It’s been announced that there will be a new Ghostbusters movie, and that it will feature 4 women as the ghostbusters. This sounds like an interesting idea — I’m tired of unoriginal remakes, so this clearly is going to be a different story — but some people are furious about those danged feminists ruining everything.
Did these people even notice in the originals that Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston were all men? Did they complain then?
My mother did. She pretty much went “Wait: Sigourney Weaver is the damsel? This movie sucks“
Men are the default. Unless a role necessitates an actor being something other than cis-het white male (e.g. because feminists exterminated all the men), casting anyone not cis-het white male is misandry. Q.E.D.
Maybe they can redeem it by having some smarmy condecending male voice in charge so they can all go “Yes, Charlie!”
I am insulted that they dared do this! Four women?! Natural law dictates that only manly men can hunt ghosts.
My fedora is ruined. Ruined, I tell ya.
I’m more concerned with reading that they want to amp up the horror in the movie. The original had exactly one scene that was creepy to me as a child – the opening scene with the librarian. I think Ghostbusters conceptually works better as a comedy.
Everyone knows only men are credulous and superstitious enough to believe in ghosts, because
pinkblue manly man brains, therefore the Internet Doodz Intermediary Operating Team (I.D.I.O.T) demands that the Ghostbusters be made up of men, and only men!Hmmm… I think we may have a catastrophic MRA script failure on our hands here…
“Wait: Sigourney Weaver is the damsel?”
Considering that this lovely damsel in distress outperformed each and any of the male actors in this movie, I cannot see this as a bad casting.
And in this regard: I’d rather like to see four dumb nerds-guys playing the comic-relief roles for a strong female lead than four dumb nerd-girls fawning over a strong manly man… which would be the gender-opposite version of the original.
So let’s wait and see what the movie will be like.
I read the comments. Now I need a shower.
But… but… ever since the Iliad…. Hell, ever since Gilgamesh…it’s always been… [splutter]… [splutter]………
Well, women apparently appear in this world fully grown. Just to be called “girl” for the rest of our lives.
Seven of Mine: Shrieking Feminist Harpy @ 2:
This.
After all, everyone knows that men are just people while women are – y’know – women!
*sigh*
– – – –
mkoormtbaalt @ 6:
I have to wonder if this is because it’s assumed women can’t do comedy, but horror allows for the cast to be screaming and and suffering clothing damage while being sprayed with a variety of slimy fluids…
I’m hoping my cynicism is ill-placed in this case.
It’s okay by me if they want to put the bust in Ghostbusters, but does anyone really think this movie needs a remake? I can’t imagine any actor, male or female, playing a better wise-ass than Bill Murray.
Ughh.. prepare for a slew of “almost-rape-by-ghost” and “honey-I’m-home” scenes. Hopefully they’ll manage to pack it full of diverse scenes for the actresses to shine – I can’t imagine them not being funny most of the time anyway.
littlejohn
Oh how funny.
Reducing women to some body parts, that’s totally original
Actually, Sigourney Weaver’s casting was very problematic. Ghostbusters is a comedy and the woman who is featured most in the film is not a comedic actor. She’s attractive and a “prize” for Venkman at the end. That’s it. That’s her role: be a damsel, be a prize, dress scantily when required, be a foil for Venkman’s zany come ons. In other words, be an object that Venkman can act upon.
McCarthy and Wiig are a huge step up, comedy-wise.
And on a related note, did they notice how, in many tv airings, Winston (the black guy) gets edited out?
If they only made one or two of the leads female we’d probably still see a bunch of whining, because their favorite was now a woman.
holms @18 – And the extent to which the original filming and script barely used him and when it did basically had him there to go “ain’t black folks sassy?” in 2 second passes.
@13 littlejohn, Melissa McCarthy can do it.
So, will there be an opening scene in which the (female) lead tries to put the moves on a naive-and-vulnerable younger male, using horribly cliched pickup lines? (Come to think of it, there’s potential for some subversive humour in that….)
@20: Yeah, I really don’t get the point of the Winston character. He’s added to the team as an afterthought, and does little to distinguish himself. Tokenism?
Holms @18: He also got cut from the older video games.
HA! I had NO idea this was in the making. And before I even googled it just now, I thought…PLEASE let Kristen Wiig be in this…PLEASE…And she IS! fucking A…I can TOTALLY see this happening!
Melissa Mcarthy Too…
Bridesmaid’s the supernatural version
littlejohn @ 13
I am not an ambulatory pair of tits.
@ Littlejohn #13:
I feel the same way. There’s no need to remake this movie and I don’t see how reimagining it with women ghostbusters really adds anything. It just strikes me as gimmicky. I don’t want to see an all female ghostbusters, I want movies like Ghostbusters to have better female roles.
re Borax@21 wrote:
I apologize but McCarthy is an issue. My other favorite site: io9.com, has nerds raging about her inclusion, as being a “big”, clumsy, slapstick comedian, etc. etc. While I just don’t like her performances (Identity Thief, The Heat, Tammy), but I don’t rage all over io9 about her inclusion, while I frown at all the rage there. I say (upon reading that sh*t), “okay, you don’t like her, won’t go see a movie she’s in, why tell us about it?” [but isn’t that what we do here, rage for/against stuff; hopin to change minds of silent readers?]
And there’s also rage against REMAKEs, in general: “Hollywood has totally lost its imagination and can only recycle old, successful movies, where success=$$$” Another thing I don’t understand. Remakes don’t evaporate the original movie, so if you prefer the original, watch it (via VCR, DVD, etc), no one is forced to go see the remake in the theatre for outrageous prices, etc. ‘So what’s the problum?’ What’s all the rage against remakes? Not like they do it to avaoid doin somethin better, maybe they are in a slump, maybe the original movie has some flaws they want to try to correct this time. So: Ghostbusters v2.0, why not? Who still runs Windows 1.0? Like Who’s Cybermen: Upgrade, all around,
This seems much much better than the proposed Dan Ackroyd backed Ghostbusters 3. And the casting is awesome. I’m not a fan of McCarthy, but Wiig is awesome.
This ought to be really good for women in Hollywood, but if Bridesmaids and Frozen couldn’t crack the “men won’t watch movies led by women” bubble, I don’t know what will.
Busting ghosts has always been a male thing. You may not like it, but that’s REALITY.
Or something.
The sad part is that the Will Johnson nerd team would love an all female cast if they wore bikinis the entire time.
I hope this is move is a roaring success, because you know if it’s not it’ll be held up forever and ever as proof that nobody will watch a movie with an all female cast.
The fact that movies with all male casts flop routinely will be completely ignored by the horde of misogynists shouting that this proves them right.
From Will Johnson’s tweet:
Bullshit.
Also, love how he judges the portrayal of women in media based on whether or not it “bugs” him. Textbook.
I didn’t think they were going to make a third. This has been in the works for some twenty years and then Harold Ramis died so the project seemed to die with him. I assume that this movie will have nothing to do with the first two, which is fine and seems appropriate given how long ago the movies were made.
One of my friends and I were talking, and we would like to see Marvel take this even a step further. There are more than enough women on the X-Men team as “good guys” and more than enough working with or under Mystique that we could have an all women castes movie where none of the male characters ever show up and sill have an epic “good vs. evil” storyline.
Ernie Hudson talked about being the “forth Ghostbuster” this past year and what it did to his career. It is well worth reading the interviews he gave. I know that I heard the story on NPR initially but I can’t seem to find it on their website.
Here is a link to the Entertainment Weekly interview http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/11/05/ghostbusters-ernie-hudson/
I thought this commenter had some pretty solid reasoning against womenfolk as leads in movies:
*head explodes*
caseyrock@33 wrote:
… resurgent! as a TRIBUTE to Ramis.
That’s how I read the sudden resurgence of the GhostBusters “Sequel”.
