bradley_kent's profile

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Monday, July 2nd, 2018 2:37 PM

Banned keywords reappearing in different guise

A few years ago, "male-female-relationship" was rightfully banned as a keyword.  Now, "man-woman-relationship" has appeared.  (I just submitted deletions.) "man-woman-relationship" should also be banned, as should the stand-alone "man" and "woman" keywords.  They are too general, and could be applied to millions of titles!

Similarly, there is also a problem with the keywords implying "objectification."  It's as if someone(s) has (have) been influenced by their gender studies classes in college, and are  applying these keywords in a misguided attempt for political correctness.  "objectification-of-men," "objectilfication-of-women,: "male-objectification," "female-objectificstion," "women-as-object" (but, interestingly, no " men-as-object"), etc. should all be deleted and banned.

One could easily and logically argue that ALL titles utilize objectification.  How can anyone suggest that Rudolph Valentino, Clark, Gable, Jean Harlow, Tyrone Power, Lana Turner, Erroll Flynn, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc., etc., etc. were NOT objectified? Any title with "bare-chested-male" and/or "bare-breasts" implies objectification.  Any title with "nudity" implies objectification.  Any title in the Romance genre implies objectification.  And, most certainly, ALL Adult titles utilize objectification.  The "objectification" keywords, I suspect, could be applied to a least 97% of all titles on IMDb.  Get rid of them.

Champion

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1.3K Messages

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43.8K Points

6 years ago

Hello Bradley
That's one of the joys (or curses) of the English language. There are always many different ways to say everything. 
 
Whatever you think of to describe something like "male-female-relationship", as soon as you've described one alias for it, someone will think of a different one. 
 
    Steve

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81.2K Points

Steve,

that is the case for almost any language! I'd rather say that this is the joy (or curse) of any open collaborative website! :)

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225.4K Points

6 years ago

Not all movies have a man (a grown male human) in them. Not all movies have a woman (a grown female human) in them. So, that's why we have standalone keywords for those.

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23.6K Points

But the overwhelming majority of titles have a "man" and/or "woman" in them.  Abstract and nature and some other particular titles may not have a "person" in them, but this would account for a very small minority, considering the number of titles in the database.

If the database were complete (which, of course, it never will be), trying to search using a "man" or "woman" keyword would entail close to  the entire title listing.
 
P.S. "all-male-cast" and "all-female-cast" and "all-child-cast" are very valuably keywords, by the way.

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23.6K Points

And... according to the guidelines, duplicates are to be avoided.  "man-womam-relationship"  is certainly included in the old "male-female-relationshi" keyword, which, of course, was deleted 'en masse' and banned.

Synonyms, which exactly or nearly completely represent a SAME thing, just clutter up the keyword database.

Employee

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17.6K Messages

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314.4K Points

6 years ago

Hi Bradley -

Thanks for your report and comments, I have filed a ticket for our editorial team who will review the Keyword listing shortly.  As soon as I have an update on the actions taken I will let you know here.  Cheers!

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3.5K Points

Any response from the "editorial team"?

Champion

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77.7K Points

Hi Phil,

Not as of yet, the ticket is still pending. The editors will update once this has been actioned.

Regards,
Will

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225.4K Points

6 years ago

Something should be done to make it clearer which keywords are banned.

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

That "list" could be made public by IMDb.  Or, at least enforced so these problems do not continue to reoccur.

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

Any response yet?  There must be a lot of discussing going on!

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Why no response?

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

6 years ago

I can't believe it ... or CAN I!  Still no response!  No action!  The "editorial team" should be renamed the "no response team" or the "no action" team.

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

Or... the "still pending team"?

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225.4K Points

Maybe they just don't give a hyutinini.
[uhoh][laugh][evil2][laugh]

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3.5K Points

Sometimes, if feels like there are less than ten of us in the entire world who care about keywords being objective and germane and not duplicitous and in a consistent format.

Employee

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34.1K Points

Hi Phil,

This ticket is still pending review by our team of editors. Once it's been actioned, the editors will provide updated information here.

Thank you. 

Champion

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77.7K Points

6 years ago

Hi BradleyKent,

I agree that man-woman-relationship is the same as male-female-relationship, however I'm not sure why we ever banned that as a keyword as I'm sure users would find that search term useful. If it plays a part in the plot of the title I'm not sure why this wouldn't be considered as ineligible and we should remove this block and re-enable those keywords. I don't see any point in our guide which would make the keyword male-female-relationship ineligible.

The same goes for objectification keywords, for example if you were writing a dissertation on objectification in film then having a list of titles on IMDb that you can reference would be incredibly helpful. There is a big difference between Romance as a genre and the objectification of a male or female within a film.

