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.
@Rabukurafuto
Yeah, this can be really disheartening when parents try to pass this bullshit off as truth. According to my parents, their childhoods occurred during a golden age. It seems as though fairy dust made their childhoods sparkle.
No mention of child labor. (Did I mention that my parents were born around one hundred years ago?)
No mention of lynchings (of course, these weren’t happening to them or their families).
Also not mentioned: nativism, something that would have affected my father’s immigrant parents.
No mention of the Great Depression.
My mother would occasionally let something slip about the bad old days. For example, her mother told her to always give food to the homeless who would come to the door, because they might be former soldiers who had been gassed during World War I(!) — Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
(the more things change, the more they stay the same). But mostly, my mother would contrast current days (bad) with her childhood and young adulthood (good).
Which was kind of problematic for her daughter, who was growing up in the tainted, sullied, highly imperfect, hopelessly wrong 1960s and 1970s. I made do with that world.
I continue to muddle through, doing my best to save what’s good and compost what needs to be transformed.
@Virgin Mary
Leave it to the commenters on those sites to cry false flag of the literal nazis. Sure hope the cleanup and security detail can deal with this. Shows Exactly the type of people the British have to admit exist amongst them in not uncommon numbers.
Okaaay.
A fully grown up man who’s allowed to drink and to vote wrote this. I don’t like your film so I won’t buy these toys.
Much maturity. Very discernment.
@ Virgin Mary
Ugh, that is disgusting. I’d like to think though that Michael might have been quietly pleased to know that even after all this time he was still an annoyance to fascists.
You probably know that he was one of the secret authors of an article condemning the appeasement policy towards Hitler (he had a bit of fun reviewing the article for the newspaper he wrote for).
He also immediately volunteered for military service when war broke out. He was rejected on health grounds but there is a rumour that he ended up in the Auxillary Units. I’ve been trying to find out something about that as the AUs are a hobby of mine, but the people involved were all from that Bletchly Park generation where if they were told something was secret they never talked about it.
@alan
That sounds like some interesting history to read up on. So at least his legacy as an anti Fascist lives on, a true hero.
@EJ & Alan
I’ve tried to write this comment a few times. I couldn’t, if you’ll excuse the cliche, find a vein. Pretty much none of either explanation makes tangible sense to me. The words connect into readable sentences and ideas are conveyed that I can understand. Still, it’s just not clicking
Re: EJ’s description
I believe you’re telling me the truth, or your version of it anyway. I also believe you gave what you thought to be appropriate consideration to your words before you sent them to me. I don’t believe you mean me any harm thru those words. Is that respect?
Re: Alan
I’m having trouble differentiating respect from admiration. You use both words. Are they the same thing? Is the former a kind of the latter? Like, ‘admiration plus x other emotion’ or ‘admiration in x manner’?
What’s really losing me is how, for lack of a better term, pedestrian it seems. ‘I like you’, ‘I love you’, ‘I hate you, ‘I fear you’, ‘I respect you’. That last one sounds so hollow in comparison. I don’t feel that word the same as I do with the others
A lot of this definitely comes from the confusion of the term EJ mentioned. So many people mean so many different things. Maybe that caused my apathy for concept. Or maybe I’m just not wired for that emotion, and my aversion to the “bootlicking subservience” definition is just a rationalization of that. I honestly don’t know
Apologies for the ramble, fellas. It’s way too early in the morning and, thus, way too late to be awake 🙂
These people, honestly. I’ve seen the trailer in theaters and a lot of people watching it laughed. And they weren’t all ladies! Of course, everyone has their own taste, but these guys are throwing a fit because somebody dared remake a movie they really liked when they were kids. And nobody else can play with their toys!
Seriously, the only people in my country that I’ve heard complaining about the remake are all pretty MRA/MGTOW/Whiny Entitled Manchild adjacent. Everyone else seems to be fine with it, even if they did like the original as kids.
The other thing about making a new version of an idea, or rebooting a franchise, or whatever, is that the original still exists. So nothing is being taken away from anyone. If someone liked the original, there’s no one coming to your door to confiscate the old version.