[ … and with an all female team of ‘Busters, just to prove Hollywood ain’t all misogynists…]
Will Johnson’s tweet’s bugs me, just ruined my day. I.E. it would be nice if we lived in a society where composition of casts didn’t depend on male/female ratios, instead, just talent, independent of gender. But Will, we ain’t livin in such a world yet, patience, we’ll get there, eventually (I hope). And does your happiness today depend so critically on the male/female composition of this particular movie? Try getting out some more, read a book, etc.
Jafafa Hots
I think the term is
Just ask Vox Dull
@8
If they really want to blow people’s minds they’ll keep the strong female lead for the love interest.
(Now I’m imagining an almost-all-female version of Ghostbusters where the only guy in the movie is playing the equivalent of the Janine role that Annie Potts had in the original. That would probably cause some epic levels of nerdrage – the Internets might not recover.)
Looking forward to it, definitely. Hoping I’ll be in a position to afford movies by then, as I’d like to support this effort.
It’s not 1984 anymore, I am no longer nine, and I have hope that some manner of charm can be generated with a new take. That hope is bolstered by the production featuring a complete cast of women; at least subversive is on the agenda.
I would have liked Margaret Cho in there. She would have been an excellent choice if they were going comedy or icky.
Destroy everyone’s childhoods, I say. Then maybe people will actually grow the hell up.
My concern about hearing of the all-female cast for this new Ghostbusters is that it’s going to result in the writers making the characters stereotypically girly and fill the movie with lines about how icky the slime is, or how the proton pack keeps frizzing a character’s hair. And then the movie will bomb and Hollywood executives will use it to reinforce their belief that all-female cast movies are box-office disasters waiting to happen rather than realize that it was simply because they did a half-assed job on the movie in the first place.
But I could be pleasantly surprised.
I’m very hopeful. All four of these women are very talented and hilarious in ways that have nothing to do with their gender. Everyone seems to know Wiig and McCarthy, but the other two are standout stars in SNL’s cast.
The Raw Story article about this features a quote from Hudson where he first says it’s a terrible idea, and then says he would hope that if it’s an all female cast it would at least be “sexy.” SMH.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/who-you-gonna-call-melissa-mccarthy-and-kristen-wiig-head-cast-of-ghostbusters-reboot/
Bunch of fucking babies….”my childhood! my childhooood!” I know in your head the 80s were amazing and you had the greatest childhood ever, but if your childhood led to you being a sexist arsehole today, then clearly it wasn’t that great…
Also, i’ve never understood how a sequel being shit is supossed to retroactively make the original any worse, or disappear or affect it in any way…Sure, i get it, it’s frustrating to see a sequel being made of something you really like and see that sequel not conform to your expectations, that’s disappointing, but you can still enjoy the fucking original…nothing has changed about that one, so your childhood is and forever will be fucking intact. Maybe this new one will inspire and amuse a new generation, maybe it’s not for you, you entitled shithead, after all you already had the originals cattered specifically for you (and may i point out again how doing that shit has contributed to you being a sexist fuckwad today?), why should everything be cattered to you? I know i know, because you are male, white and you think you and your mates are the only consumers of that industry…
I am always amazed with the reaction people have with movies and especially those made in Hollywood. Art has rarely ever been a very high priority nor anything resembling social change. The number of stories that they have botched, emasculated or distorted with pointless re-writes, editing and bad casting and acting so far outweighs the ones that really shine to be absurd.
There is a large upfront investment involved so fear looms large in the thinking
There is a chance at really big money return so greed is also a very strong motivator.
Fear and greed together are not very good motivators for the production of art but are not uncommon in the acquisition of vast fortunes.
still sometimes Hollywood makes some nice movies and some really creative independent produce some memorable and significant movies.
Also I would add that if anyone thinks women can’t do slapstick comedy try looking at Lucy or Carrol Burnett then shut up.
uncle frogy
Eamon Knight @22:
Ernie Hudson (the actor who played Winston) had a bit to say about that:
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/11/05/ghostbusters-ernie-hudson/
@mkoormtbaalt#6:
I was too young to have seen the original in theaters, but I did get to see Ghostbusters II (one of the first movies I saw in theaters, I think)–I remember being kinda freaked out by it. One, that pink slime/ooze underneath the streets of NYC always creeped me out. Where I was growing up there was a big storm drain near my house, big enough even for an adult to walk through. So, after I saw those scenes in II, I was always worried there could be ooze lurking down there, waiting to get me and my friends whenever we went too far.
And second, there’s a scene where a ghost flies to Sigourney Weaver’s apartment and steals her baby (in a ghost carriage, of course) in order to give it to the demon/painting bad guy. It also scared the hell out of me; since when you’re a little kid the thought of something flying into your bedroom (or lurking under your bed) and taking you away can make for all sorts of irrational paranoia.
I’m certainly disappointed. I wanted to see Harold Ramis come back as a ghost.
I read the comment above and thought it was more nerd ennui than nerd rage, then I followed the link… nevermind. I doubt it will be a good movie, but that has nothing to do with the casting decisions and everything to do with it being a ghostbusters reboot and the likelihood that it will just be a retread with a gimmick. The leads are talented though, so maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised and hopefully they will be brave enough to carry it in a new direction that could make it interesting. It’s Hollywood though, so I won’t be holding my breath.
I don’t care about gender, but I saw the photos of the women they’re casting, and not a single one of them looks characterless enough to play a convincing version of Egon.
Chie Satonaka @ 46, from the article:
*gag*
Female toads? Female arboreal snakes? Female sex organs? *DING DING DING* Nailed it in 3.
Later on in the interview here, Ernie Hudson refers to his co-leading MALE counterparts as “guys”.
I’m sure there’s all kinds of interesting psycholigical phenomena at play here. The familiarity with his counterparts, the ‘foreign’ nature of the “female species” to him, obviously playing a role in his word choices.
Eamon Knight (#22)
Well, they cast Melissa McCarthy, so they have at least one cast member who could pull it off. The real problem is how the writers and director would handle something like that.
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twas brillig (#27)
Whereas Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd are paragon of comedic sublety.
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hoku
Maybe they’ll go to hate-watch it.
hoku:
Frozen made $1.3 billion, Bridesmaids made $288 million. (And Frozen was a pretty bad movie IMHO.) With that kind of money, Hollywood shouldn’t care about whether men will watch movies led by women, and I strongly suspect the success of movies like these is part of what persuaded the studio to green light an all-female Ghostbusters.
Nerd rage? I’ll give you nerd rage! I’m very angry that they didn’t cast Sarah Silverman!
My movie about capturing ghosts replaced the men with women!
*Runs away screaming*
drken:
Please unpack your own thought process for a moment: WHY does reimagining ghostbusters as women not “add anything”? HOW is it gimmicky? How is it more gimmicky than having male ghostbusters? How can it both add nothing and be gimmicky at the same time? Your comment is basically equivalent to one that PZ is responding to.
All the fuss about crossing the gender divide has overlooked the obvious questions. Who will be the “lust” interest to replace Sigourney Weaver floating three feet above her bed sheets and who will reprise the role of Rick Moranis as the nerdy accountant? Most importantly what will replace the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
I just want to say that the idea of a female version of the Ghostbusters is very cool, and I hope the movie works out.
@49: Thanks for that. I am by no means an astute movie critic, so it’s gratifying to have my impression confirmed by the actor himself.
They crossed the streams!! (See what I did there?)
Also, this is perfect, in a sad way:
http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/daily-cartoon-wednesday-january-28th-ghostbusters-gender-pay-gap?mbid=social_google+
If “stop ruining my childhood” isn’t the epitome of the definition of the embodiment of the calling-card of today’s entitled whiny man-child, I’m fucked if I know what is.
George Lucas “ruined” a lot of childhoods with those abominable Star Wars prequels. Not mine, though – he only ruined a few hours of my adulthood, hours which I’ve mercifully largely forgotten. The original Star Wars Trilogy, however, still exists and is still as much fun to watch as it was when I was a child in the 1980s. Ditto the recent remakes of Robocop and Total Recall: the originals still exist and are still awesome. My childhood is intact despite the existence of half-arsed remakes of the things I loved.
