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.
@Alan: My personal “I’m old” revelation came the other day when I was wading through the Hellraiser films (yes, all 9 of them) and realised that the first one will be three decades old next year. Man, I remember getting my mum to rent that from local rental store like it was yesterday. Looking forward to the reboot (ARGH!!!!)
In important UK political news; I’m sure you were all concerned as to the fate of Larry the Downing Street cat, now we’re getting a new Prime Minister.
Well, we’ve been reassured that as ‘Official Mouser’ is a civil service position Theresa May can’t get rid of him (unlike Cherie Blair who had Humphrey the Cat assassinated)
http://snappa.static.pressassociation.io/assets/2016/04/11215821/1460408299-838fa707cb056057154a513ca9d6f600-600×403.jpg
@ varalys
Nooooo!
If you’ll excuse me, I need to yell at some kids to get off my lawn.
D’awwww. He looks like my sister’s pet cat Magnus, a white tabby blotched male. Who is a tremendous mouser, and ratter too. Sadly he likes to bring the rats in eat some of them and leave the rest on the living room carpet. My sister bewails this, I have tried to tell her back in ye olden days he’d be worth a fortune for his vermin hunting skillz, but this hasn’t helped matters. I hope Larry earns his civil service pay though.
How times fly. I don’t have a lawn I share a yard with the surrounding houses. No kids either, my own cat Biff patrols regularly and I think he’s seen everyone off. I’ll start talking to kids on the train about “The Good Old Days” of the 1980’s instead.
@pitshade and Alan – I thought of the Wiz too, but that always struck me as being a tongue in cheek endeavor. It wasn’t trying to be an earnest adaptation or compete with the original, so it took the campy 1970s approach. In some respects, it was closer to the original book (silver slippers instead of ruby slippers), but it was also weirder, darker, and more urban, with drug references and graffiti.
I guess the question is, when is a film a reboot, versus a takeoff?
@ varalys
I like to annoy my god-daughters by harping on about how “we had proper music that you could dance to and hear the lyrics, like Orbital and The Prodigy”
As to Larry, for obscure financial reasons, he’s paid for by a pub quiz.
(Check out the link to the press briefing, that’s what passes for news over here)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/sep/07/larry-cat-quiz-downing-street
There’s never been a faithful to the books adaptation of Oz. I’d love to see it done as an animated film franchise.
@Alan: I’ve done the same! And I’m sure I recall a Jack Dee sketch from the early 90’s where he laments modern rave and grunge music and that back in his day you had proper tunes and lyrics you could hum and sing along with like The Sex Pistols and The Clash.
I’ve got a nephew who turns two next month, he’s the only neice or nephew I have so far and that kid is gonna get reminisced at so hard.
@ varalys
When I was a yoot (I used to bum Cali weed in a rizla, a rizla, a rizla) you’d see old Teddy Boys hanging around. I used to wonder whether in 30 years time there’d similarly be old punks and goths. Never guessed that would actually be me and my mates 🙂
Don’t know when I’ll see the movie in question; I dislike movie theatres and have to be highly motivated to see movies that way (anything with dinosaurs needs to be on a BIG screen for me). But, I will see it! I did see the original in the theater; it was in Omaha when I was stationed at Offutt AFB with a big group of friends.
One of the only things I really get nostalgic for is old AM radio. Here in S. Cali, we had KHJ which played ALL the hits in the 60s thru the 70s; Rock, R&B, Country/Western, Pop, MoTown, it was great! All the compartmentalization of genres nowadays is what gets my offended nostalgia rant on.
@Alan: I’m sort of glad I cemented my own “look” during the grunge years. I am currently wearing knee length shorts, adidas trainers, a ripped T-shirt (A Star Trek Generations one admittedly, because I am still a geek) and a loose plaid shirt. It was a gift to the lazy, tatty and disinterested in fashion music lover that scene was. 😀
As for general nostalgia, I love the stuff I loved as a kid, but because I love videogames for example, I’m always keen to sample new technology and the advances in gaming they bring. While still appreciating the old stuff (I own practically every pre-PS3/360/Wii generation console there has been, yes EVEN a blood Atari Jaguar). I do sometimes get nostalgic for odd little things like the noise my PC made when I dialled up an internet connection, of course I found it availiable online to listen to whenever I want, but the feelings of excitment of being a few seconds away from access to all the lovely things the net had to offer is gone now.
@ Alan Robertshaw, Axecalibur, EJ (page 2)
Re: Respect.