There are of course some keywords that should be banned, however, as a general rule if it is a term that somebody can use to find a sub-set of titles on IMDb then it should be considered of worth as a keyword. Please note that the main purpose of keywords is to allow visitors to easily search and discover titles.

Regards,
Will

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3.5K Points

male-female-relationship was banned by IMDb long ago. It was your decision.  I believe the reasoning was that it was so general (it listed many, many thousands of titles) that it was meaningless.  
Is this a reversal of previous IMDb policy?  Why?  Has change in staffing caused fizzier thinking?

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225.4K Points

That is why it is important to codify policy and at least some of the rationales behind them in the IMDb submission guidelines.

Champion

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Hi Phil,

If this was my decision I believe it to be the wrong one given the policy changes to the list type since that point. We reserve the right to amend and update IMDb policies at any time on behalf of our users. We did change the overall keyword policy to be more accepting of search terms that people were using to find titles on IMDb, as long as they do not otherwise breach any further policies outlined here. We had 8,000 keywords live for that term which doesn't show wide-spread abuse and could be a useful sub-set of titles for anyone interested in the subject.

Regards,
Will

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3.5K Points

When changes are made in policy, it would be appropriate to announce them.  Otherwise, you are abusing contributors.

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3.5K Points

When I type in male-female-relationship as a keyword, I get ABSOLUTELY NO titles listed!  Where are the 8,000 titles for that keyword?  (I speculate that there should be hundreds-of-thousands for that keyword.)

Champion

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331.1K Points

Will said they should remove the block, not that the keyword is currently listed.

Is Phil Boroff related to Bradley Kent?

Champion

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77.7K Points

Hi Phil,

We've now re-enabled those keywords, removed the block and added in an auto-convert for man-woman-relationship to male-female-relationship and vice versa. This may take a couple of days to be reflected on the site.

Regards,
Will

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3.5K Points

Wow!  This is not the response I excepted at all!  As such, you will need to NOT "auto-convert" but ADD the male-female-relationship keyword to EVERY title that already has husband-wife-relationship, boyfriend-girlfriend-relationship, boy-girl-relationship, uncle-niece-relationship, grandfather--granddaughter-relationship, stepfather-stepdaughter-relationship, etc., etc., etc.  I estimate that around 95% of ALL titles in the database could qualify for the male-female-relationship keyword.

Because of this, I am once again suggesting that the male-female-relationship keyword is redundant and unnecessary.

I did not previously know that there was an auto-convert process.  I could easily suggest several hundred existing keywords that need to be auto-converted.

Champion

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Thanks for your feedback, however this will remain on the site as other users can use that term to search and discover titles. There is a reason we do not auto-convert many keywords, it's because users can still search for that term and discover titles which they can't do if you replace it with another keyword.

Regards,
Will 

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3.5K Points

Please do a search of the male-female-relationship keyword. The response will be zero-none-nada titles!

A Keyword Cross Reference Index would allow a search for any keyword.  Also, what ever happened to the rule to avoid duplicate keywords?

Your policy seems to be one of laissez-faire where anything goes.

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47K Points

It is now 8,740 titles. Something must have changed since then.

male-female-relationship (8740 titles)

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@Will  @Michelle 

@Will wrote this:

Hi Phil,

We've now re-enabled those keywords, removed the block and added in an auto-convert for man-woman-relationship to male-female-relationship and vice versa. This may take a couple of days to be reflected on the site.

Regards,
Will

The bolded part makes no sense and was an illogical decision by IMDb staff.

The result is that the following keywords are allowed:

boy-girl-relationship (171 titles)

girl-girl-relationship (19 titles)

man-girl-relationship (44 titles)

man-man-relationship (5 titles)

woman-girl-relationship (9 titles)

woman-woman-relationship (135 titles)
man-boy-relationship (111 titles)

While the keyword "man-woman-relationship" is not allowed, but instead reverts to "male-female" relationship. (I just tested this and sure enough, when trying to add the keyword "man-woman-relationship" it reverts to the broader "male-female-relationship".)

Why should "man-woman-relationship" be permanently merged in favor of the broader "male-female-relationship," when these two keywords are not synonymous/coterminous?

And more importantly, why is "man-woman-relationship" being singled out for this permanent reversion to a different keyword, when the same is not happening for keywords like "boy-girl-relationship?"

(edited)

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@Peter_pbn​ 

Is Phil Boroff related to Bradley Kent?
From time to time when I have come across "Phil Boroff's" older messages on this forum, I have often found myself wondering the same question.

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47K Points

3 years ago

@bradley_kent wrote this:

Similarly, there is also a problem with the keywords implying "objectification."  It's as if someone(s) has (have) been influenced by their gender studies classes in college, and are  applying these keywords in a misguided attempt for political correctness.  "objectification-of-men," "objectilfication-of-women,: "male-objectification," "female-objectificstion," "women-as-object" (but, interestingly, no " men-as-object"), etc. should all be deleted and banned.