And so it goes with this Ghostbusters film. Good film or bad, it won’t ruin anybody’s childhood if that person’s childhood is where it ought to be – safely behind them and accessible, but not defining who they are as adults. If you’re sick of people stereotyping nerds as whiny, socially-stunted tweens, perhaps extricating your identity from some fantasy land of pop-culture purity would be a good start.
” -What she means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
-Exactly.
-Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
-Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
-The dead rising from the grave!
-Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together [An All Female Ghostbusters Cast], MASS HYSTERIA!”
Hank_Says (#64)
Seriously. There are so many people whose childhoods are ruined the first time around by things like abuse, police brutality, sex trafficking, mental illness, induction into child armies, starvation, homelessness, fear of drone strikes, child marriage, AIDS, etc. and who continue to struggle with actual oppression, some of which might come from the very sort of person who’s most pressing concern is protecting nostalgia for his childhood from whatever he imagines might diminish it.
@ anteprepro #59
Well, it’s different than the guy PZ is responding to because I would still have a problem with a remake of Ghostbusters even if it wasn’t all women. It just seems like a way to make it not exactly the same movie without actually changing it. Also, to answer your question, male Ghostbusters wasn’t gimmicky for the same reason female Heathers wasn’t gimmicky, because that’s the movie. Female Ghostbusters sounds gimmicky to me because I’ve yet to hear anybody come up with a reason Ghostbusters would be better (or even significantly different) if the 4 leads were women other than we need more movies starring women. Let me ask you, what does casting 4 women to play the Ghostbusters add to the movie we don’t already get from the original?
Hey look, I could be wrong. But, all I’ve heard is “female Ghostbusters” and a lot of people getting far happier than me. Maybe when the movie comes out it’ll be as good an idea as The Wizard of Oz with black people or The Seven Samurai with cowboys. But, for now I’m going to be cynical and assume it’s just a way to get people excited about a project who otherwise wouldn’t care.
I think Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies are rather stupid hack-jobs of the original book. And J.J.Abrams’ Star Trek reboot sucks. And let’s not get into the abominable re-imaginings of Sherlock Holmes there have been over the years…. (All those franchises being, unlike GB, old enough to be childhood or youthful icons for me).
So what did I do about it? Picket the theatre! Start an online hate campaign against the makers! Declare that it’s a nefarious political conspiracy!
Nope: I just declined to watch the sequels. And, if it comes up in conversation, I’ll explain — with an appropriate, but controlled display of feeling — what I think is wrong with them. And I’ll go on enjoying the originals for what they were.
The original Ghostbusters is one of my favorite all-time movies. But watching now as a man on the verge of middle age, I find that there’s something about it that hasn’t held up and now feels like the film’s greatest weakness: Bill Murray’s character, Peter Venkman. His behavior feels increasingly creepy and loathesome as I get older, and has begun to taint my enjoyment of the rest of the film.
So yeah, I am left with the feeling that an update is justifiable. And whether the cast of female leads works will depend on the quality of the scripting and performances – I see no reason to assume it must be a bad choice by default.
HolyPinkUnicorn @50:
If you were worried about horrible things underneath the streets, I hope you never watched Stephen King’s IT (at least not as a child). I can see that freaking a child the fuck out.
@68: Spouse and I only just watched GB for the first time a few months ago. And Venkman’s creepiness was the *first* thing that struck me, and I never got over it the for the rest of the movie. In addition (or really, that’s just the most obvious aspect of it) to the whole hitting-on-women thing, he’s just generally a smarmy asshole — which apparently is supposed to be one of the running jokes.
As I said the last time we discussed GB here: I’m really disappointed at the damsel-in-distress part Sigourney Weaver played. Ripley this ain’t.
My @71 was a reply to @69, not my own @68. Must be bedtime…..
drken (#67)
A variety of women characters whose roles aren’t first and foremost defined by their gender.
drken @67:
We didn’t get to see women as the main protagonists in an action-adventure/comedy/horror movie.
You are aware that gender diversity is a problem in the Hollywood industry no? And that this problem exists from the industry execs at the top all the way down to the people in charge of casting? I look at this as a return to a fan-favorite franchise and in the process a subversion of the “men as default” standard that exists…everywhere.
@ anteprepro #59
Because I forgot to answer your question, not adding anything doesn’t make it not gimmicky, it’s not adding anything except publicity and a generous helping of PC “look how progressive we are” empty hollywood liberalism that makes it gimmicky.
Godsdammit.
If I never see PC again, I would be ever so fucking happy. It’s so precious that you see gender diversity as being “politically correct” drken.
microraptor @44
The new Ghostbusters is being directed by Paul Feig, who also directed “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat”. Both of those movies have multiple three-dimensional women as the leading characters. I can’t guarantee there won’t be any gratuitous “EEEEWWW, slime!” moments, but I’m fairly optimistic that the characters will be interesting, and not stereotypically “girly”. (And, to be fair, the original Ghostbusters had an “EEEEEWWWW, slime!” scene, so as long as the character involved doesn’t completely freak out, I would consider something like that an homage to the original.)
@ A. Noyd and Tony #s 73&74:
Yes, gender diversity is a problem along with “men as default”, but announcing that you’re making a “female [insert male dominated movie here]” before you even cast it doesn’t subvert “men as default”, it reinforces it. Look at Alien. Ridley Scott didn’t announce he was going to make a sci-fi horror movie with a female lead (look how progressive I am), he remade “12 Little Indians” in space and cast Sigourney Weaver in the lead because she was the best person for the part. That subverted “male as default” and not defining a character by their gender more than remaking ghostbusters with women will ever do.
In one movie. That came out 36 years ago. Sorry, but as much as I love Alien and the way it was written, that methodology didn’t exactly catch on in Hollywood. Or in Indie movies. Or novels, or anywhere else that I can find. And in the absence of writers ignoring gender completely, I think simply seeing more women in lead roles, as interesting characters in themselves, is a pretty close second. I won’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
@Tony #76:
Gender diversity is not “Politically Correct”. Bridesmaids (also a Paul Fieg movie) wasn’t politically correct. Announcing you’re going to remake a movie, but with women, while giving no reason you think this movie is really a women’s story or that you have any idea who these women would be just strikes me as self-congratulatory diversity (a/k/a politically correct). Look how non-sexist we are! Just ignore the dozen other movies coming out this year in which the only female character with more than 2 lines ends up fucking the lead by the end of the movie.
Well, I have a general grudge against unnecessary re-makes of old movies in general – it seems like Hollywood can’t do anything original (and good) anymore.
That said, I’ll see this one. I like them having a new take on it, and I have no problem with an all-female team (they’re Ghostbusters, right? That’s what’s important). Just hoping it’s a good enough movie to stand on it’s own :)
Hollywood was remaking films shortly after it got started. There were a few versions of The Wizard Of Oz before the one that we all remember was made. And there were two Maltese Falcon made before the one that is thought of as a noir classic was released.
drken (#78)
For fuck’s sake, the announcement is not the movie. Maybe stop being hung up on that and you’ll get it. Also?
This is not something that happens 99.9% of the time. Most of the time, the “best” person is whoever is whitest and malest. Hell, they often don’t even let women or people of color audition for roles that could go to anyone. You can’t subvert that by hoping directors will overcome their biases accidentally. You think Scott was being progressive? You think how he cast Ripley changed things? Look how completely not progressive his casting was in Exodus, for fuck’s sake. Same fucking director making a movie released in 2014.
Actually subverting anything takes more than the occasional, accidental exception; it takes intention. And you have to keep doing it for as long as it takes until there’s parity without deliberate effort.
Lastly, you’re not really addressing my point, which was not about “male as default” but “woman as character.” As in, female characters tend to be way less developed because it’s assumed their gender alone is enough to define them as distinct from the other characters.
