When I heard that the guy who played TC in the original Magnum P.I. died I watched some old reruns of the show. As an 80s baby I remember watching Magnum P.I., Night Rider, and A-Team with my dad when I was a kid. Thankfully in those days it was still ok to have shows that appealed to men. Of course plenty of women liked those shows generally to see the male leads, but that is what you want. As I call the James Bond appeal. Get men to watch for the action and women to watch for the handsome male lead. On the flip side, if you make a female led action movie with an attractive woman who isn't an annoying feminist (basically the opposite of that stupid Charlies Angels movie) I'd be inclined to watch.
But it further reinforced why I tend to watch stuff from 2014 and prior and really need some heavy recommendations to try shows that come out today. Also back then they had shows like Dynasty, Falcon Crest, and Knots Landing to appeal to women. Just makes me realize how entertainment would change overnight if they could simply acknowledge that men and women tend to enjoy different things or maybe they watch the same thing for different reasons. There is a reason as a kid my brother and I loved G.I. Joe and Thundercats while my sister was into Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake.
As much as I like that genre of movie/show you're talking about, it's hard to not watch them with a modern eye.
When they came out conservative Christianity was the dominant paradigm, and the idea that some masculine character could save the world and get the girl without wanting to settle down and marry her was outside the respectable norm. Your parents might say something like "OK James Bond gets to do that but you aren't James Bond so it's a bad idea for you to do that." So the appeal of that media was obviously to tear down something that at the time was dominant and make the younger generation want something that was harmful for all but perhaps an extremely small percentage of them.
Now that that paradigm is dead, in many cases those very same people involved in those movies/shows speak of how "inappropriate" they are to modern audiences. Well perhaps, but if that's true, it was also true at the time they were made. The letter-writing campaigns to yank the shows from the air ended up being part of their marketing strategy. Why did they not care then? Because at the time the purpose was to be "inappropriate". Only now that it's "inappropriate" in a way that doesn't serve the dominant paradigm which they also serve is that a problem.
And I say this as someone who still regularly watches TNG, near 30 years after it ended. It was propaganda for a different age, which has long since ended. The shows served their purpose at the time, but since our enemies have no honor they don't receive their due respect for a job well done.
I think there is something to be said about "power fantasies beyond the the scope of reality." Rather than an attempt at tearing at the primary paradigm, it was an appeal to a different set of instincts we bury to live in a better society.
Because every man wishes he was James Bond, or Leonidas, or even Walter White (at times), but any well adjusted person knows he cannot be and simply satiates the urge by the consumption.
You aren't wrong about it often being used as propaganda, but much of this stuff is appealing to a very base level human desire that we aren't allowed to or given much chance to fulfill in a civilized manner. Which is why there is a raw joy extracted from the tiny smidge of fantasy that is healthy.
I agree that those are instincts buried deep inside us, which is why the propaganda is so dangerous. And I don't think the instincts are bad, though to the extent they aren't cultivated in our society (which is a problem, and something many of these Hollywood types encouraged), encouraging the young to engage in such behaviors without them having the opportunity to develop and hone those skills is dangerous.
Societies that wanted its men to have that skill trained and tested it into them. And then (presumably, because to not do this would be a bad idea) provided useful outlets for its men to use those skills. Not every man can be Leonidas, but every man can be Patriarch of his family. And have mastery in a trade or profession. And use that "will to power" to create something unique, be that a thriving family or something physical.
Or we could, except anyone who tried being Patriarch would find themselves in jail or divorce court, or both. Mastery of a trade is becoming less important than conforming to the various policies and procedures required to perform the trade, which often stand in the way of someone unleashing their mastery.
And yet he will still crave to leave his family to die gloriously in battle with the boys somewhere. Crave to feel like the suavest coolest man in the room that turns every woman's head. You can't be a proper Patriarch of your own little family while also spending your time cultivating those particular skills, nor should you.
Mid life crisis' are older than most of the Hollywood machine, and those are what those desires and instincts become when they are completely buried and unfluffed. A man who has by all means done everything right for his life and family, still having to compensate with his mortality and baser instincts telling him he has not.
The problem is that discipline and control are shunned by the greater culture. People are constantly bombarded by retarded messages like "be yourself" and "do whatever makes you happy" without the ability to properly parse short term rushes from long term happiness. So they lack the ability to properly find contentment in these minor bits of escapism, and instead find themselves in it and drop everything to emulate it.
We might not be able to live the life of Bond or die in valour like Leonidas, but we can identify as an attack helicopter just like Airwolf.