It doesn’t mean anything to me that there are umpteen versions of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The books haven’t been burned up. The film adaptations that worked are still there for me to enjoy. The faux outrage is just that, pretending.
@ axe
My brain is similarly frazzled (usual work situation of last minute solutions to impossible problems) but I think you’re onto something there.
One version of ‘respect’ is akin to admiration but not quite synonymous. I think you’re proposed ‘equations’ get the idea though.
Then there’s the other version of respect. That’s the one where you don’t like an argument or decision but you sort of begrudgingly consent to it. That’s probably not quite the right terminology either but it’s like the elephant cliche ‘hard to describe but easy to recognise’*
[* must confess I’ve never quite agreed with that analogy; if I saw an elephant committing a bank robbery I think I’d be able to give a pretty good description]
You know what burns me up? Modern adaptations of Shakespeare! Look at this travesty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Modern_adaptations_of_works_by_William_Shakespeare
Fifty-six pages of modern adaptations of the Bard of Avon!
Way to ruin my late sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries!
So the basic gist of the criticism of the critics (haha) is:
“They say they love it to hide the fact that they hate it.” rrrrriiiiiiiight.
Reality, the fly in the MRA’s ointment….
Really, all I want to know about this film from reviews is – Did it pass the Six Laugh Test ?
http://witterpedia.net/wiki/index.php?title=The_Six_Laugh_Test
Obligatory “respects is earned”.
@Axe “Danger” calibur:
Respect and admiration often go hand-in-hand, but not always. For instance, I respect and admire CD Projekt RED as video game developers and digital store owners because they have historically shown that they are willing to treat their customers as actual people rather than walking wallets.
I have respect for a company like EA because they have produced many games that I like and, despite some really terrible business practices, they have generally been at the forefront of pushing for non-homogeneous game narratives (which is pretty funny considering how much they homogenize their gameplay…); however, I don’t admire EA because of aforementioned awful business practices. They’re a routinely pretty poor company, and would need to seriously overhaul that to earn my admiration.
And while I admire people like Ben Yahtzee Croshaw for his comedic wit or TotalBiscuit for his critical eye, I can’t really hold a lot of respect for them due to some of the shitty views they have on sociopolitical subjects.
This might not make a lot of sense, but that’s kind of my video gaming anecdotal take on it.
Please, manospherians, don’t ever stop being angry at remakes of movies you’ve seen. Otherwise, where would I get my best laughs!
Oh yeah, my boyfriend is hilarious. But at least half of his funniness is intentional. Big deal.
And my cats’ slapstick antics rival Charlie Chaplin’s. Unfortunately, just like my boyfriend, they try too hard. Ho-hum.
But you guys — you guys!!!!!! — are incomparably comedic. The combination of pomposity, arrogance, misspellings and grammatical errors (because, your writing seems to say, you are too important and far too busy to care about such things), and hatred for all living beings, especially yourselves, is priceless.
On top of that brilliance is your complete lack of a clue. If your cluenessness is inauthentic, then I am witnessing a dazzling display of skill: bravo!
You’re extremely special. Do not change a thing!
@Axecalibur
Respect often hinges on an at least partial acceptance of the validity of another person’s experience.
There are languages in which this word/concept is derived from words “see” and “accept” — meaning that you take another person’s view into consideration (perhaps because they have more experience or different experience or personal views that you admire) and that you may allow their view to contaminate and influence your own.
There are times that you might not even like a person, but their personal achievements can’t be ignored, so you’re forced to give them grudging respect, because the reality at large, the facts of that person’s life, testify in their favor. This leads to things like “I hate that person, but respect that he/she built an empire/company/spaceship on the strength of will, some shrewd decisions, and excellent choices in friends and associates.”
Fan backlash against reboots is pretty common. But it looks like these people are offended by female main characters period even if the movie itself is not particularly feminist. It’s old fashioned bigotry.
The all-female leads were the only reason I was paying attention to the reboot in the first place. That being said, it’s nice to hear the new movie doesn’t suck.
“…I’m gonna punish you for your childish tantrum by taking the toys away from myself!”