(#80)
What the fuck is wrong with you? “Women’s story”? There’s no reason it’s not a women’s story, you ass.
Because having more women in leading roles isn’t a good enough reason. Fuck off drken (#80).
It’s OK to let women do shit as long as you don’t say you’re doing it. Then it becomes obvious that you’re only doing it for “Letting Women Do Shit” Points because, really, why else would anyone let women do shit?
@drken
Ugh, I can’t let this go. First you complain that Feig isn’t doing enough to subvert “male as default” and then you complain that he didn’t give a reason Ghostbusters is “really a women’s story.” That’s contradictory. Subverting “male as default” means you do not need a reason for casting women in roles that could be played by anyone.
And seriously, further on “women’s story” you just fucking proved the point, drken. All roles are men’s roles unless there’s some really compelling reason it has to be played by a woman such as e.g. the male lead’s wife/mother/sister/maid.
drken @80
Except ever since they announced Paul Feig as the director, rumors have been swirling that Wiig and McCarthy might be cast as leads in the movie, as they’ve both worked with Feig in the past. I suspect that Feig just wanted to cast people he knows and has worked with in the past. Why do you assume they decided to cast women first, and then went out looking for who to cast? You know, it occurs to me that we don’t really know if this isn’t the same fucking situation as Alien. Maybe Feig is just casting the people he thinks are best for the job.
The excitement around that decision simply speaks to the demand for women in leading roles.
drken @80:
You didn’t need to explain what you meant by PC. And even though you did, it doesn’t change anything. I *still* despise the term, and wish you’d give some thought to the reasons why you’re deploying and why you’re so opposed to an all-women team of Ghostbusters.
Me, when I first heard about the possibility of an all-woman GB movie, I was excited. Seeing four women as the main characters in a movie is something that doesn’t happen often and it’s something I want to see more of. That’s enough reason for me to be excited about the movie.
Seven of Mine @86:
Well of course, bc men are the default. We don’t need any compelling reason to create a movie with us as the main characters.
(that was snark for people who couldn’t tell).
****
drken:
You’ve been around here long enough. Surely you’ve seen conversations about how we’re all swimming in racism, homophobia, and sexism. Surely you’ve seen people mention that we all have prejudiced beliefs and that we have to make a conscious effort to find them and fight against them. Right now, you’re not fighting against your sexist beliefs.
All good points, but my problem stems from my issue with pointless remakes, not with casting women. IMHO, once an original movie is made successfully, there’s no point in remaking it if you don’t want to tell it from another perspective that you feel enhances that particular story. It will be great to see a movie with women that aren’t defined by their relationships to the male characters, but you don’t have to remake Ghostbusters (or any movie) to do that. If this was the original Ghostbusters coming out now with the current, all-female cast, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But it’s not and my response to this remake is the same to the rest of them, to ask why. So far, all I’ve gotten was to have a movie with all female leads. An admirable goal, but not a reason to remake a classic. I guess it shows they’re trying harder than they did with “Total Recall” and “Robocop”, but that’s really not saying much.
@cactusren 87:
Yes, it does speak to a desire and market for women in leading roles. This is good news. But, I’m also worried that by making such a big deal out of a “female [insert male dominated movie]”, it’s just them jumping up and down yelling “look at us, we’re so diverse” while they continue to otherwise make movies predominantly for and about straight white men. I don’t think this is an Alien type situation because there was news of there being a reboot of Ghostbusters with an all female cast before Paul Feig (a good choice, btw) was announced as the director, or any casting decisions were made. If Paul Feig said he’s remaking Ghostbusters because he thought Melissa McCarthy would make a great Peter Venkman and the idea snowballed from there, then I wouldn’t be making these points. But, everything I’ve heard seems to point to “people want female leads, so let’s remake Ghostbusters with women” being the starting point. A good reason to have more female leads, but not to remake Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a “Classic”.
Really‽
@Tony #89:
I think I’m being more cynical than sexist, but I’ll definitely have to give it some thought. I know I’m not perfect and free of bias like Sam Harris, but I like to think I’m getting better all the time. It’s not like I have a problem with gender swapped movies in principle, I think Animal House would be interesting from the point of view of a sorority. I just don’t see how Ghostbusters benefits from gender swapping. I’m sure everybody will do a good job and I might even like it, but I’d rather see them remake Catwoman until they get it right than have people fiddle with successful movies.
Actually, yes, I did notice the fact that the original team was all-male. It was part of the plot and team dynamic: Three pasty-white academic ivory-tower nerds putting together a small business in an extremely obscure field and having to hire a woman and a black man due to practicalities and workload. Remember that the original movie came out 30 years ago, when Ronnie Raygun was sailing towards landslide victory against Mondale later in that autumn, Cold War was very cold and gender- and race relations were in somewhat different position.
In general, I see the whole Ghostbusters remake as a solution seeking a problem: The Original is a classic, despite being somewhat dated. The Only reason for remake that I can perceive is that the IP is no longer producing $$$ and the owners want to do another milking run. I probably won’t be seeing the remake (as I didn’t see the unnecessary remake for the Robocop), unless there are consistent rave reviews.
@63: IMHO the toon doesn’t fit that much. The Basic idea of Ghostbusters is that the main characters are running a small business which means they set their own salaries. Paying yourself too big in relation with income is one surefire way to go bankrupt, but if you have an unique service with large demand… Well… Corporate income has a way of rising in those situations, if you set your rates savvily. And if you provide unique, necessary service, the clients are not going to care whether it’s white male, black female or little furry creature from Alpha Centauri providing said service. To quote the original movie: “Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results. ”
@73: Wrong. All-female team of ghostbusters is specifically defined by their gender. It smacks of a deliberate gimmick (“look how progressive we are”). A Mixed team with strong female lead would IMHO be far better.
I don’t see how a Ghostbusters remake would be in any way harmed by othergendering the leads.
drken @92:
Thank you for at least being willing to reexamine any biases you might have.
****
mirrorfield @93:
What, pray tell, is so wrong with this being a deliberate gimmick (assuming that it even is, and you’ve a long way to go before establishing that fact)? Seriously. I’ve heard this complaint a few times and I don’t fathom it. Are gimmicks automatically bad? Why is 4 women a gimmick but 4 men is not a gimmick?
I’ve been reading comic books for a long time. During the 1990s, Marvel and DC made use of some gimmicks to help grab the attention of readers. Die-cut covers. Foil embossed covers. Alternate covers. Pre-bagged comics (looking at you Death of Superman). Cardstock covers. Some of the books bearing these gimmicks were good stories. Many of them weren’t. But the gimmick covers grabbed the attention of readers. And they make some sense, given that comic book stands are filled with comics that publishers want to sell. Making your product stand out is important if you want people to buy it.
The marketing behind the movie is where the big deal is being made about there being an all-female cast. We don’t know that in the movie they’ll be defined by their gender. Come to think of it, I hope the director includes this whining in some form within the movie. Perhaps having the new Ghostbusters having to deal with the perception that since they’re women they can’t run a business. Or since they’re women, they can’t do the job. Or since they’re women they’ll automatically be scared of ghosts. Make a good movie, and include some social commentary concerning the whining of sexist fuckwits everywhere.
And yes, it *is* progressive for Hollywood to put out a movie with four female leads. Especially since the previous versions of GB had all male leads. It shouldn’t be progressive or noteworthy. I wish we lived in a world where multiple female characters headlining a movie wasn’t novel, but the norm. But that’s not the world we live in. We live in a world where men are treated as the default, and where women have struggle to even be recognized for their accomplishments. I’m fucking glad to see an all female team of Ghostbusters. For far too long Hollywood has been all about the white, hetero-, cis-, menz. Time for them to move over and let People of Color, women, and queer people share the spotlight.
I guess if you were a fan of X-Men comics, you’d have disliked the all-female team of X-Men that’s currently being put out by Marvel.
::rolls eyes at stupid sexism::
Seconding chigau @91: Ghostbusters is a classic?
