I have never seen the original Ghostbusters.
This was not a conscious decision on my part. I have nothing against busting ghosts in general, and I am deeply fond of Dan Aykroyd, partly because he played Veda’s dad in My Girl and partly because he was goth enough to invent Crystal Head Vodka. I just never watched the film as a child, as my parents chose instead to show me Spielberg films and Oprah specials about family tragedies. (I have also never seen Back to the Future, Gremlins, Die Hard, Top Gun, or any of the Terminator films.) I have no personal connection to the Ghostbuster franchise, aside from catching the odd episode of the cartoon.
Nevertheless, when I heard about the reboot, I knew I was going to go see it, simply because it made Men On The Internet so violently, instantly angry.
Ever since this film was first announced, Men On The Internet have been stamping their tiny baby feet about it. Because, you see, the original Ghostbusters were all dudes! But these ones are ladies and not dudes at all! Which means (stamp) that Men On The Internet’s precious collective childhood memories have been ruined (stamp stamp) because ladies are all of a sudden in a thing (stamp stamp stamp ad infinitum)! In some instances, the stamping has been harmless background noise; in others it has come in the form of a stream of racist and misogynistic harassment intense enough to drive star Leslie Jones off of Twitter. One Man On The Internet apparently sent her a photograph of a black woman being shot in the head.
What a good and proportionate response to someone making a movie you don’t want to see.
So, in spite of my lack of emotional attachment to the original, I wanted to personally give some of my money to this movie. I didn’t know if I would like it. I didn’t even particularly care if I would like it. I wanted to help it succeed. I wanted Men On The Internet to be MORE UPSET.
The premise of the film is this: Physics professor Erin (Kristen Wiig) and general ghost wrangler Abby (Melissa McCarthy) are two former friends who once wrote a book about the paranormal, which resurfaces at a crucial moment in Erin’s career. Erin is initially embarrassed by her past as a spook enthusiast, but quickly gets drawn back into the strange world she left behind years ago because let’s face it, ghosts are awesome and physics is boring. They team up with eccentric engineer Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) and history buff Patty (Leslie Jones) and dedicate their lives to bustin’ ghosts, blowing shit up, and eating way too much takeout. As it happens, their timing is excellent, because a classic Creepy White Man (Neil Casey) has used Erin and Abby’s old book to concoct an equally classic ghost-related take-over-the-world-style scheme.
The Ghostbusters also hire a receptionist named Kevin (Chris Hemsworth). Kevin is extremely stupid and extremely attractive and not very good at being a receptionist. That is all that is really going on with Kevin.
In some ways I feel as though my actual opinion on this film is kind of irrelevant. Just going to see it and paying for a ticket is enough of a statement on where I stand—I have declared that I think it has a right to exist, and that, more broadly, I think all-female casts are a thing that should continue to happen. Whether or not I enjoyed it is almost moot.
However, I did enjoy it! Because I went in without seeing the original, I didn’t have anything specific to compare it to. I knew it was a comedy, and I like those. I knew it was (sort of) a horror movie, and I like those too. I knew it was a summer movie and that a lot of big names from SNL were attached to the project. With all those things in mind, I knew exactly what I was going to get: a fun, flawed, silly movie about unlikely friends and even unlikelier metaphysics.
What I did not expect was to be so goddamn delighted by so many of the performances. Melissa McCarthy was a particular surprise—I’ve seen her in other things, but a lot of her roles tend to veer into “gross lady does gross things” territory, which gets depressing. In this role, no jokes are made at her expense, and you can tell McCarthy is relishing it. Kate McKinnon is equally great as the weird and brilliant Holtzmann, a woman of singular interests who holds eye contact for way too long and builds nuclear reactors for fun. Leslie Jones imbues Patty with warmth and self-assurance, and her extensive knowledge of New York’s history makes for a nice parallel with Erin and Holtzmann—they’re all obsessed with something, and they all use their obsessions to fuel their work. And Chris Hemsworth’s dopey Kevin is one of the best parts of the film. Anyone who can sell a line like “an aquarium is a submarine for fish” and straight-facedly say that he has a dog named Michael Hat is a comedic genius.
There were, of course, things that I disliked about Ghostbusters, just as there are things I dislike about all silly summer movies. A lot of scenes were just a smidgen too short or too long, with very abrupt and awkward transitions. There were too many musical cues, to the point where the OH-NO-THINGS-ARE-HAPPENING score trod on the toes of some decent lines. Kristen Wiig’s performance seemed slightly off, and her friendship with Melissa McCarthy wasn’t really fleshed out enough to earn their emotional moment together towards the end of the film. We could have done with a lot more of Leslie Jones’ character. There was an Ozzy Osbourne cameo that made no sense and was neither relevant nor funny. The guy who played Gabe from The Office was in the opening scene, which was not a negative per se but did mean that the line “no one is a bigger fan of sexual touching than me” was running through my head while I watched him be thrown around by an angry ghost.
However. I went to see a major mainstream film about people fighting ghosts that had four female leads. None of the women fought over a man. None of them were sexualized. None of them were relegated to irrelevant love interests. None of them were incompetent. They all wore shapeless jumpsuits and ate pizza and talked and worked and laughed together. They were all friends. They all liked each other. It’s hard to fully convey what a big deal that is—and of course it shouldn’t be, because it’s 2016, but it is, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that and take it into consideration when assessing this film. It is rare that I ever see a movie where two women are competent badasses who get along and talk to one another, let alone four. In the end, that is what makes this movie important—little girls are going to watch it and see themselves onscreen. Whatever its flaws, whatever its missteps, that is an incredible gift, one that Men On The Internet will never quite understand.
Before we walked into the theatre, my little sister turned to me and said, “This is gonna be the best movie of all time.” And even though it wasn’t really, it also was, because it gave me the chance to see something I’ve never seen before, something I didn’t even know I needed to see until it was right in front of me.
Also: I know the Internet has already beaten this dead horse to a new and more permanent death, but Kate McKinnon is un-fucking-believably attractive and every time she came onscreen I was basically reduced to a quivering jelly of lust. At one point in the film she slammed her hand down onto a map of New York and I exploded into a thousand fragments of my former self. I walked out of this movie gayer than I was when I walked in, and I was already EXCESSIVELY GAY. And any film that has that kind of effect has got to be worth something.
The Mimsy 