I think that what Axecalibur is encountering is a part of social psychology that has to do with individuals reflecting passive and active signals related to phenomena that impact all of us. In Axecalibur’s example, death. Added to the universal experience is another part of social psychology that has to do with wanting to see the group reflect our individual experience. By using the “proper signals” that the group has agreed on one is symbolically showing not only the surviving family that you are acknowledging their loss, one is also showing that they will feel the same about the living people in attendance.
Another example is rituals involving other group activities, for example a teacher making everyone take their hat off when coming into the classroom. Objectively the removed hat is not actually connected to better learning for the group, but subjectively it is a symbol of respect and submission to the teacher that emphasizes their authority in the classroom and is supposed to signal that one will be compliant with respect to maintaining a good learning environment through obedience and role-modeling.
On a general level I see nothing wrong with social signals related to universally experienced phenomena. But as EJ & Alan pointed out there is a difference between symbolically showing acknowledgment and maintenance of the social phenomena, and merely showing obedience to a person independent of the phenomena. I prefer social symbols that take individual differences into account and have some rational connection to the phenomena in question. In classrooms for example a better symbol would be putting one’s cell phone away (independent of uses like recording a lecture, but even then it can be out of sight).
Empty political symbols used for respect of party or individual instead of the system we depend on are all over the place. My parents for example are the kind of people that want to see flag-burners jailed “because support the troopz”. They can’t see that lives are more important than cloth.
Re: Social conflict, Alan
It’s taken me some effort over the years to keep the nattering authoritarian in my head from seeing most (all? sometimes I’m not sure) disagreement as a challenge. I was raised in the sort of social environment where being incorrect is functionally treated as a weakness so “being right” was important. Naturally there was some disagreement but it was often solved by way of social rank (elders, male, pastor…).
In many ways my experience in social conflict has been consistent with this. The evolution vs. creationism fights were easy to be black-and-white about in many respects because of the nature of the scientific evidence. But I was aware of the places where many views were valid, I was just not so well equipped for those interactions until recently (It’s still harder when life is crappy though). As a result I’m often selective about what discussions, arguments, and conflicts I choose to participate in.
For example around here and FTB I mostly read the conversations of others, but when someone overtly aggressive shows up I get involved to help maintain an environment where the other conversations can happen.
I’m a lot better about the stuff where many perspectives have value now, and instinctively it feels like creating a space where more solid and meaningful social rules, knowledge and interactions can be created that everyone will benefit from.
In fact maintaining that environment I mentioned above is required for disadvantaged groups to be able to express themselves and I often functionally deal with people aggressively maintaining the status quo. One area I have a lot of skill in is humor where many people like to pretend that things are objectively funny or not funny (often for reasons of social convenience), but the nature of the reality is such that things are necessarily funny and not funny at the same time (and recognizing such has led to many learning opportunities about people).
@Alan:
Hah!
I don’t think it’s a matter of them thinking girls can already identify with male heros, because I don’t believe they think about them at all. They don’t care. As long as boys have their role models the girls can either adapt, or not, in their mind.
That’s what drives them so crazy about it all. They never thought about the girls so they assume no one is thinking about the boys. And we can’t have that !!
It looks like critical reviews are mixed love-it-or-hate-it (77% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, 62% index on Metacritic) while ratings are overwhelmingly negative on sites vulnerable to rating spam. I’d guess there’s a concerted MRA campaign to drive down ratings with sock puppetry.
I didn’t like the first Ghostbuster (even though I have seen it more than once… because I was a teen when movie channels popped up) and I am not really looking forward to this reboot even though I want to marry Kate McKinnon. So if you say Kate McKinnon is stealing the show (like she does always) in this, I cannot resist LOL
@Axecalibur:
I think there’s one more factor to it than that: the belief that the person who said it is competent and knowledgeable enough to make the right call on the matter even if it isn’t the way you would have done it.
For example, in this case a respectful thing to do would be to notice that different people grieve differently, and to trust that each person is picking the form of grieving that most helps them. A disrespectful approach would be to try to make everyone conform to your method of grieving, in the belief that you know better than them.
This obviously overlaps with the phenomenon of mansplaining, which I feel I am at risk of doing, so I’ll stop here.
@Carrie
I have also seen that at IMDb.
From my point of view, IMDb is at great fault there, for letting the general public (the mob) rate movies before they are even out yet.
More than 3500 mra-losers went into an obvious down-voting war. And the forum at IMDb of Ghostbusters and many other movies is filled with sexist crap and insults.