Moreover, so what? What does being a classic movie have to do with remaking it? Especially if, in the process of remaking it, a conscious effort is made to present more diversity in the film than in previous efforts.
There sure are a lot of people bending over backwards to find reasons to not like the casting of 4 women to be the new Ghostbusters.
“It’s a gimmick!”
“Mah poor childhood. It’s gone! Forever gone.” (this one is perfect for pearl clutchers everywhere)
and my personal favorite from over at WHTM:
Remember this is a movie with ghosts and demonic entities. But an all female cast is what is implausible.
@ mirrorfield
One of you shitheads explain why this is true. Why is a cast defined by gender when women are involved but not when men are involved? Why does an all female cast smack of a deliberate gimmick but an all male cast doesn’t? What it fucking smacks of is a bunch of sexist jackasses throwing a tantrum because girls have invaded their fucking treehouse.
Seriously this is precisely illustrating the problem. An all female cast has to be a gimmick because what other reason could anyone have to cast all women in anything? It can’t just be that it’s directed by a guy who has worked with these actors before. It can’t just be that he thinks they’re talented and would do well. Men do whateverthefuck they want but women only do womenthings, therefor if you make a movie with women in it, there have to be womenthings for them to do or it won’t be plausible. Because the Stay Puft marshmallow man is plausible. But women doing things that don’t involve putting on makeup and giggling and slumber parties? UNPOSSIBLE! GIMMICK! My suspension of disbelief has been shattered!
@ drken
Why the actual fuck is Ghostbusters so fucking sacred? Do you actually think you’re not showing your ass here? “Look, making movies with women in them as fine as long as they’re movies made explicitly for women and not putting women into existing characters even though there’s no earthly reason those characters need to be male.”
How is it harmed?
Yes, you’d rather see them make a million copies of a movie specifically written for a female lead than see women cast in roles that had formerly been played by men. And they’re not “fiddling” with existing movies, successful or otherwise. They’re making an entirely new movie from the same IP.
And really, Catwoman? The character who’s become nothing more than a trope of the dangerous sexuality of bad girls, and who pretty much defines the male gaze as a concept?
That’s who you’re willing to let us have, so long as we leave alone the roles that could be played by NOT-conventionally beautiful women, right?
Here’s a nice ghetto, girls, wouldn’t you like to live here? We made it pink and purple for you, so you’d know it’s all yours. AND! You can have all the clothing choice you want, so long as it’s patent pleather and skintight and low-cut.
And in there you can make all the lady movies you like, about periods and makeup and hunky boys and that stuff you like.
drken
Hmm, let me see, maybe characters with whom girls could identify and whom they could make into their own?
Let me guess, you never had to do any of the following three things in your childhood:
1. reinvent the whole world with a character that matches your gender in it
2. content with identifying/playing a different gender character
3. play the silly superfluos ridiculous character because that’s the only character of your gender
Pray, what is a ? So, women are only going to be allowed to have chick flicks, right? Just leave the normal stories to men, ‘kay?
So, why do you keep whining about the “women” part?
If you don’t like remakes then just don’t watch them.
Isn’t it funny how guys would never have a problem with a differnt scenario that is not happening right now? The handy thing about this is that it never gets old, because you can just come up with that scenario afterwards.
mirrorfield
Women, the eternal Other. Sure, no all male team is ever defined by their gender, but with women…
@97: Because of the legacy of sexism. In bad old days all-male sausage fest teams were the norm, as women were expected to stay quiet in kitchen and so on. Fortunately we have mostly moved beyond that crap, but that crap is an inextricable part of history like so many other bad ideas like communism, slavery, racism and so on. Old movies contain elements of racism, sexism and main characters smoking like chimneys? Of course they do, they were made in era when we didn’t know better.
You don’t whitewash it. You don’t hide it. You acknowledge it, get over it and move on.
What you do not want to do is to keep picking at the scab by constant grievance-mongering, spoiling the fun with hyper-sensitivity or, Dog forbid, seeking revenge by keeping the bad old paradigm and simply reversing the oppressed and oppressors.
@ mirrorfield
First we are not fucking numbers. Use people’s ‘nym’s for fuck’s sake.
Oh we’ve mostly moved on from it, have we? Is that why y’all are throwing a tantrum over a single movie with an all female cast? Because of how above it all you are? Seems legit.
Women aren’t the ones who fucking need to get over it. Men are. YOU are. All you whining little jackasses who lose your shit every time something isn’t all about you. This pissing and moaning about women in Ghostbusters is YOU not getting over it.
By golly you need to get over it but, whatever you do, don’t talk about it because that spoils mirrorfield’s fun. Because the odd movie here and there with an all female cast isn’t a single tiny step toward leveling the playing field; it’s outright overbalancing it in the opposite direction. Seriously, fucking get hold of yourself or people will start to think you’re some hysterical, overreacting feeeemale.
TL;DR Fuck off.
I need to rant more about this shit:
Marginalized groups are fucking over it. We’ve been over it since it started. We’ve always known we were worthwhile people about whom interesting stories could be told. These things get brought up because the dominant groups fucking forget the instant people stop prodding them about it.
@104 Seven of Mine
Yes, thank you for articulating my own thoughts.
@102 Mirrorfield
Fixed that for you.
Oh, and an extra fuck you for this:
To everybody demanding that A Reason Why It Should Be Women be produced (and it better be a good one to justify such an obscenity, right guys?), just consider for a fucking millisecond that there doesn’t need to be one…at all….nobody has to justify it in any way…but even so, there are tones of valid fucking reasons why it turns out that it should be women (check Giliell’s @101 for some).
mirrorfield
Emphasis mine
There you have it, folks.
A godsdamn movie with a 4 women lead that isn’t about silly wimmin things and it’s male oppression.
Yeah, those five words really say it all…
What was that about hyper-sensitivity?
Mirrorfield lying and bullshitting.
Only in your delusional mind. Not in reality, which you ignore. I don’t see any problem with this remake. Why? It’s only a movie, and the story line doesn’t require male leads.
@Seven of Mine – I also thank you for expressing some of my rage so well.
I still feel the need to add this though …
@mirrorfield
Oh, of course, because as we all know, there are no women or minorities in academia. Certainly not in the extremely hard science of researching paranormal phenomena !
I am sure that the brigade that is in charge of such things is on their way here now to pull me out of my office and replace me with an appropriately hued and gendered individual to prevent my presence from further sullying the pure ivory of this tower of science.
FFS
drken (#92)
You’re showing your ass again. To cast all women is to “fiddle with” something “successful”—like the team being all male is somehow vital to that success?
And then Catwoman? Which Catwoman should we try:
1. Prostitute Catwoman?
2. Vacuum-sealed Catwoman?
3. Batman’s fuck-buddy Catwoman?
Well, whatever, right? Because she’s already a woman, an actress playing her won’t be getting her cooties on anything “successful.” Even anything that was successful back in… uh… 1984.
mirrorfield (#93)
To quote myself: “Lastly, you’re not really addressing my point, which was not about ‘male as default’ but ‘woman as character.’ As in, female characters tend to be way less developed because it’s assumed their gender alone is enough to define them as distinct from the other characters.”
(#102)
Grievance-mongering? Fun-spoiling? Revenge? Sounds like Feig really has it out for the dudes, huh? Casting all women is an exact reversal of casting all men (because fuck real-world context, right?) and some kind of act of hate against men. Whew, who knew it was so easy to oppress the dudes?
And what the fuck makes you think the problem’s been solved long enough to scab over? Scabs don’t form when you’ve only pull the knife out six inches, you know.
Er, “when you’ve only pulled.” I teach English, lolz.
