Jared Leto speaks up about Hollywood's discrimination problem. But it may be difficult to fix.

Jared Leto may be one of Hollywood's most successful actors today, but he's not blind to the fact that some people still have more opportunities than others in the industry. He recently spoke out about the fact that Hollywood remains a conservative business, where people from minority groups would not have the same level of opportunities as he had.

Jared should be congratulated for speaking up. But I don't think this is something that can easily be fixed. Hollywood is, after all, a business that wants to make money, and to make money from selling movies to large audiences, appealing to mainstream tastes, including having characters that the majority can readily identify with, just makes business sense. The number of characters who are from minority ethnic groups, who are LGBT, or who are disabled would generally have to be limited. It would then follow naturally that minorities would have fewer chances in the movie industry.

This is really a problem with mass media in general. Mass media has to appeal to many, many people at once to achieve enough audience to make enough profits to offset the huge costs involved, which means it generally has to go for a more 'common' appeal. On the other hand, 'narrowcasting' on the internet is not bound by such restrictions. That is why people from minority groups have more readily found success as independent cultural icons in the age of the internet. And ultimately, this is why we should be happy that the mass media can't dominate our culture as much as it used to.


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