Rehabilitating Outsiders

Now ordinarily, I would be the last to object to a more flattering presentation of a character whose reputation has been besmirched, or has not been given his due (my teeth are set on edge at the mere mention of the parable of the "prodigal son." Prodigal son??? PRODIGAL SON?!?!?? the Parable of the DUTIFUL son, thank you very much, HE is the protagonist of the story.
Till We All Have Faces.
Malvolio.
The poor maligned Giant family minding their own business at the top of the beanstalk, until a home invasion robbery... ButIDigress.)
As I say, Beckmesser's rehabilitation ought to be right up my ally.
But surely, this is just another example of what Gerald at Closed Cafeteria referred to as the euro-trashing of great art (or words to that effect,) as described in a NYTimes article:
And a million bad ideas clog the stage [of Meistersinger at Bayreuth] like wrecked cars in a pileup: statues of Wagner, Goethe, Bach and Beethoven dancing around in their underpants; the chorus emptying cans of Campbell’s soup; a half-naked woman lap-dancing; a naked man struggling with Beckmesser over a blow-up doll. Tired provocations obscure a potentially fresh one. And the last act, a glory of opera, turns into a travesty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/arts/music/30meis.html?ref=arts
But me being me -- I'm wondering what 17th c. tighty-whities look like...