I always love when people who are especially “sensitive” about women in traditionally men roles (sexists, in other words) complain about everyone else being hyper-sensitive. The hypocrisy and dissonance is almost beautiful when consuming the host of such nonsense. I love seeing such people struggle to argue anything coherent. And I also love seeing the hoard tear them to pieces :3
drken:
A women’s story? Really? So, Ghostbuster was a men’s story, eh? Or was it just a story about…ghostbusters? *Gasp*
Until the time arrives when you can explain why having a team of ghostbusters who happen to be women is a “women’s story” rather than a ghostbuster’s story, you seriously need to shut the fuck up. Try thinking instead.
Just so everyone’s clear, Feig didn’t “announce a female version of Ghostbusters” or anything like that. He posted four actors’ pictures with no caption. That’s it.
On behalf of every little girl who ever imagined being a ghost buster I’d like to tell the creators of this reboot:
http://media.giphy.com/media/vCKC987OpQAco/giphy.gif
For all the nerd raging MRAs….
For all we know, it was an open casting call, and they didn’t care about the gender of the protagonists. Maybe, just maybe, the women who have been announced to start in the film all got the roles based on their acting talent and comedy chops. Maybe, once again, the directors/producers/etc. got them together, and they had great chemistry on screen (much like the original 4 guys).
But you know, just claim it’s all a gimmick if it makes you feel better.
mirrorfield @102:
What the fuck is this?!
Reversing the the oppressed and oppressors? So in your head somehow making a Ghostbusters movie with 4 women in the lead role somehow manages to destroy the patriarchy and make it a matriarchy?
That’s how you logic in your world?
A. Noyd @111:
Your link is borked.
drken @ 67
I was just skimming back through and saw this. Why the everloving fuck is this a bad thing? BRING ME THE SMELLING SALTS! HOLLYWOOD IS MAKING SOMETHING THAT ISN’T MARKETED AT ME!!!
What the actual fuck? You have no idea what you’re talking about. Hypersensitivity? grievance mongering? Fuck off. No seriously. Moments like these make me wonder WHY it’s such a given don’t just “revers(e) the oppressed and oppressors” when the revolution comes. Wouldn’t like being treated the way women are treated, would you? And yet it’s still “grievance mongering” and “hypersensitivity” and “spoiling the fun”.
The more I think about it, my biggest problem with remaking Ghostbusters with women stems from the fact that you could do it without any major tinkering with the story or characters (maybe Venkman, but then not really that much). Yes, the fact that it’s not a specifically male story, yet had an all-male cast certainly points to how men are considered the default with women only existing when there’s a specific need for one. Heck, keeping the Sigourney Weaver character a woman and/or eliminating the “love-interest” part of the character wouldn’t change the movie, pointing out how 1st female “leads” are routinely handed over to the biggest star of the movie like stuffed animals at a carnival game. There’s all sorts of sexist wrong about that. Will the fact that this movie can effortlessly shuttle women into roles originally played by men while eliminating a pointless “love interest” highlight those sexist tropes, enlightening moviemakers while encouraging more diverse casts with better, more rounded roles for women? If that happens, I’d be willing to eat my words and say this movie was a good idea. But, I’d still think it was sad that it took a pointless remake to do it. I see why people are excited about this project, but I’m still in the “very cynical about remakes in general” camp. That it pushes social values I’m for doesn’t really change that for me. Although, watching dudebros and neckbeards heads explode at the thought of girl cooties getting on “their” movie has been entertaining.
@ A.Noyd:
No an all male cast wasn’t essential to the success (or at at least the quality) of the movie. That’s why remaking it with what amounts to minor changes is “fiddling” with it. If Ghostbusters was a bomb, I’d be more amenable to there being a remake with women because maybe the all-male cast was part of the reason it stunk. Also, what’s with all the Catwoman hate? She doesn’t have to be a prostitute or shrink wrapped, although I actually like the idea of her and Batman hooking up once in a while, despite this apparently being an unpopular, minority opinion. It complicates their relationship, which I think is a good thing for both of them and the only part of “The Game” I thought was a good idea. A “Catwoman movie that isn’t terrible” would have her be a fully rounded character, with her own agency in which she isn’t in her underwear in every third scene, or defined primarily by her sexuality. That’s why I called it a “good Catwoman movie” and not “another terrible Catwoman movie”.
drken @ 122
Yes, dudebro it will. It demonstrates that you don’t have to write a movie about princesses and nail polish in order for it to make sense with women in the lead roles.
drken @122:
The movie business is pretty solidly dedicated to remakes/reboots/sequels/adaptations/etc these days. Seems to me that if the business is going to be run that way regardless, having some good politics and values infused into it can only improve things; it will certainly reach more people than a low-budget independent original movie would.
You do understand, I hope, that production of this new Ghostbusters picture will not delete or alter existing copies of the original, right? More than one Ghostbusters movie is allowed to exist at once. They can and will both exist in this Universe simultaneously, so I’m not even sure what “fiddling with successful movies” means. Nothing’s being fiddled with. It will still be good, even if the new one is bad. And if the new one is good, it won’t stop the original from being good. I literally don’t understand what you think the problem is.
@ 7 of mine #123:
I agree wholeheartedly, but let them demonstrate that with an original movie. I will not let my love of diversity be held hostage to my hatred of remakes. Unless this movie is as different from the original as Galaxy Quest was to The Three Amigos, I’m going to be opposed on principle.
@ discountdeity #124
I like the diversity part, just not the remakes part. I just don’t see why I have to like the idea of a remake because it increases diversity. I will continue to rage against remakes of good movies that don’t make significant changes (even if the fact that those changes aren’t significant make an important point) and non-diverse movies until Hollywood stops making them. I don’t see why I have to choose between the two. Diversity: Good, Pointless Remakes: Bad.
No, unlike George Lucas trampling all over Star Wars with CGI and putting Jaba into A New Hope, thereby making two movies worse (IV and VI) with one ill-conceived scene, then not releasing original version again, this will not effect my enjoyment of the original Ghostbusters. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
drken, go fuck yourself. If this was about your dislike of remakes you wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’d be doing the same as you do with every other product you don’t like: you’d just opt not to consume it. You’re not fooling anyone.
drken:
I suspect if you’d just kept to criticizing Hollwood’s obsession with remakes, you’d not have received much pushback. But you also argued against an all-woman cast. That’s why you’re getting criticized.
drken #125,
Why do you think it will be remake of the plot of the original GB? I haven’t seen any plot information that would suggest that the plan is to make the same movie, just with female leads. Do we even know if the lead actors are playing the same characters, just gender swapped (ala Battlestar Galactica), or are they different characters in the same universe? Maybe they are new characters coming to remake the business 30 years later. Maybe they’re the daughters of the original stars (perhaps the casting decisions would have aimed a bit younger in this case though). I haven’t seen any plot info to suggest any of these scenarios are more likely than the others, so I’m not sure why you expect they will be following the same plot lines as the original movie — just ladyfied.
Actually, the cast women would be a reasonable fit for daughters of the original crew, I think.
And Hollywood regularly underage casts mothers anyway, so why not have an underage father for a change?
As noted above, the director has specifically said he’s making a new movie, not the same movie.
And the idea that Hollywood’s love of remakes is new is utterly laughable. Remaking movies was a major source of material in the first 60 years of movies, and how will there be fewer now that we’ve been at it 115 years or so? When you’re selecting for the ability to have mass appeal, you’re writing off most of the stories available. If we aren’t remaking, we’re not making art. All art, all literature, all film, builds on the library of ideas and plots and characters that came before. Our failure is in thinking art is a succession of static things, when it’s always a process, one of interrogating and answering older works, across media and time both.
It makes as much sense as trying to fix an ideal state of language and being angry when people keep changing it, without realising that if no one changed their language, we’d all still be speaking “I am Ugh.”
Or, to metamake my point, you are the legendary Canute, drken, raging against an unruly tide.
Sad, really.
@drken #125:
Well, you don’t HAVE TO do anything, I guess. But don’t be surprised if people form some opinions about you based on your apparent priorities (quite frankly, it sounds like you oppose remakes more than you support diversity, which seems…I dunno, weird?).
