Ghostbusters. One of those properties people wear like t-shirts. Back to the Future. Star Wars. Anything Marvel. These usually annoy me based on their fans, who seem less discerning than bandwagonning. Most bandwagon properties admittedly have archetypal appeal that satisfies, catharsizes, and entertains. Solid plots, glossy characters, like t-shirts themselves. Campfire stories. But their fandom often resembles kids wearing Metallica gear who never even heard “Enter Sandman.” Hopelessly banal.
Most fan properties are good, great, or decent. However, I rewatched Ghostbusters, wasting away in my off-campus college apartment after senior year, and it was mediocre. Bridesmaids was funnier. Almost any corollary is better (name me anything—Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride [probably], Evil Dead [probably], Back to the Future, Game of Thrones—they’re better), but given mysteriously deep appeal, Ghostbusters is among the B-list of bandwagon works. Star Wars being A, The Princess Bride being C.
So yeah, I’m not a huge Ghostbusters fan. Rebooting the franchise, almost twice (more on that later), annoys me. But despite my distaste, this version has my full support. Female comedians conquering iconic territory, and despite the shallow nature of the gesture (it’s just a remake of Ghostbusters), these progressive gestures have impact. Given that even nonsexist people carry around sexist conditioning, it’s good to subconsciously break some of that away. It doesn’t matter if it’s disposable, or if Ghostbusters is worthy of the hype.
However, I think that Sony having planned an all-male film was a negative gesture, and while the positive gesture of this version remains powerful, the other one was rotten to its core. “If women can have Ghostbusters,” it implied, “then we’re gonna have another man version too. We’ve got to make an entire second reboot just to keep things balanced.”
I love that they made Melissa McCarthy’s Ghostbusters, though I probably won’t see it, because I don’t love the franchise and tend not to see mainstream comedies. But the other version was as crude and sexist a gesture as this is progressive and positive. Imagine if they awarded Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Actor again because women were represented by Best Actress. That’s exactly what the second reboot was. Luckily, that wouldn’t have affected the positive nature of the first, and moreover, it’s not going to happen.
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I was not a fan of the first two trailers, but I have to say the trailers that have played on TV for the past month or two have really changed my mind about this movie. Checking it out on Saturday, hoping it’s going to be awesome.