Present and past in fiction

I've read the first three volumes in Meg Cabot's The Princess Diaries series. The first was very good but the next two get much less intense. There's a serious continuity issue. The first book, published in 2000 and taking place in the beginning of a school year, implied that Hillary Clinton was running the country as president (hence, taking place in fall 2000). The second book, taking place shortly after the first, nonetheless referred to George W. Bush having run for president, hence taking place in October 2001. This attempt to always have the story in the present just makes the books less realistic; particularly troubling is the lie that in the fall Iran bombed Afghanistan when in fact Iraq attempted to invade Iran in September 1980 and was supported by the U.S. for years.
The first book seemed like reasonable observation of teenagers of 2000, but with the ignoring of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan, the illusions of American nobility and national and student harmony is only a lie.

A more prominent fictional series that remains in the present is the television series The Simpsons. While it can be entertaining and make good points, I think denying the passage of time in-series prevents true artistic greatness. The point of a series is to see how events change the characters, so having them remain so similar means that the full potential hasn't been reached, in fact may reflect a fear of change and having to write the characters in a different way.
Going to the past, many praised the film The Dark Knight for not giving the Joker a concrete backstory or origin, liking the idea that he was just an embodiment of evil and chaos. But to me that seems like another denial of reality; it's a comforting fantasy that there are good guys and bad guys and that the bad guys aren't worth taking the time to understand, that bad guys sprout out of nowhere with no justification.
I think not defining the villains more, but making them supernatural is what makes most slasher movies lackluster-Freddy Krueger is so obviously fantasy that he's acceptable, but Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees seem to be mortal, yet aren't, so what's the point of the good guys trying to kill them if that's impossible, if escape is pretty much hopeless? On the other hand, I liked that in the Scream movies the killer was human and fallible but believably skilled (well, the third movie went into the immortality aspect and lost some credibility).