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I meant to reply to this weeks ago, but I forgot. I just abandoned the bookmark. Well, better late than never.
I haven't seen God Bless America, but based on your description, the characters are meant to be relatable, not sympathetic. You're right that their grievances are meant to be shared by the audience, but we're not supposed to feel cathartic bliss when they take out our perceived enemies. We're supposed to feel discomfort that someone like us could be driven by their animosity, an animosity we also feel, to become something so much worse than what we are. This is how villain protagonists usually work. The tone could be dramatic, like Sweeney Todd, or comedic, like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, but the protagonist is not supposed to be admirable in these stories.
OR SO I THOUGHT.
That was what I used to think, before the surge in political violence that happened in 2017. Now, I think what I just said only applies to stories without any politically loaded imagery.
For example, in the first season of Rick and Morty (which aired in 2014), Rick and Summer beat up a Neo-Nazi, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, and a guy who lets his dog defecate on neighbors' lawns. At the time, I thought the joke was that Rick, who's a bad person, was using violence to deal with petty grievances and encouraging his granddaughter to do the same. Then I saw a photo where an artist who works on the show wearing a "Fuck Racism, Punch Nazis" shirt (with a picture of Richard Spencer being punched) eating chicken nuggets (dipped in Schezuan sauce) with Dan Harmon and other members of the crew. Now I do wonder how much actual media that encourages violence gets made and isn't just hallucinated by ye olde soccer moms.
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