They suck (for a serious information website about movies). They should enable ratings only after the movie comes out. And if the movie has a hate campaign directed against it, like it is the case here, it should be disabled for the general public to review it, only professional film critics should be able to do it.
I mean, if the movie isn’t out yet, but thousands of people rate it a 1 star (not even the worst possible movie has such a bad rating) than it should be obvious for the people that manage IMDb to spot the obvious trolling and to disable the ratings.
I know that what I write here is wishful thinking, but IMDb can’t forever close it’s eyes on the damage and sexism it is contributing to.
Chris Nolan films have 10/10 before the movies even come out. None of his films deserves a 10/10.
I was mislead like that on for Interstellar, it had 10/10 before it came out. So I went to see it.
It is a 7 max, now it has 8.6.
It shouldn’t matter that much, but this just shows how stupid the rating system at the site is.
@ varalys
Oh, I love the old modem noise. Keeek, shhhhhhhh, keeeeek, rrrrrrrrrrr, shhhhhhhh, ………., psshhhh, squeak….
As for grunge, I felt very old a few years back when someone sent me the linked photo and asked “remember what we were doing 20 years ago today? (Seeing Nirvana).
How can that be over 20 years ago? Nirvana are new!!!!!!!
TW for 80s ‘fashion’
http://imgur.com/hlu3EOT
I still don’t get how “SJWs” can be fascists. Fascism kinda implies contempt for equality and a hard-on for traditional social order.
I particularly like the comment saying film critics don’t care about film. Like somebody’s forcing them to do their job at gunpoint or something.
@ColeYote
It’s easy, you just think of your fascistic tendencies to stomp on minorities and women for not obeying your every whim, and think that SJW’s just want the same thing too.
@Alan Oh you’re modem didn’t have the ‘ka-boing ka-boing boing’ thing at the end? 😉
I still find it weird that my 20 year old daughter loves 80’s music. but then, I’ve played/sang a lot of swing, which was loooong before my time, too. Best moments are when something like Tears for Fears comes on the radio and both of us are singing along. 🙂
@Alan: Yeah the 90’s still feel like yesterday. When I realised last year it had been 20 years since Richey Edwards vanished, which has always felt very raw to me as listening to The Holy Bible album is something I do weekly as it’s probably my favourite album of all time, I was left feeling a) old and b) saddened that he was probably never realistically alive all this time now.
I enjoyed the photo. I think there are some photos out there of me in sleeveless black metal T-shirts and denim, but I found the slacker look more my thing. Though I still hold my shorts up with a studded leather belt. I am such a Rebel.
@Fishy Goat: My favourite videogame of all time is Fallout 3 I have sunk 100’s of hours into playing and replaying that sucker so got to know GNR’s playlist off by heart and I’d be round at mum’s singing “Anything Goes” and so on and she was weirded out by these tunes that her own mum used to listen to being sung by her daughter. Now I am playing The Saboteur and that’s added another few 1930-40’s songs to my repotoire and personal media device.
@ fishy goat
Ee, we used to dream of having a modem that flash 🙂
I remember a mate ramping up my 14.4k modem to 28k. “Why do I need that? The main bulletin board I use operates at 360 baud.”
(Seriously, it would have been quicker communicating by semaphore)
One thing about this whole fiasco that still boggles my mind is how there are internet woman haters that are not convinced that this film’s existence is some kind of feminist conspiracy but yet accuse the film’s marketing team of drumming up the “feminist controversy” angle as some publicity stunt.
Having been involved with this movie’s marketing campaign more than a year, I can assure you this is completely false… this movie was conceived as Ghostbusters for the millennial generation, the simple truth is that the producers felt the current all female comedy ensemble for this film was much stronger than proposed alternate comedy ensembles (some of them all male, btw) when the project was still in development. Yes, as horrible as this sounds, this movie could’ve gotten Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider as the Ghostbusting team. 😀
What’s funny is that all these manbabies ended up giving Sony pictures tons of free publicity. These guys have a PhD on shooting themselves in the foot. 😀
All that aside, if you’re in the fence about this movie, go see it, it’s genuinely funny, it turned out much better than I expected, and it was one of the few pre release screenings I enjoyed in years.
I was pretty uninterested in this flick because even if I saw the original on theaters at 12 and the theme song was ubiquitous in every middle school dance I went to in 1984, it didn’t leave an indelible teenage movie memory like movies like Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Footloose, Beverly Hills Cop, Red Dawn, Top Gun or Aliens did, and I’m normally pretty apathetic towards remakes.