[Mr Rogers]

Sports doesn't have anything to do with looks. If a woman loses her acting ability after 40, she should get out of the business.

But that is a big part of the problem - these women didn't have ability to begin with. They were always eye candy. In a few years, Halle Berry will have to complain about age-ism as well as racism: hot babes can get away with no talent, but a 50 year old woman (Davis, Hepburn) needs talent.

Here's another reason - movies are made for teenagers, not adults. And here's some more:

Sex is easy. Romance is hard.

Violence is easy. Suspense is hard.

Special effects are easy. Memorable dialog is hard.

Someone promoting a movie-to-be with sex, violence, and special effects can deliver. Someone promoting a movie-to-be with romance, suspense, and memorable dialog can only hope. Since the former can be guaranteed, and since it sells - we get a lot of it.

[LisaMalia]

I find something very intriguing in your post. You make no mention of male actors, and their "sellability" after the age of 40. You might want to address that one.

[gaijin]

Excellent points.

The problem is that when people are good, they are good in a very wide variety of ways; should you film to indugle that nature, you limit your audience. By contrast, when people are bad, many of them are bad in ways that are highly common and reliable; sex and violence --that's simple!

Sadly, for marketing types, filming bad stuff is a good way of limiting business risk.

[XBob]

166 - "Here's another reason - movies are made for teenagers, not adults."

Yeah, who wants to go to a movie about your Mom? Now, that sexy teacher a few years older, and just out of college, that's a whole nother thing.