Age of the Geek

By: 
Travis Fischer

Crossing The Streams
     Who would have thought that the battle of the sexes would be fought out in Ghostbusters?
     Rumors of an all-female Ghostbusters movie started circulating last year when Paul Feig (director of “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat”) was brought on for the latest attempt at a reboot. This speculation was confirmed in January when it was announced that Feig’s cast would feature Melissa McCarthy, a no brainer considering she’s been in his last three movies, and “Saturday Night Live” stars Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon.
     Being honest, I can’t say I don’t have reservations about the cast. The original movies relied largely on subtle and low key humor. Those are not words one would use to describe Fieg and McCarthy’s other collaborations.
     Still, I’ll give them a shot.
     After all, at least it’s fitting that the cast selected to follow in the footsteps of Dan Aykoryd and Bill Murray would consist mostly of “Saturday Night Live” players.
     Personally, my biggest disappointment with the cast is that Gillian Anderson and Emma Stone should have gotten leading roles, but I suppose that could be said for most movies.
     However, not everybody felt the same way.
     “Women aren’t funny!” “The feminists are at it again!” “Now they’re making Ghostbusters with only women! What’s going on!” “Burning all my Ghostbusters memorabilia, because this movie will destroy the first two.”
     These are all things said by actual people on the Internet. Most of them from anonymous commentators, but one is from Donald Trump, just to give you a sense of how off the rails they are.
     And of course, on the other side of the debate were the “reasonable” people.
     “It’s not like they’re erasing the original movies!” “You can always watch the older one.” “We’ve had one with all guys, why not have one with all girls?”
     And those “reasonable” people held on to those points right up until last week when Sony announced the creation of Ghostcorps, a production company dedicated to the maximum exploitation of the Ghostbusters franchise.
     Their first order of business: announcing that the Russo Brothers (who directed “Captain America: Winter Soldier”) and Channing Tatum will make a male-led “Ghostbusters” movie to follow the female-led Paul Feig film.
     Suddenly the idea of a movie focused on one gender didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore.
     “This news is pretty much the worst ever.” “I wish Channing Tatum would just go away.” “All this is doing is making me hate Ghostbusters.”
     Again, these are all things said by actual people on the Internet who, two months ago, probably had no idea how hypocritical they actually were. (And, to be honest, probably still aren’t aware of it.)
     For months these people dismissed the idea that the existence of an all-female Ghostbusters movie would somehow diminish the original movies, and yet as soon as the next film was announced they turned around and started exhibiting the exact same behavior.
     This has become an increasingly public issue with what I understand is called “Third-wave feminism,” which seems to be less about striving for equality and more about scoring social justice points on the Internet and maintaining a sense of perpetual outrage.
     Two phrases come to mind. “Haters gonna hate” and “Two sides of the same coin.”
     So now everybody is angry.
     If I wanted to be cynical, I’d say this was probably the plan all along. After all, making one group of people mad is good exposure, but making two opposing groups mad is the gift that keeps on giving.
     It’s already working. After all, here I am writing about it. This controversy will feed itself and the outrage will likely carry Sony all the way to the bank.
     My biggest hope is that this argument somehow stays out of the actual films.
     It would be a pleasant surprise if Paul Feig’s movie ends up being about a team of Ghostbusters that happens to all be women and the Channing Tatum movie ends up being about a team of Ghostbusters that happens to be all men.
     And even when they team up for the inevitable crossover, I hope they leave the gender politics out of it. Not only because it would be the last thing anybody would expect, but to really hammer home the point that it really doesn’t matter who is carrying the proton pack as long as they are funny.
     Ultimately, the two sides of this controversy aren’t split between the “feminists” and the “misogynists.” Both of them fall into the same category of “people who will never be satisfied,” which is contrasted with its own opposing group of “people who are just happy to see more Ghostbusters.”
     Count me in the latter group.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and equal opportunity about who he's gonna call.

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