Movie Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

Synopsis:  Erin is up for tenure at Columbia, when her old bestie Abby republishes their book on ghosts, much to her embarrassment.  Abby is a particle physicist working in a fly by night college with Dr. Holtzmann.  They end up at a haunted house, see that ghosts are real, and band together.

Meanwhile, Patty, the street-wise subway toll booth operator runs into a ghost and decides to join them, as well.

Turns out a guy is tired of the world and wants to bring about an apocalypse and has used their book to devise a way to break the veil and bring ghosts to NYC.  So it’s a battle of the female physicists against the disenfranchised male to save NYC.

The Good:  It was fun!  Blast-em up kind of fun.  There was slime, and thing exploded, and stupid jokes, and I definitely laughed.  I also cried.

The crying caught me off guard.  I didn’t realize the impact of having women, and women who looked closer to me, doing save the world type stuff.  The women bodies were varied, like men can be in buddy films, and not all ripped.  The first time I started to tear up was when all four were in their suits and they had Ecto-1 and it just made me happy.  The second time was when Holtzmann took out two guns and did the superhero spin, roll, and shoot killing all the baddies around her.  Oh man was that good.

Then there was Chris Hemsworth as Kevin and he was hilarious.  So much stupid fun with his one liners around the joint.  More on him later.

There were great lines in here as well acknowledging that yes, these are women.  It wasn’t a movie where roles for men were played by women.  In one scene, the disenfranchised male asks if they understand what it’s like to be so smart and work so hard and not get any credit- the women in the audience chuckled.  Abby did the, ‘well, d’uh- yeah.’ because it’s an everyday for women.  You can be smarter, faster, and have more experience and it won’t matter.  The fact that women get hired on experience and men on potential is, well, a fact.  Particularly in the STEM fields.

The Bad:  I have heard people complain that Kevin was just TOO dumb.  I mean, he covered his eyes when things were too loud.  He didn’t understand telephones.  While the girls were saving the world he was at a deli ordering a sandwich.  Everyone comments on how pretty he is but he’s dumber than a post.  “The women in men’s films are never that stupid,” I’ve seen said.  Well, here’s the thing, I don’t think his character is to make fun of the dumb blonde trope, although I can see how people would see that.  I think it’s more to make fun of how blind men are to when women say they aren’t being given equal pay, when they complain about how everything costs more as a woman, from haircuts and clothes to the taxing of maxi pads as non-necessary items.  The blindness when women say they don’t feel comfortable walking home at night.  I think the ignorance of Kevin was a collective ignorance of the female experience in a male body, to the point that when a woman complains men cover their eyes to not hear.

Then I hear complaints about Leslie Jones- the one black character having to be the street smart one.  I do wish, since this was a revamp/retelling and not a sequel that they made her a scientist as well.  I am tired of the street smart *insert ethnicity here* trope, and Leslie is a lot of fun and could have done a scientist role just as easily.  Hell, she could have been a subway engineer and brought that knowledge to the team just as well.

Some of the homages were a bit much.  Billy Murray was in it, as was Ernie Hudson and Dan Ackroyd.  Ackroyd’s felt the most forced, with the line, “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” telegraphed like a preschooler telling you the same joke for the tenth time.

Making fun of academia and Columbia was the biggest irk.  It gets tiresome to see the big schools as snobby and old fashioned, even if there needs to be some change in the ivory towers (major change).  It’s a cheap laugh and trope.

The Female:  This might be the first movie I’ve reviewed that passes the Bechdel test (two women talk to each other, and not about a man).  They talk about their jobs, and childhood, and friendships, and ghosts.  Yes, they talk about Kevin as well, but it’s more the other things that make up the movie.  There are four women in charge of the film, then the Mayor’s secretary – who we see is really running the show (The Mayor is basically another ‘Kevin,’ just not as pretty).  The women have careers, degrees, and agency.  They know how to fight and explore and have a lot of fun.  They are all pretty amazing.

There was a lot of gruff about an all female Ghostbusters, some of which made it into the film in sly commentary.  Here’s the thing, Ghostbusters is a fairy tale- and those are re envisioned all the time.  From Fractured Fairytales to a slew of anthologies about rewriting fairy tales, it’s part of our nature to rewrite these essential elements of story and allow ourselves room within them.  To take an exclusionary tale, but one central to our past and identity, and include in it an updating to allow those of us usually on the outside a way to be represented and have agency.  That’s why we have feminist fairy tales, and stories of Snow White as the vampire, and the thousands of variations – so we can stop having to identify with white men and identify as who we are, whatever that may be.  And in this case the new telling of the tale allows women and women of color to be part of the tale.  We get to have a connection to popular culture where we are heroes.

Overall:  It was great fun.  There were laughs to be had.  This is not arthouse deep cinema, but it’s also not dark brooding explosions with growling voices.  There’s lightness in tone and story and a lot of slime.  Oh, and a queef joke.


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