“It’s a Wonderful Life” was not the best example to cite in this case. The dishonest, greedy, bad guy in the movie is Potter, the bank owner ~ in real life and even worse in the dream sequence!
And the villain who throws widowed mothers of small children into the midnight snow has been around for centuries in drama.
The difference is the amount of media that people are exposed to these days is orders of magnitude greater than the very occasional stage play of yesteryear.
So the mantra of the eeeevil company owner has become ingrained in the minds of too many people. I have rarely followed any soap operas, but a generation ago, they were the daily companions to millions of people. I doubt if there ever was a hero company president in all the years of those shows.
I myself was talking to an employee last month, and could hear some stress in her voice. Asking what the problem was she told me that she and her husband had encountered an unexpected $500 payment to close the sale on their new home, and that they had no way to obtain that extra money. She could not even borrow it from her parents. Even though we certainly felt it in our own budget, I wired her $500 on the spot.
I guess I am an evil capitalist(?)