A specter haunts the Internet’s angry men. The specter that the new Ghostbusters movie with all the ladies in it might actually be, you know, good.
Angry dudes have been throwing Internet hissy fits over the new lady-fied Ghostbusters since they first learned of its lady-fied nature early last year; indeed, the fellas at the famously lady-hating site Return of Kings started boycotting the film back in March, even though there was no film yet to boycott.
From RoK to Reddit to YouTube, the Internet’s angriest men agreed that the film was going to be the worst thing to hit men since the ladies got the right to vote, or something.
Now, with the film hitting theaters in the US this Friday, and already playing in the UK and Ireland, the first reviews are coming out.
And so far they’re not bad. The film boasts a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment, and some of the reviews are actually pretty enthusiastic, with more than a few critics suggesting that the Ghostbusting ladies are the best part of the film.
In the Daily Beast, Jen Yamato derided the film’s “lulls in pacing” and “choppy editing,” before hailing the gals at the film’s center:
[W]ith a crackling sense of purpose and a surplus of reverence for their predecessors, new Ghostbusters Wiig, McCarthy, McKinnon, and Jones plant their own flag on a beloved sci-fi comedy franchise.
For haters of the Lady Ghostbusters, it’s a nightmare, sweetie, as Patsy from AbFab would say, though I’m pretty sure the anti-Lady-Ghostbusters crowd wouldn’t find her funny either.
On Reddit, naturally, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. In Kotaku in Action, Reddit’s main hangout for GamerGate true believers, one of he highest-rated comments in the Ghostbusters 2016 Review Megathread blasts those giving the film good reviews as “cucks for Sony.” Others offered similar explanations.
One commenter accused the critics who liked the film of the apparently unpardonable sin of being … writers.
Over in the Ghostbusters subreddit — because of course there is a Ghostbusters subreddit, and of course it’s full of Lady-Ghsotbuster haters — some of the regulars are trying their best to keep the dream alive, the dream in question being the dream that Lady Ghostbusters will still turn out to really suck, positive reviews be damned!
One irate fellow, insisting he wasn’t rooting for the film to fail, attacked Sony for allegedly throwing a tantrum.
I never wanted the film to be “garbage”, I wanted to have a movie I could enjoy watching. But the moment Sony, Feig, and everyone else involved decided that personal attacks against the public was how they wanted to promote this film, then I simply can’t support it. It could literally be a better film than the original (which it’s not) and I still would not watch it because of the horrible taste left by the filmmaking team’s behavior.
I am not a simpleton who is pursuaded by “like this movie or you’re a misogynist hater”, and since that is the tact they choose, I have to opt out entirely on principle. I do not want this to become a recurring trend with future entertainment endeavors.
I will not be spending a dime on anything related to Ghostbusters 2016. No toys, no movie tickets, no Blu Rays, and no Lego or Lego Dimensions sets. I do not endorse childish tantrums by big studios.
So take that, Sony! This total non-tantrum-haver is taking his Legos (which include no Lady Ghostbusters sets) and going home.
The culture war is weird, man.
I saw this movie earlier (it opened today in the UK) and it’s pretty good, with Kate McKinnon being absolutely fucking wonderful. I’d definitely recommend seeing it.
A reboot of an old franchise is flawed but okay. SHOCKER!
On a related note: According to vulture.com, “Critics Are Split on the Ghostbusters Reboot’s Laughs, Story, Originality”.
I love how Sugreev2001 decides that movie reviewers are not “normal people” due to their extremist views and the praise of a small number of pro-fascist like-minded readers going to their heads.
I love it when MRAs throw a temper tantrum. You know you got them good when all they got is sputtering insults.
I saw this earlier:
http://www.avclub.com/article/anti-ghostbusters-revolution-will-not-be-upvoted-239374
The internet is indeed a strange place.
The kids and I are seeing it Friday. The kids love Ghostbusters and they think it is so cool that the reboot has a female cast and Thor. We are going to have a ball.
So… After Mad Max winning approximately all the Oscars and Star Wars making approximately all the money, this makes their strikes’ third strike. Can they go home how?
“Whatever happened to not pre-judging?!” wails the man-child who judged the movie to be terrible without having seen it.
Re-Busters can’t be getting good reviews because people actually like the movie! No, it must be because they’re all shilled beta cucks who are afraid of being called misogynists, which I’m not!
