The entertainment industry has spent generations demonstrating that it can change society more than society can change it. We live in Hollywood’s world. Like it or not.

But the really big change that took place in the last generation was that the industry has essentially decided to ignore much of the country, to aim its programming largely at young urbanites with large incomes (this is a sea change that’s increasingly rippling across the Fortune 500 companies which should tell you why they all endorse BLM) and assume that everyone else would follow.

Has it worked? The results are mixed, but considering Netflix’s stock price or Disney’s monopolization of the industry, it would be foolish to pretend that it’s failed.

The industry has left behind much of the country, and much of the country has accommodated its values to the industry rather than the other way around. If you measure where Hollywood and the country differed on values in 1995, it’s not hard to see who has shifted.

What does this mean for Netflix’s decision to air Cuties? 

Netflix was making the same point that NBC and CBS and ABC did in their time. And it has even more capital to play with than they do. Will society shift to accommodate the values embodied by Cuties, as it did in the past?