Does the venality of current TV series and commercial characters have a negative influence on people?

In the early days of television, sitcom and other characters were idealized. June Cleaver: the perfect wise and caring mom, for example.

That has changed. With the advent of Seinfeld, venality in main characters: greed, rudeness, shallowness, sneakiness, cheating, lying were shown as the norm and even venerated in some cases.

Also, advertising has evolved with the advent of the remote control into mini-storylines. Many of those characters are shown “winning” with negative characteristics.

Taxed with this, marketers and script writers say that they reflect society, they do not lead it.

What I have wondered is did that more idealistic, positive message serve as a guide to desirable behavior? Thus, does today’s negative role modeling give an imprimateur to socially undesirable behavior and attitudes?