tall people: if we are walking together please take into consideration my tiny legs. i cant keep up with you. please think of my tiny legs i dont want to be jogging to keep up with your leisurely stroll you TITANS
Just get a pair of roller skates and hang on to my sleeve, we don’t have all day.
😀
I have a friend on the smaller side who used to come up to me, holding her arms out like a child, and say: Up! Up! I wanna go Up!
It’s a 14 minute video, and I’m not spending 14 minutes out of my life watching a video some rando sends to me without a word of explanation, especially when all the top comments on the video are things to the effect of “Great video, I agree with everything, except the wage gap isn’t real.”
But don’t worry, folks! I’m also not about to dismiss it without giving it a chance. See, I don’t need to be convinced. I already agree with the premise: it is important to be honest about Ghostbusters.
It’s important that we point out that this movie is a huge and affirming love letter to geeks and geek culture, unlike the male version from 1984 in which nerds were losers, punchlines, stooges, and bad guys, in which even the nerdy good guys (Ray and Egon) were the butt of jokes for their gullibility (Ray) and “weirdness” (Egon) and existed only to make the cool slacker look good.
It’s important that we point out that everything people say they like about the male version—stuff like great comedians given free license to riff off of scenes and each other and create their own characters and chemistry—is fully present in this movie.
It’s important that we point out that everything we’re supposed to hate about Ghostbusters—low-brow humor like slapstick comedy and jokes about body parts and body functions, all the problems stemming from the arrogance or ignorance of men, the whole world-threateing ghost infestation plot actually stemming from technology created by a disaffected man—was also present in the boy version.
It’s important that when people say things like, “I don’t object to female characters, but there’s no reason to change the gender of established characters,” that we challenge this statement which is either ignorant or dishonest, as the four characters in Ghostbusters are all original creations, not gender-swapped analogues of the ones from the male version.
There’s no female Egon, no female Winston, no female Ray, etc. This is part and parcel of why Paul Feig went with a fresh take: those characters already exist, and they are so iconic there’s no reason to try to do them again.
It’s important that we’re honest about its flaws—and it does have them, I mean, every movie does—but part of that honesty is admitting that the male Ghostbusters was also flawed.
It’s important that we’re honest about what it means for so many women, including the often-overlapping categories of female geeks and queer women, to be able to go see a movie with women like ourselves as the heroes, to see them overcoming challenges that aren’t just a bunch of gift-wrapped misogyny, sexualized violence, demeaning language, body shaming, etc, to see them just be the heroes for once.
It’s important that we’re honest in pushing back against the noisy narrative that says the marketing was “nothing but girl power and misandry”, that the movie itself is nothing more than that.
Let’s be honest about Ghostbusters: the hate is trumped-up, the excuses for the hate paper-thin, the majority of the negative user reviews are faked, the people pushing a biased narrative are the ones who staked their soul on the movie sucking from the day it was announced, and the desperate and increasingly sexist and racist backlash against it is getting louder now because the positive buzz from people who’ve actually seen it is likely to make it the same kind of slow-burning build-up that have propelled previous Paul Feig releases to certified hit status.
If I’m going to be honest about this movie (and I’ve been making the case for this whole post about doing just that)… no, it’s never going to take the place of the male version in my heart. Why? Because I saw the boy Ghostbusters when I was 5 or 6 and so for basically my whole life, my whole family has walked around quoting it. If you average out the times I’ve seen it over the years I’ve been alive, it’s probably more than once a year. It’s hard to beat a thirty yer head start.
But there’s a whole generation of kids seeing Ghostbusters, their Ghostbusters, for the first time. And if we’re going to be honest, it’s more about them than it is about us. They’re seeing a movie in which women are respected and have agency, not used as prizes to be pursued. They’re seeing a movie in which geeks are vindicated, and the people who mock them are the bad guys. They’re seeing a movie in which the queer-coded characters aren’t the bad guys, for once. They’re seeing a movie in which age and physical shape are not disqualifiers for a woman’s personhood.
And let’s be honest: this is all a good thing.
I love this post, and by the way, I watched the video and thought is was mostly garbage.
let’s be real abt ghostbusters for a second because it is not even debatable that after the girls save the city and holtzmann’s face is on television they get 200 calls a day like “there’s a ghost in my bed and i need jillian holtzmann to come and take care of it”
I haven’t had much to say about the Ghostbusters reboot other than I love the costuming and I’m going to see it twice.
I have to say what’s in my black fat girl feelings right now.
I’m a little surprised that throughout all the discussions about the reboot and the sexism that no-one has spotlighted how the entertainment industry’s beauty standards and the male gaze plays into the Ghostbusters reboot mess?
