What's With All the Cynical Professor Shows?

Like everyone on my recent flights to and from Rome, the first thing I did was check out the rich range of television and film offerings. Having been fans of Better Call Saul, my wife and I decided to check out Bob Odenkirk's new series, Lucky Hank, in which he plays a disillusioned, cynical professor of English at a small-ish liberal arts college. The show was, in a word, sour. I could only stand an episode and a half before I bailed. If you are going to do cynical, it ought to be funny, otherwise it's just depressing. It's not clear to me if they were even trying to make it funny, but it certainly was not. That is unless you find amusing those people who refuse to answer anything straight but instead play mind games with you, the rules of which are only known and humorous to them. 

The main idea is that he hates teaching because his students are idiots and his school is a bastion of mediocrity, which offends him because he once was a celebrated novelist. Why is this such a trope? I also watched the preview for the latest Julia Louis Dreyfus film, and the premise was identical: She teaches creative writing and she is appalled at, and we are supposed to find humorous, how talentless the students are. Perhaps this is a thing in creative writing programs? Where the profs despise the students? Maybe occasionally. But I doubt it is common. I've rarely met a university professor who didn't absolutely love their work and realize how lucky they are to be able to pursue their deep interests and to share their passion with students. Further, they realize that the purpose of teaching isn't to produce brilliance per se but to help each student advance beginning from where they are. Some students will have brilliance within their capacities and other's won't. There is nothing to be gained in ridiculing those who aren't brilliant, and in fact if you actually like teaching then it is the growth of the non-brilliant that will inspire your greatest pleasure and pride.