This shift seems to have happened from the mid-90s on, arguably, but it is very noticeable since maybe the mid-2000s. And you see it in everything, from kids’ shows to adult series to films.
What I mean is, in classical literature and fairy tales, generally supernatural beings want to become human. Gods and demigods don’t, I guess, but most other beings, and indeed most anthropomorphic animals, do.
This carries over into most early and mid-Disney stuff, from The Jungle Book through to Tarzan and The Little Mermaid. Obviously most of that is based on earlier stories. And then..? Shit went the opposite way.
First we had Felix the Cat and Brother Bear, and obviously “mutants” in comic series, and it seems to have ever-expanded from there, to the point where vampirism and lycanthropy for example are seen as less a curse or punishment, and more “a gaining of powers”…
One good example, perhaps, is to compare the original Grimm fairytales to the ridiculous tv show they made, supposedly “based” on those stories. Or Supernatural, similarly. Or Prometheus vs Alien. Or, for another slant, Bicentennial Man and AI vs something like Humans or Deus Ex Machina…
To me, at least, this is a very noticeable trend, across both fantasy (in particular) and sci fi, and it seems to carry with how obsessed people are now with mutilating their bodies, “transcending” gender and race and all that sort of shit…
Also noteworthy that we’ve gone from curing disabilities, in fiction, to portraying becoming disabled as a positive thing, and a form of “superpower”, rather than the thoroughly net-negative experience it usually is…
They even do that shit in kids’ programming, now, too…
So yeah, just something else be noticed and have been thinking about…
Bran Stoker be rolling in his grave…
I guess you could argue this all ties back in to our desire, now, as a society, to feel “special” and “different”, and to be “recognized”, but I do not see it as the sign of a healthy, self-respecting civilization, imho…
I think a lot of that has to do with how we have elevated non-human existences into Godlike perfection. Even the concept of a God that is amazingly perfect is part of that issue, as it used to be that their perfection and power is what made Gods envy or want to be humans in stories. The flaws and weakness is what made humanity enviable, because it represented freedom to learn and grow and become more.
Now non-humans are constantly presented as superior because they lack those flaws. Animals are "closer to nature" which means they are more "pure" and thereby good. Creatures aren't saddled with the capacity for evil like humans are because they are "acting on instinct" or just not interested in the things that make humans "bad" like money or rapey sex (as compared to the beauty of no-strings hippy type sex). And lesser races don't get involved in capitalism and landlords so thereby they are just overall better and we should aspire to be like them.
And while you can see a lot of the obvious politics at play in it, I think most of it is organically grown. Because people are so plugged into themselves and others, because we don't need to spend 16 hours a day working just to survive anymore, that they are constantly staring at their flaws until they become pronounced and unignorable. The same way if you spend all fucking day with your girl you'll start to notice her little annoying imperfections until they begin to legitimately bother you for no good reason.
So once they have become obsessed with the failings of their own humanity, they can only think about the alternatives and the desire to escape them. Think the meme speech from the Mechanicus boys in 40k. But that's a problem basically the world over now. Its why isekai is the biggest genre in Japan, its why both sides of the political spectrum are obsessed with going off grid and living like the older civilizations did.
Which of course means that its ripe for being exploited by people with legitimate hate of humanity and desire to manipulate it for evil.