Typecasting

I've somewhat lost track of Hollywood in recent years, but now and then I stumble upon articles like this one, about the box office numbers for this past weekend. In first place was Real Steel, which is apparently a sci-fi movie about robot boxing staring Hugh Jackman and Evangeline Lilly. The paragraph that most jumped out at me is quoted below:

"'The men might have been more attracted to this idea of boxing robots and the Rock `Em Sock `Em part of it. For women, it was more Hugh and the Hugh and Evangeline angle,' [Disney head of distribution Dave] Holis said. 'For families, it's this father-son story and the somewhat redemptive rise to glory toward the end.'"

Reading this actually made me cringe. How cynical have we gotten as a society that we've allowed marketing departments to assemble our entertainment in such a way to try and fit in something for everyone (or, at least, every major demographic)? More to the point, why are we OK with such frank admissions of such?

This isn't limited to Hollywood. I've been observing this frequently in almost every area of entertainment, and even in politics. While not quite as nauseating as most campaign commercials, I find what passes for political commentary, even by "legitimate" news organizations, is rather lacking in substance. I listen to NPR with some regularity, and during the midterms I heard so many things about "the Hispanic vote" or "suburbanites" that suggested those heterogeneous groups would all vote as one that I even started to get defensive about it. "That's not me," I thought at the radio. And I found it insulting that they would put it like that.

What actually bothers me, though, is that they tend to be right. Real Steel did indeed open at #1 this weekend. Obama did indeed carry the voting blocs they said he would, and ditto McCain. How did we all get to be so predictable? For a country that upholds individualism as a great virtue, we sure are great at going along with the crowd.