So, I’m old enough to have seen a lot of my favorite childhood TV shows, songs, and movies remade, repurposed, sampled, hacked up, MST3Ked, and mocked, but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. The originals are still there. The memories remain. Sometimes the remakes are even better. Other times, Hollywood makes a quick cheesy buck, the modernized version sinks without a trace, and everyone gets on with their lives. Either way, the original and the remakes can coexist peacefully. You can’t expect kids today to relate the same way as nostalgic adults to movies made 30 or 40 years ago (as I’ve discovered when trying to show my kids “Star Wars”). The world has moved on.
There are only a handful of “third rail” movies that are considered too perfect/sacred/closely associated with their era to reboot (Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Citizen Kane). Ghostbusters isn’t one of them.
@Jamesworkshop
It’s that fear of elevating anything feminine to a position where it can be admired. Girls can’t be action heroes, because certain people think it’s degrading for boys to look up to/identify with a girl. It’s the same reason tomboys are tolerated (“aww look! she thinks she’s people”), but little boys who adopt feminine mannerisms are bullied and ostracized. It also comes from a fear of mixing up the gender boxes so that you can’t tell which qualities “belong” to boys or girls. If both boys and girls get to save the day, then how can boys be superior?
None of this comes naturally to kids. It has to be taught, and reinforced again and again through the stories we tell them. I so dislike the standard Hollywood copout that they’re just “giving the audience what they want”. Writers are the ones with the power to shape the characters and the narratives, not the audience. Tropes become tropes because generations of lazy storytellers fall back on them. It’s such an abdication of responsibility. I get that the majority of action-film goers are there for the escapism, and don’t want to be challenged, but they’re alienating a lot of potential ticket buyers by focusing only on the fanboys.
That’s why I’m glad to see films with the courage to stand some of these tropes on their head. White cishet males don’t have a monopoly on defeating evil, and they aren’t the only ones who deserve to see heroes that resemble themselves.
In fact, linguistically “respect” is the opposite of “disregard.” It means to look and relate as to something worthwhile rather than avoid looking at and dismiss.
@ OoglyBoggles
Since you brought up the Tolkien movies, while I agree that LotR was better than the animated version, The Hobbit was a giant steaming pile. However I am quite able to say that without claiming it ruined anything else, the book or the Rankin Bass film.
I saw the original GB in the theater and nothing can take that away from me. How this movie does means nothing just the same way thay Highlander2 changed nothing about the original film. Strangely enough, people made jokes about how bad the sequel was AFTER seeing it and yet it wasn’t a source of rage.
I’m an 80’s horror kid so have endured enough shitty reboots of my much beloved horror films to make me cry tears of blood over the past ten years or so. I actually saw the original Ghostbusters at my local cinema during it’s original release (and I am a woman too), so I have a childhood stake in this.
I would LOVE to see this reboot however, but my mental illness means I find actually attending the cinema to be horrifically stressful and haven’t been since 2005. However as I did with Mad Max: Fury Road and Deadpool, I shall purchase the dvd on day one release and show my support for this film thataway.
Also that photo on page one of the young girls all dressed up meeting their hero has really warmed my cockles. And those are the best kind of cockles.
@ Buttercup Q. Skullpants
I can’t remember anything about it but there was a remake of The Wizard of Oz, with a black cast to boot, The Wiz. as I said, can’t remember if it was worth watching, its been too long, bur I can imagine the reaction if it were release today.
How have we gone backwards?
@ buttercup
Much as I think WoO is a great film, I actually prefer “The Wiz”. Maybe it’s an 80s thing but I love the dystopic fantasy setting. It’s really trippy. There was a lot of that sort of thing then (Atermis 81, Neverwhere etc), and it had a big impact on me.
Also ‘ease on down the road’ is a brilliant song.
ETA: Ninja’d by pitshade
Blooming hummer; it was the 70s!!!! Now I feel old.
(Although not as old as when someone pointed out that Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was)
https://youtu.be/oGxBx8RzzrM
ETA: how do you embed YouTube vids nowadays?
Pitshade,
In the US I believe it is because we have a population that received very poor educations and are inunndated with Faux News type propaganda regularly.