I adamantly disagree with the premise posed by Mr. Kent in this quoted excerpt. Plenty of films focus on the objectification of women as a plot device. There was never any reason to ban keywords like "objectification-of-women."

(I am actually surprised that Mr. Kent ever objected to these keywords in the first place on the basis that they were apparently too politically correct for him. With that said, this was three years ago; his thinking may have changed since then.)

However, I have an entirely different reason for commenting on this post. In my opinion, "male-objectification" and "female-objectification" are two of the dumbest widely used keywords on IMDb. But the problem has nothing to do with politics.

Rather, the problem with "male-objectification" and "female-objectification" is that they are hopelessly vague. When I see the keyword "male-objectification," I cannot tell whether a male character is doing the objectification, or is being objectified. In other words, is "male-objectification" a synonym for "male-chauvinism" or for "objectification-of-men?" I honestly cannot tell. 

Over the years, I have added "objectification-of-women" to a few titles when that was clearly part of the plot. Each time, some unknown contributor has changed my keyword contribution to the colossally stupid and inferior keyword "female-objectification." After having this happen a few times, I simply gave up adding these types of keywords to IMDb.

A contributor might argue that the keyword "female-objectification" is understood by that contributor. But I can assure you that this understanding is not universal. 

There is a similar problem with keywords like "male-rape" (you can't tell on the face of the keyword whether a male has been raped or has committed the rape), "child-murder" (you can't tell whether a child has been murdered or committed a murder), "child-rape" (same thing). Facially vague keywords like this should be replaced with clear and specific keywords like "rape-of-a-man," "man-rapes-a-man," "male-rapist," "male-rape-victim," "murder-of-a-child," "rape-of-a-child," "child-rapist," "child-rapes-a-child," etc.

And the same goes for "male-objectification" and "female-objectification." These keywords should be abandoned in favor of "objectification-of-men," "objectification-of-women," "objectification-of-boys," etc. Or even just the broad but accurate "objectification" could be used when in doubt.

I suspect my proposal will never happen, because the keywords "male-objectification" and "female-objectification" are quite popular on IMDb today (in particular the keyword "male-objectification":

male-objectification (4487 titles)
female-objectification (795 titles)

But at a minimum, whomever keeps changing "objectification-of-women" to "female-objectification" should really stop. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the keyword "objectification-of-women," and it is a far superior keyword to the facially vague "female-objectification" 

(edited)

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23.6K Points

3 years ago

I did vehemently object to the "male-female-relationship" keyword and to the "male-objectification" and "female-objectification" keywords, but I was apparently overruled.  (At one time, the "male-female-relationship" was deleted, but it has reappeared.)

To me, EVERY title that has men AND women in it could qualify for a "male-female-relationship" keyword.  Apparently, others feel that it just applies only to a romantic relationship.

I have also stated before that ANY title that has a male and/or female in it could qualify for a "male-objectification" and/or "female-objectification" keyword.

My contention all along was that these three keywords should be deleted since they are so general and, therefore, meaningless and useless.  (There may be some exceptions on the "objectification" keywords, especially on exploitation titles.). And, this has nothing to do with political correctness.

By the way, personally, I NEVER submit these keywords.

(edited)

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"female-objectification" and "male-objectification" are not only uselessly general (aka broad), but also hopelessly vague.

(edited)

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Isn't objectification of a living human the manner of observing or treating that being like an object (perhaps some kind of trophy) rather than a person? I can see how that might be rather ambiguous, but there is strong association between objectification and certain types of contest, like modeling. Surely, objectification is not as severe as dehumanization (which has more of a military matters vibe), though.

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@jeorj_euler 

I agree with everything you said, and I will add that "dehumanization" is by no means limited to military/war scenarios.

I know I am repeating myself here, but "objectification-of-women" is a 100% valid and acceptable keyword for titles where the plot includes a character blatantly treating a woman as an object, either through rape, sexual conquest, sex trafficking, or possibly through commercialization/commodification of images of women (examples may include modeling and pornography). 

The important thing is that the objectification of women must be part of the plot for this to be a valid keyword. After all, the whole point of keywords is that they are plot keywords. So in order for "objectification-of-women" to apply to a specific title, there should be a recognition within the plot that the objectification of one or more women is in fact occurring or at least is discussed.  (The keyword "objectification-of-women" should not be added based on the contributor's subjective interpretation that the movie itself is objectifying a woman.)

"female-objectification," on the other hand, is a terrible keyword, for the reasons I have already discussed.

(edited)