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In Hollywood, actors are, often arbitrarily, assigned a “type.” We see an actor in a certain role, and identify her with that role. The stronger the identification, the harder it is for us to accept her in different roles. Actors constantly struggle against “typecasting,” because once they’re seen as a certain “type,” they find it more difficult to be cast in roles that differ from this “type.”

But typecasting doesn’t just happen in Hollywood. We also encounter typecasting in our family relationships.