a Chinese villager; book gets pulled as a result.
A similar-feeling phenomenon is This Character Has Some Characteristics Of A Protected Group, Which Is Kinda Like Being A Standin For That Group, Making That Character's Poor Qualities A Direct Commentary On That Group. Examples: criticisms around Greedo and Jar Jar Binks being racist caricatures; criticisms of goblin representation in Harry Potter as being anti-semitic caricatures.
This sort of reminds me of an article I read on Cracked years ago. It argued that male writers are terrified of writing a female character with meaningful flaws for fear of being accused of sexism or misogyny. So instead, they write female characters who are perfect in every way that matters. The end result is that the male characters are fully fleshed-out rounded characters (whom the audience actually likes and cares about, because they seem like real people), while the female characters are one-dimensional Mary Sues who can do no wrong (whom the audience despises, because perfect people are boring).
Except that female writers also write female characters as one-dimensional Mary sues, because yaaas queen slay.
The dynamic I notice in media today is that there's lots of Representation, but none of the minorities being represented are allowed to have negative character traits or be unsympathetic antagonists (for the same reasons as above), so straight white male characters wind up as sinks for all the narrative negativity.
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