I promised myself I wouldn’t use the classic “Who you gonna call?” line in this article. Let’s see how this goes.
The “Ghostbusters” reboot is now out and ready for audiences of nostalgic 40-somethings to take their kids to on a Saturday afternoon. However, even before the movie was released, there was backlash on how the movie was being rebooted. The naysayers took their opinions to social media to show those involved, namely the four stars of the movie, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, that they were unwelcome.
The common thread between these four ladies is that they are all hilarious. Aside from Melissa McCarthy, the women were all regulars on “Saturday Night Live.” When I originally saw the trailer, I thought the movie looked promising because of the humorous cast that has worked together before. I liked Melissa McCarthy for her crapping-in-a-sink scene in “Bridesmaids” and loved Leslie Jones for live tweeting “Game of Thrones.
Yet despite their numerous scenes and sketches showing under their belt, people were skeptical that these four women could make “Ghostbusters” funny. Old fans were probably wondering how this all-female cast could pull off sexist jokes found in the original film like when the female lead was swallowed by her own kitchen.
However, I find it silly that people are against such a funny cast. Among the many tweets that displayed an overall hate toward the new movie, critics came together to comment on the “Ghostbusters” trailer and made it the most disliked video on YouTube. At currently 999,444 thumbs-down, compared to the 287,425 thumbs-up as of Aug. 14, that’s a slap in the face. According to Vanity Fair, these numbers are likely artificially inflated by the users who register under dummy accounts just to fuel the flame campaign by disliking the video more than once.
Since the movie has been released, numerous critics have reviewed the movie. Although many are positive, there are some bad reviews, including the harsh one from “Chicago Sun Times’s,” Richard Roeper. Roeper was accused of writing an unnecessarily tough review of the movie, calling “Ghostbusters” a “horror from start to finish.” He defends his review in a second article for the “Chicago Sun Times” titled “Is this review sexist?” Roeper responds to the social media backlash by sassily shutting down haters with lines like “I have one rule when it comes to reviewing films. It’s crazy, but what I do is: I review the movie.”
Along with Roeper, other critics have disliked the movie. Although disliking a movie with an all-female cast as a male doesn’t make a critic sexist, “Salon Magazine” found a correlation between movies with a female lead and negative reviews from male critics. According to the article, “The Devil Wears Prada,” a famous movie where Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep play the leading roles, received 75 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 82 percent of the negative reviews came from men.
Sure, I understand that not every man wants to watch a satire about the fashion industry. However, other more gender-neutral movies with female leads received similar reviews. For example, “August: Osage County” is a movie about a dysfunctional family that comes together after a death in the family. Despite two Oscar nominations, the movie received 64 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 86 percent of the negative reviews that the movie received were from men.
Regardless of gender, people typically feel territorial about movies that are considered classics, such as “Ghostbusters.” Paul Feig, the director of the movie, stepped on some toes when Columbia Pictures chose to reboot the nostalgic movie with all-women stars. People tend to be more judgmental toward things they are emotionally attached to, which could be the reason that certain critics, like Roeper, may be harsher toward the movie. Changing the Ghostbusters in such a drastic way messes with the nostalgia of the original “Ghostbusters” movie.
Despite all the backlash, I liked the movie. It was funny and that’s really all I look for in a movie nowadays. It was a mixture of the original movie and that Scooby-Doo movie with the real actors. (I really liked that Scooby-Doo movie with the real people.) Rotten Tomatoes even gave the “Ghostbusters” reboot a 74 percent, which is pretty good considering the motto that us college kids live by: “C’s get degrees.”
The new “Ghostbusters” movie is more representative of our time considering we potentially might have the first female president in American history this fall. If a woman can be the president, she can surely be a Ghostbuster. Likewise, if the movie decided to do the reboot with the same all-male cast, there would have been outcry over the movie not being progressive enough for not having female leads. Either way, a cast of all the same sex would be considered sexist to the other party, so just sit back, relax and enjoy the movie.
