And as I tried to say above- Yes the bad morals are there, if you look beyond the veil. But I don’t think the average viewer looks there,, that’s why this is not the main moral lessons that they will learn.
@sciencevsmagic already hit the nail on the head for a response to this, but I’ll give some examples of how bad morals will affect even your “average viewer” by which I assume you mean someone who is not interacting inside a fandom as you and I are. Everything is a conversation and beings because of a reaction to what the person is seeing on their screen. Here’s how this might go.
A viewer might see a character performing some sort of amoral act. Now while they might not pick up their laptop and write about why this is disquieting to them, they might–in this day and age:
–think “I don’t like what I’m seeing” and instead pickup their phone and flip through Facebook, thus ignoring what is happening on screen.
–Flip the channel until they think the scene in question as passed
–Decide that next week they are going to DVR the show instead of watching live so that they can Fast Forward through anything they don’t like
–Stop watching altogether
–Not like/retweet/reblog a post from the TV show on social media
–not discuss the show the next day around the proverbial watercooler
–if they are watching with someone, they might say “I can’t believe the show did that!” in a way that suggests anger instead of awe.
–stop buying any kind of merchandise like DVDs, apparel, ect
–will adopt the language being used in the show as part of their vernacular even if unintentional, up to and including slurs and words with negative connotations.
–in an extreme case, they might perform some sort of act because “I saw it on a TV show” (this is literally why some TV shows comes with a “do not attempt at home” warning).
–and finally, even something as simple as frowning and thinking “that’s wrong” or even “I don’t know how I feel about this.”
No one simply sits there and watches TV. We don’t turn off our brains when the tube goes on; you are constantly engaging with a show in a dialogue no matter how minor or major.