OK, it took me a while to reply to this, because I've been trying to think of the words to get my point across in one go. I don't really feel like a full debate, but I also want to make any point I have clear enough where I stand without one.
Your argument seems to be that media should not reflect reality, and should be an ideal that is lived up to. An escape from reality. I have several issues with that concept.
The first is that your version of an escape from reality is one where everyone looks attractive (which generally means women with STONKING GREAT TITS, and men with enough muscles that when they flex, their biceps have their own biceps), where the average protagonist is a grizzled white man with nothing to lose and a gravelly voice spitting out one-liners. That implies that the real world with varying races, body shapes, and so on is worse than one where everyone looks the same, and men are manly men and women are damsels to be saved and "reward" their savior. After all, if it was the other way around, it wouldn't be much of an escape from reality, would it?
The second issue is that media has an influence on expectations. You talk about how society is going a different way from how progressive organizations are trying to go, and there's a contradiction there. You are right, but what you don't seem to be considering is how society decided that short men were less attractive than taller men, that women who are too strong in personality are "bitches". That didn't just come out of the ether. Hell, if you go back to the Victorian era, plump women were considered the hot ticket, because that weight meant that they were able to eat in excess, and therefore were better off financially than a skinny woman who clearly couldn't afford to feed herself properly.
What changed? The perception of what made women attractive. And what could have possibly influenced that perception? Could it be things like Barbie dolls, Hollywood actresses that could lose their roles for gaining too much weight, models that were giving themselves eating disorders to maintain a dangerously slender frame? Media can easily influence how people perceive things in the real world. If we want, for example, people who have mental illnesses to be less stigmatized, having media not stigmatizing them is a very logical place to start. It won't happen overnight, but it has to happen. The only other option is to just shrug, say "that's just the way it is", and having the problem fester. That is not the option I'm willing to accept. If you are pleased with the status quo, that's all well and good, and I won't try to argue that you are wrong for that. I'm not happy with the status quo, however, and welcome efforts to change it.