Everyone knows writers aren’t people (like women and LGBT people and PoC)! They’re just paid-off mouthpieces with no thoughts or likes/dislikes of their own (unless they’re agreeing with me), and obviously aren’t writing a critique of a movie because they like movies or anything! [/sarcasm]
EDIT: Also, I’m just going to leave this here:
Look at those little girl’s faces. Look how excited they are and how in love they are with meeting a woman they look up to.
Those faces are totally worth all the manbaby whining. Those girls are so happy, and that’s all that matters to me right now.
Don’t they know SJW with fascist tendencies is a contradiction? Reminds me of that stupid ‘Liberal Fascist’ book they kept crowing about.
I would have loved this when I was little. Thank you Sony for little girl role models.
Oh boy.
For so much stink and horrible expediencies they had and hope they had for this movie to bomb…. for it to be good……actually GOOD( at least beyond their abysmal expectations), it must be a real low blow.
Too bad.
is “hissy fit” a gendered insult? I’m assuming it derives from “hysterical”?
Yeah, you can have left-wing authoritarianism, but it’s not called fascism that’s a super nationalist center to right brand authoritarianism.
https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/752388697346088960
* serious note why do they think that girls are skilled enough to routinely identify with male heroes, but that little boys couldn’t possibly be up to the task of identifying with women.
They really sell boys short and they can’t seem to tell that they are doing it.
Yeah, I hated the first trailer because of the depiction of the one black character in it, and the fact that she wasn’t a scientist was a huge let down for me. I’m also not a Jones fan at all, although I admire what she’s trying to accomplish. Her humor is just too broad and loud for me to get into.
I am a huge McCarthy fan tho’, who has liked whatever she’s in, and the new trailers look much much funnier. My absolute favorite already is Kate McKinnon, tho’. She looks hilarious and I want to see it just for her.
I mean I probably won’t see Ghostbusters, not because I think it’s a bad film, but because I’m on a budget, and already have two movies I planned to watch: Star Trek Beyond, which is written by Simon Pegg and I’m a huge fan of his writing, and then Suicide Squad (because Will Smith needs no reason). Also I really like Harley Quinn and Robbie’s version of her looks like fun. I’m all about the fun this summer.
As for the Manbabies Are they crying again? Must be a day ending in a Y.
@Loquora:
Not sure, but if you are actually boggled at the title:
“The anti-Ghostbusters revolution will not be upvoted”
It’s referring to this, which I would bet a lot of younger people probably never heard of, and is still worth listening to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaoXAwl9kw
Paradoxical:
Awww! Those girls faces are so adorable. This movie is definitely for the next generation of kids, not for an aging group of whineypants who already had the special screen times, and apparently want to keep on having all of them forever, regardless of whether or not their patronage of a movie is relevant.
I have to admit, I feel a little like those girls about this movie, despite the fact that I was disappointed by the first trailer. There’s a part of me that wishes I was ten or eleven again, just so I could have this moment for real. I started geekfangirling the moment I heard there was gonna be an all women reboot.
I’m going to be so happy to see this if it turns out good. I’ve honestly been scared that it would be as bad as “Batman vs. Superman” and then, when the positive reviews rolled in, I gained a new sense of hope that, once again, maybe, just maybe, MRA hopes will again be crushed. After all, I need some new male tears to power my male tear powered time machine.
“These are not normal people, and they’ve gone delusional with the minuscule amount of power given to them by their like-minded crybully readers.”
Says someone who bawls because his sakwed Ghostbusters got made into a bunch of (whine, sniffle) GIRLS. And who seriously thinks his pouty-stompy disapproval alone ought to have been enough to have stopped that from happening.
Meanwhile, Bill Murray is in the mix, and Dan Aykroyd loves the concept. So that means that at least half the OGs are on board.
Oh, the salty, SALTY man-tears, they taste so sweet!
@Brian
It seems that, regardless of whether it comes from hissing or hysterics, it’s pretty damn sexist. All of the possible origins seem to point towards a female slant, including hissing (catty women).
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=24134
I watched BvS twice… just to make sure it was as bad as I thought it was the first time I saw it.
and it was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJBsnG8lc1Y
I continue to be amused when the angry internet men (re)discover that the rest of reality doesn’t agree with them.
@Ichtyic:
OMG, that moth on Ronaldo’s face. I’m dyyyyyin’.