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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.
Here's a Patton Oswalt stand-up bit from 2011 (NSFW!) where he talks about being asked to audition for the role of "Gay best friend" in a romcom and him saying that he would only do it if he was allowed to play the character as really, really dumb, because he was tired of seeing all gay characters in media being portrayed as impossibly awesome and flawless.
The flip side of this is Weak Men are Superweapons. I've definitely started noticing recently that, at least in the media I consume, fundamentalist Christians (or deeply religious people in general) are never depicted as anything other than evil. Examples: the "Crackstone" character in Wednesday, the antagonists in Devil in Ohio (well, those were actually Satanists, but they sure looked like a standin for Puritans or Amish people). Can anybody think of an example of an important (main character or recurring supporting character) character in recent mainstream media that is depicted as a good person who does good things, but who is also explicitly a fundamentalist Christian?
I'm not quite certain what your definition of fundamentalist / deeply religious is here, but here are some positively portrayed Christians off the top of my head:
Harriet Hayes from Studio 60 (2006-2007). She's shown to have pre-marital sex and considers posing nude at one point so she is admittedly a bit of a stretch.
Detective Almond from Backstrom (2015) is a born-again Christian who works as a volunteer pastor in a local community church.
Matt Murdock in Daredevil(2015). A flawed but ultimately good man. He's Catholic and often seeks counsel from his parish priest.
Shepherd Book from Firefly (2002) is a pastor, though it's also implied he found religion after a life of dirty deeds, so your mileage may vary here.
Michael Carpenter from The Dresden Files book series.
Graham Hess in Signs (2002) though we meet him in the middle of a crisis of faith.
Desmond Doss in Hacksaw Ridge, but it's a biopic, so that may not count.
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot Shirley from Community (2009-2015). She's got her flaws (prone to gossip) but she's depicted as a genuinely good person who does her best to do the right thing.
I get that you're nodding to general perceptions regarding who "counts" as Christian but the caveats bug me.
You don't have to be personally / socially conservative to be Christian! If we use the Nicene Creed as an orthodox litmus test, being a Christian is defined by what you believe, not how you conduct yourself. (This is not to say that I don't personally think Christians, including myself, should strive to meet certain behavioral standards. But there is a lot of disagreement about what those standards should be precisely. And pretty widespread acknowledgement that most of us aren't going to live up to the ideal all or even most of the time.)
So did St. Paul!
This is where we get into the weeds. Portrayals of liberal Christians aren't what we're talking about here; they tend to be regarded favourably precisely because they will fit into the Zeitgeist, and the "praying to God" stuff is just private personal quirks which is how it should be. They'll be your escort to the abortion clinic to support you against the bad Christians out front protesting. I think we could all imagine an episode of a mainstream TV series presenting such a view.
"Yeah I really believe all the Bible stuff" either literally or conservatively (small 'o' orthodox) on the other hand - zealots, baddies, or just nice people but shackled by the blinders of their repressive faith unless/until they get liberalised. Something along the lines of "I used to be one of the bigots protesting outside abortion clinics but then my daughter was raped and needed an abortion to save her life otherwise the pregnancy would have killed her, so now I've seen the light and done a 180 on all my old views". Again, episode on a mainstream TV drama.
I'm 100% with that. Unfortunately, there's a lot of "Well modern people in the modern age can't believe those old stories anymore, so we'll junk all that, and besides now we have science and women can vote, so we scrap this theology and change our disciplines" around "what should Christians believe?" that fits in with the Zeitgeist (see above). Is society now for gay rights? Then let's redefine our understanding of what St. Paul meant in this epistle so we can say he condemned 'bad' homosexuality but didn't mean 'good' homosexuality. Let's go all the way to say that the centurion and his servant were gay lovers, so clearly Jesus approves of gay rights! Let's say that witchcraft and demonic possession are spiritual gifts and silly old Paul just couldn't broaden his notions to accept that! (Seriously a sermon preached by the then-head of The Episcopal Church, that should be non-socially conservative enough for anyone).
So you're a slave, possessed by a demon (or suffering from mental problems, if we take the modern approach). Your owners are making money out of having you tell fortunes. Along comes a guy who heals you. This is A Bad Thing because he should have recognised that being ill and exploited by people who regard you as a thing, not a person, was in fact a beautiful, holy thing.
Yeah, somehow I'm not a liberal Christian.
Thank you for writing this. This is the response I couldn't figure out how to properly phrase.
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