{"id":5532,"date":"2018-03-04T14:56:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T18:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5532"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:33","slug":"old-actress-dont-know-can-still-find-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/old-actress-dont-know-can-still-find-online\/","title":{"rendered":"How Old Is That Actress? I Don\u2019t Know, But You Can Still Find Out Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re watching a movie. It\u2019s not great, but what really has you captured is the supporting actress. She\u2019s doing a fine job, but your captivation was not caused by anything about her performance. Rather, it\u2019s just that she looks incredibly familiar. You know you\u2019ve seen her in another show, but you just can\u2019t remember which one. It drives you insane.
\nWhen this happens, many of us grab our phone, go to Google, and type in the name of the movie usually followed by the word cast. From there, we usually will click on the first link. It\u2019s that familiar, almost cheap-looking website with the black and yellow color scheme. Once again, you\u2019re back on IMDb.com<\/a>, scrolling through cast members\u2019 names. You click on the right character, the link takes you to the webpage of the actress who plays her, and you look through a list of all the shows and films she has ever appeared in. Who knew that the actress<\/a> who played Ida in Malcolm in the Middle<\/em> also portrayed Gam Gam in Beerfest<\/em>? What range!
\nThe webpage that gave you all of this information will also include personal information about the actress, such as when and where she was born. It is this information that was the subject of AB-1687<\/a>, a legislative bill that became law in 2016.<\/p>\n

According to the California law, it was illegal for a site like IMDb from posting the age of actors and actresses. It was touted as a statute seeking to prevent age discrimination in entertainment industry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) argued that the law was needed because existing laws were not enough to eliminate age discrimination of older actors and actresses. United States District Court Judge Vince Chhabria<\/a> responded to this argument, saying that the argument, \u201cif successful, would enable states to forbid publication of virtually any fact.\u201d
\nJudge Chhabria struck down the law as unconstitutional<\/a>. The law was a \u201cdirect restriction on speech,\u201d and therefore needed to be narrowly tailored to pass constitutional muster. It was not, the Judge ruled, because it was underinclusive by targeting IMDb.
\nIn dicta, Judge Chhabria proclaimed that the law was misguided. According to the Judge, \u201cthe entertainment industry [does not] have a problem with older people per se.\u201d Instead, the industry has an \u201cinsistence on objectifying women, overvaluing their looks while devaluing everything else.\u201d
\nThe ruling comes in the wake of sexual misconduct scandals that shook the country (whether or not it actually was a shock to Hollywood). Nevertheless, Judge Chhabria\u2019s ruling is the right one. The law simply does not fit within constitutional boundaries. But although the legal arguments posed by the SAG-AFTRA fall flat, the underlying sentiment is cannot be ignored. The laws that exist, at least as they are being applied, are not protecting older actors, and to a higher degree, actresses. The legislature should keep taking hacks at enacting laws that address this issue. It may be worth the cost to the judicial system to keep hearing cases of whether such a statute is constitutional. Eventually, a law will be narrowly tailored and hopefully have the desired and needed effect of curbing discrimination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re watching a movie. It\u2019s not great, but what really has you captured is the supporting actress. She\u2019s doing a fine job, but your captivation was not caused by anything about her performance. Rather, it\u2019s just that she looks incredibly familiar. You know you\u2019ve seen her in another show, but you just can\u2019t remember which …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6967,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions\/6967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}