I still don’t understand why you are specifically opposed to remakes of “good” movies. As I said, a remake exists separately from its inspiration. Why does the quality of the original have any bearing on the quality of the remake?
I mean, you’ve made a few favorable mentions of a Catwoman remake. This despite the character and franchise both being older and more extensively used over the years than Ghostbusters. And the relative lack of social/political advancement involved in a potential Catwoman remake compared to an all-woman Ghostbusters team certainly makes it sound like a less progressive project, despite your stated appreciation for diversity. And yet you seem fine with it…why? Just because the last one wasn’t good? Why does that have anything to do with anything?
Also, you, like the rest of us, have no clue what this movie will be like. Where are you getting this “don’t make significant changes” crap from?
Well, the way to get Hollywood to make diverse movies is to get as many people as possible to support the diverse movies they do make. And yet you’re here criticizing what will apparently be a major motion picture that gives its lead roles to women. So, again, I really wonder what your priorities are. You say Diversity = Good and Pointless Remakes = Bad, but what happens when a film is both? Does the Good of the Diversity outweigh the Bad of the Remake? And if not, why the hell not?
And also, who says this remake is “pointless”? Again, you have NO CLUE how much it will diverge from the original in plot, character, design, or any other aspect. To call it pointless seems to both make some unfounded assumptions about the eventual finished product, and, more importantly, it suggests that having a major franchise action-comedy big budget film with a female lead cast is “pointless”, rather than being kind of a big deal for this “diversity” thing you say you’re big on.
I’m not clear on why you need to have any opinion on this whatsoever. If you don’t dig remakes and don’t wanna see this one, don’t. No one cares. But complaining at length about a major motion picture having female leads strikes me as both unnecessary and somewhat inconsistent with your stated pro-diversity stance.
discountdeity @130:
(love the nym for some reason)
Excellent questions all the way around.
CaitieCat #129,
Yeah, my remark on casting assumed that the daughters would not have been born yet at the time of the original movie, and that the movies take place during the actual year they were released (which would call for a 30 and under cast), but on second thought, there is no reason at all to assume either of those need be the case. I whole heartedly withdraw that part of my comment.
I’m really interested in seeing what the final product will look like. I really hope it doesn’t flop because it could encourage film makers of the future to break the mold on gender roles, which would be a fantastic thing. But I know people will bring their prejudices into the theater with them, and a lot of die hard fans tend to hate reboots and sequels just on principle, so we’ll have to see what happens. It’s a film I’m actually excited to see, which doesn’t happen very often.
@Seven #126:
Complaining about entertainment instead of just opting out of consuming it is the reason they invented the internet. I assure you, if this was a straight, “gender accurate” remake of Ghostbusters I would still have a problem (I’d probably have a bigger one), it just wouldn’t be a topic here on FtB. When I find a pro-remake posting on FtB that doesn’t involve gender diversity, with all sorts of comments saying what a great idea it is, you can be assured I’ll chime in with my objections.
@Tony #127:
I don’t think I’ve argued against an all-woman cast. That certainly hasn’t been my intention. I’ve argued that an all-women cast isn’t sufficient reason to remake a successful movie, in and of itself. This has been interpreted as having a problem with replacing beloved characters with women, when I have a problem with replacing beloved characters in general, even with women. I can see why people would think that, given the revulsion some people have shown to the idea (the topic of the original post), but I’m not backing down from my pro-diversity, anti-remake stance.
@toska #128
I hope you’re right. But, I’m sorry I don’t share your rosey view of Hollywood. Also, Katee Sackoff was awesome as Starbuck. But, the new version of BSG was significantly different than the old one, which is why it worked. But for every BSG, there are a lot of dud remakes. Nobody really knows what the female Ghostbusters is going to be about, but yet there’s far more optimism than I think is warranted.
Look, my issue is that while some people are way too mad about the idea of female Ghostbusters, others seem to be a little too happy. I’m not going to jump on the Ghostbusters remake bandwagon simply because it’s going to be an all-female cast.
@DD:
I mean, you’ve made a few favorable mentions of a Catwoman remake. This despite the character and franchise both being older and more extensively used over the years than Ghostbusters. And the relative lack of social/political advancement involved in a potential Catwoman remake compared to an all-woman Ghostbusters team certainly makes it sound like a less progressive project, despite your stated appreciation for diversity. And yet you seem fine with it…why? Just because the last one wasn’t good? Why does that have anything to do with anything?
It’s exactly because the last one wasn’t good. If you’re going to remake a movie, remake a bad conceptualization of a good idea. Plus there’s no reason why a Catwoman movie can’t be more progressive. That’s part of the “making it better”.
Hmm.
Well, maybe a gimmick, but I’d rather just hope it’s a good movie. If it is, I won’t care if they’re all women.
If it’s bad, that they’re all women wouldn’t be what would bother me about the movie either.
drken @ 133
The reason nobody believes you don’t have a problem with women playing these roles is because nobody is replacing anyone because…
…
…wait for it…
…
IT’S AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MOVIE!
And, as discountdeity has pointed out multiple times now, your support for diversity and your dislike of remakes have come in to conflict with each other and you’re explicitly saying that diversity is just going to have to step aside while you stroke your remake hate-on. So you’ll just have to excuse the rest of us for calling you a fucking liar when you claim to be for diversity.
I don’t get the gimmick criticism being leveled at this project in particular. Most every remake ever done, particularly by Hollywood, is old project plus new gimmick. The new gimmick is often just new tech (sound, color, CG, 3D), but is also often just some other minor change to cast or setting (ex/ modern tellings of old stories). It is rare that a movie or series is more than old thing plus new gimmick, so why have the flip out over this one?
It will be cool if they do a full reboot like Battlestar, taking a dated property that doesn’t really work any more in a very new direction. Changing gender roles could be an element of that. I guess we’ll see when it comes out.
I didn’t like Bridesmaids and don’t find Melissa McCarthy particularly funny so I probably won’t like this, but I’m not the target audience for most big budget movies and I imagine it will do fine without my $15.
Dan Aykroyd seems to like the idea (maybe because it will make him some more money).
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dan-aykroyd-new-ghostbusters-cast-767943
Look, drken is so progressive he’s ignoring the only person with an unmistakably feminine name (Seven’s certainly strongly implies). Literally. Look up there yourself: he responds to 126, 127, 128, and discountdeity. My long but relevant 129? Radio silence takes control.
Which makes him approximately as progressive as he appears to be: at best, in name only, but with privilege unexamined.
Can someone flip the visibility filter to On for me? It seems to have slipped again, funny how often that happens with a feminine ‘nym. And of course, I’m speaking empirically here. N=1, but I have run this experiment in my life, longitudinally. It’s not a myth, and the excuses drken will offer will be familiar dogwhistles.
Tony (#119)
Oopsies. Should go to this.
drken (#122)
All remakes do at least that much. It’s S O motherfucking P. But you don’t even know what other changes there will be, so this is an extra stupid complaint.
I don’t hate Catwoman. But in terms of roles for women, there’s nothing progressive or subversive about remaking Catwoman. And if we’re interested in female ghostbusters because of the potential for defying gender-norms, then Catwoman would be one of the worst alternatives ever.
(#125)
It’s. Not. About. You.
If we only get one kind of movie with women leads—remakes or originals—that’s not progress. Fight for women’s inclusion in both. Then only go see originals, because who the fuck cares what you prefer to spend your money on. Again, it’s not about you.
(#133)
So stop derailing this thread and wait for that one.
Oh, well, silly us for thinking “gimmicky” was a pejorative specifically aimed at the casting.
Like, these aren’t the same sort of thing. People are too mad because they’re sexists. And they’re too happy because… we should share your taste in remakes?
Go away.