They’re not only mad because it’s women. They’re mad about not being able to jerk it to The New Ghostbusters lineup. They’re mad because their expectations of getting at least one hypersexualized, female protagonist wasn’t met– not even one sexy secretary. That’s rough, buddy.
Let’s be oh so real here: if it were Megan Fox, Zooey Deschanel, Cameron Diaz, and Jennifer Lawrence in the Ghostbusters reboot, we wouldn’t be having as much of a problem. McCarthy, Wiig, Jones and McKinnon in this movie are not funny-hot, like Cameron Diaz dorky dancing in a pair of underoos in Charlie’s Angels. They’re just funny and serving you soft-butch, wild-butch, nerd-chic and (albeit a little too stereotypical) cut-a-bitch realness and it’s a problem for these assholes.
This Ghostbusters reaction falls into the same category as men who treat women poorly simply because they don’t find them attractive/fuckable/worth their time.
This is so on point.
This plus the fact that the closest we get to a “sexy” character is McKinnon’s character. But it’s “sexy” specifically in a way that is meant to appeal to queer women and not men.
So when the movie does dress up one of its characters in the sexy role, it’s not doing it for the boys, it’s doing it for the girls. It’s basically one big apology to every not hot and/or not straight nerd girl who loved watching nerdy adventure movies but never got the bones thrown to them by those movies that the boys did. To the girls who were told “you’re only going to be in a movie like this if you’re hot and willing to be fucked by dudes.”
Basically it’s a movie that flat out refuses to cater to men in any way shape or form and IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY.
Everyone wants get their hands on the new Ghostbusters action figures.
Toymakers Mattel have confirmed that sales of the all-female Ghostbusters toys are far higher than expected, Variety reports.
According to Mattel, the Ghostbusters action figures – as well as the character mini-figures, Ecto vehicle and the Proton pack – are all selling well, with both boys and girls.
The company also decided to sell the female-led figures in the boys’ toy aisle as part of its retail strategy.
“We’re thrilled with the response to the new Ghostbusters toy line,” said Mattel’s Toy Box’s Joe Lawandus.
“We work closely with Sony to ensure each figure featured authentic details from the movie including a wearable proton pack. The early momentum shows the product is resonating with Ghostbusters’ fans!”
As you can see, the action figures look like little clones of Ghostbusters stars Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon.
Ghostbusters, directed by Paul Feig, is featuring in UK cinemas now.
As a kid I wanted this kind of stuff so bad! But it was considered boy stuff so my male cousin had the proton pack, a Slimer, etc. He would never let me touch them either. When we played Ghostbusters, which was often, I was only allowed to be Janine or the scared people
Same problem when we played TMNT, I was only allowed to be April.
This should have happened years ago. Although honestly now as an adult I don’t get why in the hell I couldn’t have this type of stuff. What did my family think would happen if they “indulged” me? Toys are toys dammit!
“Far higher than expected.” This was the exact problem faced with Rey and the new Star Wars film. How do they keep making the same mistake over and over?
Why, how is it such a surprise that the general populous likes female-lead action movies? Women ate 51% of the population for crying out loud. And kids don’t care if their badass action heroes are male or female, clearly. Like Jesus, people, get it together.
This is great, but I truly loathe the gendering of toys and their gendered toy aisles where only boys can play dress up as fire fighters or superheroes and girls are just domestic workers. All of it is bullshit.
go see Ghostbusters. It’s only made 1/3 of the cost to produce it. We need more movies with female protagonist’s that aren’t sexualized or written off as “chick flicks”
Yes, go see it – and if you can, help others to. 37 students at my school participated in buying tickets for others in their community and took them to see the film this past weekend.
If you know of people who’d like to see it but can’t afford to, if you can, buy a ticket or offer a ride to the cinema.
It doesn’t get said much, but this is definitely a ‘feel good’ film and deserves a wider audience. It should also go without saying that when films like this make money, more women-led films will be made. Pass it on.
honestly though like ghostbusters was so refreshing? I know it isn’t the first movie to do this but it’s so rare to have huge budget films portray women in the way ghostbusters did. the women in this movie got to have dramatic battle montages and scream and slap each other and shoot lasers and get covered in ectoplasm and get dirty and gross and tired and have sweat stains on their clothes. they got to have weird expressions and fat rolls and double chins and awkward angles and unflattering positions and clothing without any “hahahaha it’s okay we’re actually supermodels!!!” moments. they were shown as literal geniuses!!!!! as smart and capable and strong and none of it was backed up with “I have seven brothers” or “I had [male mentor] teach me everything I know.” the entire premise was based on incredibly smart and ambitious women who had nothing they did defined by men (even the ~romantic subplot~ was played for comedy and hardly even considered romantic). this movie is so important and I’m so glad it’s been made.
The Doctor Is Out 