Why are there no self-aware movie/TV show protagonists?

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Movies and TV shows are designed to entertain the audience, the viewers. Action packed set piece after action packed set piece, tragic/dramatic situation after situation, etc. In these entertainment media, the protagonists are shuffled from event to event, fight after fight, tragedy after tragedy. These events are designed to be understood by the viewers, to be comprehensible and understandable to the viewers. Why is it that none of these protagonists ever realize that's what is going on? If we were in there places, wouldn't we begin to notice these patterns? Every mundane situation we would encounter would be over the top, every fight we would be forced to fight would be an epic set piece, every instance of humor would be unnaturally funny. Especially in stories that take place in modern times or the future, why do these protagonists never ponder why their lives are so similar in structure and style to the programs they could see on their TVs? Why do they never question this? Wouldn't there be a point where you realize that the events of your life take place in a way that almost seems unnatural, or unrealistic? Why haven't any directors or writers tackled this with their stories, even indirectly?

I mean. I guess the plot doesn't always call for it. And it's not like I could just sit down and write my life, word for word, taking no day out of it, and just go "yep, here you go, here's my masterpiece." Like I know that's called an autobiography but you aren't going to document every mundane thing that your character does, like if my story was like that I would have to every chapter with the start of my character's daily routine. He sat down. He used the toilet. He did the morning crossword that he doesn't really care about and sat down to watch Coronation street.

Boy. Unless you're making this funny, I don't wanna pay attention to that. Hence we go straight to the action. Often in writing, people are told, if the scene doesn't physically serve a purpose to the plot and it doesn't advance the characters in any way, cut it (but you can probably ignore this if you want because I do a lot but usually I make the scenes funny so they're more captivating...)

Plus if every writer did this then every story would just be "oh my god... what the hell.. my life.. I'm a freakin' young adult book star!" It is an interesting thing though. But also I think there are problems you can encounter when breaking the fourth wall, like if you've ever seen "The French Mistake" by supernatural wherein the Winchester bros enter the alternate universe where they are the actual actors that play on the show.. That episode could have gone south sooo quickly. But it didn't, because it was funny, and it worked, but there is a chance you could just confuse everybody and the story could flop on it's face if you approach it in a way that doesn't necessarily work.

Not to discourage you, though. You know, you could write this story if you wanted. I'd read it.

I think you're misunderstanding what I meant. I'm not necessarily meaning as a comedy or light hearted thing, in that sort of way. In the movie "Man on Fire" with Denzel Washington, at the beginning when he's drunk and depressed, he tries to commit suicide, but the gun jams, and when he calls his friend, his friend says "I don't know, it sounds like a bad primer." The scene occured to show more of his character for the purpose of character development. In real life, the likelihood of that happening at that specific moment wouldn't be very high. Plot armor saved his character, the protagonist, because the story wouldn't go on without him. Now, look at war movies and action movies. The protagonist's plot armor saves him/her time and time again, and only him/her. The supporting characters may also have this buffer, but only as long as the story demands. In these stories, the protagonist will survive longer than anyone else, friend or foe. In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks's character died right at the very end, because the plot needed him to do so. In real life, soldiers often come back from war with mental scars and emotional trauma. This is because most people aren't mentally or emotionally prepared to take the life of another human being, no matter how much they believe in whatever cause convinced them to join and fight. In war, action, and adventure stories, the characters are forced into these violent situations because the plot or the pacing demands that they do so. These characters are unable to avoid these situations, or to peacefully resolve them, because the plot couldn't function without these events. Now imagine if any of us were in the shoes of the characters in these situations. If we tried to avoid or defuse these situations, then they would still occur, but with an even worse outcome then if we had just went along with it. What if we survived enough of these conflicts and set pieces that we began to notice these trends. If we spent years and years fighting the battles, conflicts, etc that the story was composed of, wouldn't we start to make correlations about things like "plot armor", "Deus ex machina", "tropes"? I don't think that this would be a very positive realization, like your example of "OMG, I'm a young adult book star!" I think it would be a very dark and depressing realization for the character(s), the idea that all the violence, drama, comedy, romance, tragedy, etc. was designed for the entertainment of an audience, just like how the shows, books, and movies that exist in their world were. That's what I'm meaning.

Yeah, I got that I just have a quirky way of explaining things. Sorry!

It does seem like fictional characters do get this kind of special life that allows them to avoid the consequences of things like injury, but that's mainly like you said bc this is the main character. People are emotionally invested in them and they don't wanna see them die.

Plus, if you are a writer, you can feel like these characters are more than characters and instead more like real people. And you wouldn't want your friends in real life to die, so that would probably mean you wouldn't want your fictional friends you created to suffer much so you might not consider the aftermath of injury and other stuff like that.

At the same time, putting your character in difficult situations can give yourself a way to really show how your character reacts to things and it can help to develop them and help the audience learn more about the character through how they cope under pressure.

Characters not having the mental aftereffects of war like you said, that can also be down to lack of research sometimes. It is hard to go and write about something when you have no idea about what it entails.

But anyway, yes, fictional characters do have somewhat exaggerated lives so it would be plausible to think maybe they might catch on that their lives seem so dramatic and kind of ridiculous in a way.

I see a lot of people with this sad = good mentality when it comes to stories, which I don't think is necessarily true, so I suppose that's why authors make fictional characters lives so sad. Also it captivates us an audience.

I have actually seen similar writing prompts on tumblr, there was this one where they don't become self aware but someone tells them that they aren't real, and the author that is writing them is going to kill them off so they have to save themselves. I can't actually find that post but it's there. A heads up though, if you want to find a story with specific keywords you could always put site:[insert writing site here]/ self aware

e.g
site:fanfiction.net/ self aware
site:fanfiction.net/ self aware character

The other writing sites I know are wattpad and archive of our own and livejournal has stories on it sometimes. So you might be able to find a story fitting that description by doing that.

Ummm also Idk if this counts as metafiction but if it does, you could probably find some good examples of it to read/watch on tv tropes, there might be spoilers though but they usually white out the major spoilers: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MetaFiction

There are, watch Gintama.

What about Deadpool?

In the Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, He thinks his life is real & then finds out he's really on some kind of a reality type TV show