Is there really a serious effort underway to "censor" or clip the wings of the information that is listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)? I think that thiscomes from an absurd point of view:
One of the biggest movie sites in the world, IMDb.com, is facing a hornet's nest of controversy over its policy of publishing the ages of actors and writers who say it leads to ageism, TheWrap has learned.
The Writers Guild of America, West, is leading an effort to convince the massive database -- used by virtually everyone in Hollywood and far beyond -- to permit people to remove their birth dates from the site.
"The Guild has a contract with IMDb to provide credits information and does not release information on age," Neal Sacharow, a spokesperson for the WGA, told TheWrap. "We have raised our concerns with IMDb about its listing of ages."Representatives from Hollywood guilds including the Screen Actors Guild have reached out to the site to see about taking down the birth dates of people who are not movie stars like Angelina Jolie or Leonardo DiCaprio, according to an individual knowledgeable about the talks. (A spokeswoman for SAG declined to comment.)
The guilds argue that not just writers and actors, but also below-the-line workers as they crest 40 face fewer job opportunities in a business that tends to prefer 25 year olds. Listing their ages publicly is exacerbating the situation, they say.
They also prefer talented, beautiful people. Will this allow no-talent horse-faced people to sue? I think not. The entertainment industry is safely able to discriminate based on whatever it wants and there's no way to stop it.
Just a few days ago I used IMDB to have a laugh at the idea that Katie Holmes is 5'9 and that Daniel Radcliffe is 5'8. Anyone with a brain can look at a photograph and see that they're not telling the truth. Someone at IMDB should address this and put the correct height with the correct actor or actress.
If you mess with the information on IMDB, IMDB becomes useless. Why should someone who is not 25 take a part away from someone who actually is 25 and who actually is what the producer of a project wants? The purpose of having a repository of information is to put actual facts up there so that people can properly write about film, music, and television and all of the various aspects of it without having to wonder if what they're writing is accurate. IMDB is indispensable for me. I would hate to see someone tamper with it just so someone could get away with lying to a movie producer.
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