Okay, drken, let me try to explain to you why I’m so happy. Imagine that all through your childhood, the main characters in all the cartoons and movies you liked were women. It seemed so standard and normal to you that you didn’t really think about it at the time. Even so, all the COOL movies–you know, the ones with robots or dinosaurs or ninjas–all centered around women. There were movies where men were the major characters, but they didn’t really capture your imagination in the same way that those action/sci-fi/fantasy movies did. So you became accustomed to watching women be badasses, with the occasional token man helping them out. Now, one of those movies that you liked is being rebooted (not remade–this will have a new plot with new characters), and the main characters are ALL men. Not just one token badass man, but a full cast. I know this may be hard to fully wrap your head around and appreciate, but I hope that it goes a little way to explaining how I feel about this movie.
None of us know what it will be like yet, but I am optimistic. Seriously: I really, really hope it’s good.
drken @ 125
I’ll assume you loath Shakespeare and 99% of everything else created by white men in the last five hundred years, then.
CaitieCat @ 138
While my ‘nym is pretty gender neutral, whenever I have a gravatar that could be read as feminine (such as, say, a rainbow unicorn), I magically become invisible. Weird, isn’t it?
The Three Musketeers with four women ?
Robin Hood with a woman in the lead ?
Casablanca with Rachel Blaine instead of Ricky Blaine ?
Wondering how far drken takes this ‘hatred of remakes’…
What about the upcoming Fantastic Four remake that features Michael B. Jordan-a black man-in the role of the Human Torch (who is white in the comics)? Do you also support such racebending yet still oppose remakes (even when the original(s) are bad)?
It’s very obvious to everybody but drken, is that their real objection is to the female leads, period. All else is a failed attempt to cover drken’s misogyny.
Haven’t got much to add to what A. Noyd, CaitieCat, cactuswren, Seven of Mine, Tony! et al. have said to drken, mirrorfield, et al, so I’ll just Nth it.
DLC #143
I can dig all but the last one, and that has nothing to do with who the lead is or isn’t; I specifically and categorically oppose remaking Casablanca because of the way that it is, particularly, a product of the time and setting in which it was made; I basically don’t think that a good version of Casablanca could be made here and now. Otherwise I’m kind of so so on remakes/reboots; if they’ve got a new (and good; the current Trek reboot’s certainly different, but not, on my view, better, frex. Not that I’m opposed to a remake of Trek in general, but it should have been done very differently if they wanted my attention, let alone money) take on it, that’s alright, but most of my crankiness about remakes comes from my desire to see new (as in not yet adapted to the screen) non-cinematic properties being made into movies and/or TV series (I’ve got a list of literary ones I want to see); if those were being made too, I’d stop griping about remakes in general entirely, although I reserver the right to hate any particular remake if I don’t like the new take on it, as with Trek. (Also, if a remake’s got an actor, director, etc whose work I already know and like from elsewhere, that’s a big plus, but doesn’t happen much anymore since I hardly ever see new movies these days, and hence have little familiarity with the people currently working in the industry), and I’d also like to see either some new ideas or at least some different On topic, I’m interested to see what they do with the new Ghostbusters, but I doubt I’ll have the money to see it in theaters regardless. I’m not familiar with any of the actors or the director (see above), but ‘Ghostbusters in the 21st century’ is a pretty decent premise already, if there’s someone competent at the helm (and is sounds like that’s the case, from what others here have said), and the cast know their shit (which also sounds like it’s the case here). Adding diversity to big-budget hollywood movies is also good, on a totally separate axis, so there’s two counts in favor of the new Ghostbusters (three, actually, since given the way
Hollywood typically makes movies, having women in all of lead roles is also new and different, completely aside from the ‘updated to the 21st century’ bit).
This could be the beginnings of a whole new sub-genre of remakes with women leads replacing men leads.
I just read an article yesterday that casting more women in film roles was actually part of an intentional plan in Hollywood atm.
If I find the link again, I’ll post it, but IIRC it was implying a bottom-line mentality driving this. evidently a lot of producers in Hollywood think that the market is ripe for all women casts, and more movies that are about women’s stories instead of men’s.
Whatever the reasons, variety is the spice of life IMO, and I’ll be very interested to see where it goes.
ah, here ’tis:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/female-ghostbusters-why-studios-want-723612
kinda makes me think of Peter Pan…
Or Cinderfella. Nope, Hollywood never mixes things up. *snicker*
Nor does Broadway/Hollywood. *double snicker*
Dalillama, Schmott Guy @146 : As it happens, Casablanca is one of my favorite classic movies. But I felt the need to include it. Perhaps I just needed to be the one to offer up my own personal “sacred item” .
Ichthyic @149:
Thanks for that link.
I especially like this from Zoe Saldana-
just so.
Ichthyic @148 and 149,
Thank you for sharing that link, very interesting.
Yes, agreed whole heartedly. Even if it’s driven entirely by profit, the fact that there is a profit to be had from films with more women leads seems like a good sign that the zeitgeist (is that still a word anymore) is changing for the positive.
Yes, I think we have established by now that an all straight white male cast is normal, and inclusion of women, racial minorities, or sexual minorities of any variety is a GIMMICK. A FILTHY GIMMICK! A POLITICALLY CORRECT GIMMICK! OH, HOW YE WOUND ME!!! END THESE GIMMICKS NOW! MY FLESH BURNS! THE SKY IS ALIGHT WITH FLAMES FOR YOU HAVE ANGERED THE GODS OF NORMALCY!!! THE END IS NIGH! THE END IS NIGH!!!!
Really, all of you asking for a female cast should be ashamed of yourselves. You are way to over the top. And you ask too much. YOU ASK TOO MUCH!! THE RAIN OF BLOOD WILL BE UNCEASING SHOULD THE REIGN OF THE STRAIGHT WHITE MAN PASS!! I WEEP, I WEEP FOR THE END OF OUR VERY CIVILIZATION! Stop being so sensitive, jeez.
@We are Plethora 155
The motive is and will be profit always. One of the things that has held execs back from making more movies with strong female leads, or much of anything other than their standard, is their failure to recognize the potential audience. They had convinced themselves that they knew who would pay to go to movies and that they knew what that audience wanted. Thing is if you keep making what a particular audience wants you are selecting who will be willing to pay to watch it. It looks like some of them are taking off their blinders and realizing there is a much more diverse market and so more profit to be made from making films that recognize that.
DLC #152
I am with you on the sanctity of Casablanca.
*hangs head*
*kicks rock*
I’m not.
I really hope that drken never gets to power or theatre will be limited to ONE production per play because everything else is a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemake.
I mean, we should probably protest whenever a theatre decides to do another Shakespeare production. Not only were his plays remakes themselves, they also no longer feature the original cast. I’ve heard that some productions are even using women to play the female roles…
Now, now, it’s only the pointless remakes drken has a problem with. You, know, the ones that risk giving the impression that women sometimes like…do shit that isn’t silly and superfluous and/or for the purpose of making boners happy.
drken @134:
That makes no sense. If a remake is well-made, it’s well-made, regardless of whether the original was good or bad. If a remake is bad, the original movie continues to exist, whether it was good or not. You are hung up on this idea that only “bad” movies should be remade, and you have not begun to explain why that makes even the least bit of sense.
And, BTW, if your distaste for people making make-believe stories that are based on existing make-believe stories outweighs your appreciation for the benefits of a major motion picture featuring a female-led cast, you don’t actually support diversity. Re-examine your priorities and get back to us.
I didn’t enjoy the first one. Maybe this one will be better.
You go ahead and tell women how happy we are allowed to be.
You tell us how concerned it makes you to see us “too happy” when we are represented as something other than wank fodder in popular culture.
Then tell us one more time why we should believe you aren’t a whiny misogynist.
They made that. It was called “Barb Wire” and it stared Pamela Anderson.
It was a cheesy action movie, but it was also Casablanca.
I saw a ghost movie that actually passed the Bechdal Test recently. Jerry Ryan is in Secrets in the Walls. It’s on Netflix.
I’m sure I’m much too happy about it. I’ll try to reign that in.
Great take on this one by Liss over at Shakesville:
http://www.shakesville.com/2015/01/still-misogyny.html
A short quote to show relevance: