Discuss all things Ghostbusters here, unless they would be better suited in one of the few forums below.
#4883578
In a recent interview for Heatstreet, Feig said “I understand some people are mad it wasn’t a sequel. I more have a problem with the people that are mad because the cast are women. They gotta deal with that themselves.”

So I'm curious - Have any women within the community felt negatively affected as a result of the reboot? It seemed that most fans were much more concerned that the film had no apparent ties to the established universe, and that the problem of a female cast was secondary.

Source - http://heatst.com/entertainment/ghostbu ... le-reboot/
#4883580
GhostExterminator wrote:In a recent interview for Heatstreet, Feig said “I understand some people are mad it wasn’t a sequel. I more have a problem with the people that are mad because the cast are women. They gotta deal with that themselves.”

So I'm curious - Have any women within the community felt negatively affected as a result of the reboot? It seemed that most fans were much more concerned that the film had no apparent ties to the established universe, and that the problem of a female cast was secondary.

Source - http://heatst.com/entertainment/ghostbu ... le-reboot/
1. That website is garbage. Misrepresented what Feig said and can't even get the name of the GB creator right.

2. I did encounter a surprisingly number of people who bought into that "women aren't funny" narrative. That MRA stuff is poison and it cost me a friend of 20 years (not just for the women aren't funny thing, very long story). And I think it's hilarious that so many GB fans took up Milo as their hero after seeing the original cast was fine with the reboot. But I understand that there's also a ton of fans who have no problem with women.

3. I've been part of many fanbases whose franchises were made up of multi universes--stories with no apparent ties to the original established fanbase. Therefore, I can't understand the mentality that the original Ghostbusters is somehow "erased." That's made me feel more alienated than the gender stuff by far.
Last edited by JurorNo.2 on October 18th, 2016, 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#4883582
Over the years we have had female members of the forum/s who've chosen to move on to other pastures - and I can see why some may feel the forums are boys' clubs.

A number of years back a community member organised a calendar that while well-intentioned, it didn't do anything to dissolve the impression... and in some cases the reality that some of the male fans only saw their female counterparts in a particular and unconstructive light. There've also sadly been some people who've made their female counterparts uncomfortable through their interactions.

I like to believe we have improved somewhat, though there's still plenty of road left to travel.
#4883583
JurorNo.2 - Thanks for your response. The validity of that particular website wasn't much what I was concerned with. Feig has expressed numerous times that he was disappointed in the hate that seemed to be directed at the women in the film. There is no doubt that there was a large amount of hate directed at the women on the internet. My question was to discern if that was a genuine issue that existed within the actual fandom. It seemed to me that people within our community felt more alienated that the reboot didn't have a direct tie to the established universe, and that was often overshadowed by the hate directed at the actors. So when I read another quote from Feig being concerned about that, I wondered if this was a real issue that existed in the community or if it was a problem of internet trolls and bandwagon "fans" but not a part of what I would consider the genuine fandom.

Kingpin - Thank you for your two cents as well. As a mod, you've seen a lot more than I have on the forums.

The reboot brought up some interesting issues. Should we, as a community, try to do more to foster a more welcoming atmosphere for women?
Last edited by GhostExterminator on October 18th, 2016, 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#4883584
GhostExterminator wrote:My question was to discern if that was a genuine issue that existed within the actual fandom.
I mean, there are people who consider themselves part of the community, and there's people who are just fans of the movie. They're both fans, but we're talking two different things. In any case, I did think it was pretty hilarious that so many fans took up Milo as their new Ghostbuster hero when it was clear the original cast wasn't that upset about the reboot. If you have to go to someone so completely separate from the franchise you love for support, then perhaps you need to take a step back and rethink, lol.
#4883587
JurorNo.2 wrote:
GhostExterminator wrote:In a recent interview for Heatstreet, Feig said “I understand some people are mad it wasn’t a sequel. I more have a problem with the people that are mad because the cast are women. They gotta deal with that themselves.”

So I'm curious - Have any women within the community felt negatively affected as a result of the reboot? It seemed that most fans were much more concerned that the film had no apparent ties to the established universe, and that the problem of a female cast was secondary.

Source - http://heatst.com/entertainment/ghostbu ... le-reboot/
1. That website is garbage. Misrepresented what Feig said and can't even get the name of the GB creator right.

2. I did encounter a surprisingly number of people who bought into that "women aren't funny" narrative. That MRA stuff is poison and it cost me a friend of 20 years (not just for the women aren't funny thing, very long story). And I think it's hilarious that so many GB fans took up Milo as their hero after seeing the original cast was fine with the reboot. But I understand that there's also a ton of fans who have no problem with women.

3. I've been part of many fanbases whose franchises were made up of multi universes--stories with no apparent ties to the original established fanbase. Therefore, I can't understand the mentality that the original Ghostbusters is somehow "erased." That's made me feel more alienated than the gender stuff by far.
@ *referring to bold*

Yeah, I can't understand it, either. Nothing is really erased when the GB16 reboot was in theaters; GB84 is still with us as it has always been (even in the IDW comics).

What's left now is that, as Kingpin said, the franchise has plenty of room to grow and evolve in many different ways without being held back and it's a long road.
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#4883593
JurorNo.2 wrote: I mean, there are people who consider themselves part of the community, and there's people who are just fans of the movie. They're both fans, but we're talking two different things.
Agreed. In this particular case, I was speaking more about people who have a higher level of involvement than someone who just likes the movies like those of us here on the forum or may belong to a franchise and dress for cons.
#4883634
If you look on any number of franchises Facebook pages nearly every single team has female members. My team has 2, other teams have larger numbers. Women have always been part of this fandom and they didn't need an all female led version to do that. All the recent interviews with Feig display a moderate amount of ignorance on his part about why the original is so well regarded. But this "boys club" mentality is a forced narrative driven by Feig and Sony to rally women to get behind the reboot when if they actually took the time to research they'd have known that women have been busting reight along side men for years.
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#4883649
DarkSpectre wrote:Women have always been part of this fandom and they didn't need an all female led version to do that.
Doesn't mean they wouldn't appreciate it.
But this "boys club" mentality is a forced narrative driven by Feig and Sony
Maybe that would have been true a couple years ago. But with the GamerGate/MRA/alt right stuff, a lot of jerks have been hijacking fandoms lately. I mean look at this election year. Now, I know a few Trump supporters so I know not all of them are "deplorables." But Trump certainly brought those types out of the woodwork.
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#4883651
I don;t agree with you on well much, but I do agree with the Trump virus permeating everything. And not every women appreciates it. My wife didn't care for the film and Brandi our other member flat out refused to see it. But a great number do, well Holtzmann at least. Nobody seems to care much from a cosplay sense for any of the others.
#4883656
DarkSpectre wrote:I don;t agree with you on well much, but I do agree with the Trump virus permeating everything. And not every women appreciates it. My wife didn't care for the film and Brandi our other member flat out refused to see it. But a great number do, well Holtzmann at least. Nobody seems to care much from a cosplay sense for any of the others.
Oh I agree, women aren't a hive mind. My Dad actually enjoyed the movie more than my Mom did (though both agreed it didn't deserve such a negative reaction).
#4883658
Sav C wrote:I slightly suspect a lot of sexist hate (not the rational criticism) directed at the reboot was caused by Trump's negative comments on Twitter about the cast being gender-swapped.
I think most fans aren't the types to outright say "women aren't funny." But some do try to fudge it a bit by insisting that the movie has some kind of evil feminist agenda. To them, that counts as "rational criticism."
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#4883659
GhostExterminator wrote:Should we, as a community, try to do more to foster a more welcoming atmosphere for women?
I think we have to try, as the community is made up of a melting pot of personalities and identities, and we should aspire to have a place where all should feel welcome.
DarkSpectre wrote:If you look on any number of franchises Facebook pages nearly every single team has female members. My team has 2, other teams have larger numbers.
It would be interesting to know how many of the female franchise members are also members here. I've gotten the impression (although that could be a false one as there often isn't much on the profile data visible beside the posts) that the majority of the GBFans membership was male.

It'd be revealing to hear from those who are aware of the forum, but aren't on it, the particular reasons behind why they aren't posting here.
DarkSpectre wrote:But this "boys club" mentality is a forced narrative driven by Feig and Sony
It's existed in a form long before the reboot was even announced, the calendar I alluded to earlier was one example of the mentality some in the community had.
DarkSpectre wrote:Nobody seems to care much from a cosplay sense for any of the others.
My colleague Tara has costumed as Abby at a few events now, and plans to build her own reboot Pack soon. I'm also thinking about doing a genderbent Abby, as I neither have the hair colouring or figure for Holtzmann. :(
#4883722
I think the problem that many are pointing out is that the new movie didn't make the franchise more "inclusive" to females, it straight up replaced the guys instead. I was never against female characters, but when it was basically a PC based gender swap, I can kinda understand why some people had issues with it. Still, there was no need for the nastiness that some people projected towards the whole thing...
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#4883916
CPU64 wrote:I think the problem that many are pointing out is that the new movie didn't make the franchise more "inclusive" to females, it straight up replaced the guys instead. I was never against female characters, but when it was basically a PC based gender swap, I can kinda understand why some people had issues with it. Still, there was no need for the nastiness that some people projected towards the whole thing...
Thing is, the nastiness that did result kinda proves to me that we have a long way to go. It's one to say "Eh, political correctness is annoying." I can agree with that, lol. It's quite another to go on a "My childhood has been erased by the evil feminist agenda!" rampage for months on end. Again, just like this election year, there was so little middle ground to be found.

And I want to be fair and say it wasn't only guys. There were also girl fans who were wary of a "feminist agenda." There's just not that many of them (most women don't care one way or the other), so they don't really create a pattern. They're outliers.
#4884035
Back last July at Comic Con I was speaking to a Ghostbuster fan at their UK stall. I hadn't seen the film yet and asked what he thought of it. He said he didn't like it. I said I didn't like the way that fans who aren't for the reboot were being labelled as misogynistic by the media. As I was saying that one female Ghostbuster fan overheard a couple of words I said, not the full conversation and immediately interrupted us defending not only the movie but complaining in my face about the backlash due to misogynistic fans as though it was entirely my fault. She basically overheard just a couple of words and that triggered her without hearing everything I said. I did feel intimidated, never thought I'd feel intimidated by the fanbase I most support. Felt a little disappointed in that person to be honest. But then some friend of theirs came over and they completely forgot I was there so I moved on... :-|
#4884061
Most geek culture has traditionally been very inclusive of women, and has been from the beginning. Going all the way back to the original series of Star Trek which has always had a very prominent female fan base. Female fans like Bjo Trimble and Devra Langsam were basically the pioneers of modern fandom. Female inclusion is something that has persisted in most geek fandoms, far more than other interest groups. You see it at the conventions, all the women dressed up as Star Wars, Ghostbusters, superhero, LoTR etc. characters. The whole idea that fans are misogynist, women haters that the studio and cast of this film alongside the media were trying to push has never been true. Thats what trolls are.

Likewise the idea the media was trying to sell that this film was some kind of brave step forward for the way women are portrayed in film and that they were being hated for it by men, what a load of nonsense. Male audiences has always supported strong, non-sexualised female characters. The same general audience for the original GB is the same audience that loved Ripley, Sarah Conner, the Bride, Rey, Furiosa etc. The same people who will be flocking to Rogue One. Meanwhile it is female audiences who are making the likes of Twilight and Shades of Gray which could not portray women in a worse light huge box office hits.
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#4884109
It's not an either/or situation. Yes, there have always been female Trekkies. And they have been there to cheer for Nichelle Nicholas when she rightly pointed out, "Television doesn't know how to use women. We're just fill ins."
Male audiences has always supported strong, non-sexualised female characters....Ripley, Sarah Conner, the Bride, Rey, Furiosa etc. The same people who will be flocking to Rogue One
Are you really going to say with a straight face that those characters weren't sexualized? And btw, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Just saying that is what male geeks tend to prefer. Plus all those characters followed the cliche of female action heroes, that of the super serious ass kicker (basically they were all trying to be the next Ripley ;)). As long as female characters follow those tropes, male geeks won't complain much.

In contrast, the GB16 ladies wear outfits not designed to flatter their figures; they have goofy senses of humor (rankling Hitchens groupies everywhere); and they are far from being ninjas. GB16 challenged a lot of traditional tropes, and I do think parts of geek culture had trouble adjusting to this.
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#4884114
Are you really going to say with a straight face that those characters weren't sexualized?
How on earth were they sexualized? Their femininity was all downplayed, none of them wore outfits or makeup or hairstyles meant to make them "sexy", they were meant to look tough. None of them were there to be romantic interests to male stars
Plus all those characters followed the cliche of female action heroes, that of the super serious ass kicker. As
Also the cliche of 99% of male action heroes.
In contrast, the GB16 ladies wear outfits not designed to flatter their figures; they have goofy senses of humor (rankling Hitchens groupies everywhere); and they are far from being ninjas. GB16 challenged a lot of traditional tropes, and I do think parts of geek culture had trouble adjusting to this.
How many male action heroes arent buff and wearing tight clothes to flatter their physiques?

If Ghostbusters had been something more than what it was, something that actually appealed to the wider audience and broke down genre barriers while starring women who looked like McCarthy etc, maybe than it would have been challenging traditional tropes. But it was a fairly standard Feig/McCarthy type comedy, and those types of films always star unattractive comedians, both sexes, it was nothing new. You need to look to a movie like Gravity or Edge of Tomorrow to really see those barriers being broken.
#4884124
Commander_Jim wrote:But it was a fairly standard Feig/McCarthy type comedy, and those types of films always star unattractive comedians, both sexes, it was nothing new. You need to look to a movie like Gravity or Edge of Tomorrow to really see those barriers being broken.
Again, the opposite of sexualized is not "unattractive."

And btw, it may seem "fairly standard" now that McCarthy has had a few films, but women heading up broad comedy isn't especially standard in movies at all. Lucille Ball started it on TV (imitating male comedians) but very few have taken up the mantle on film until McCarthy & Co. This was even brought up in an interview Aykroyd did on SiriusXM: http://theinterrobang.com/dan-aykroyd-g ... ady-works/

I don't think Gravity broke any barriers personally. That character was far too easily freaked out and emotional to ever be allowed in space. I've seen footage of female astronauts, they do not behave that way (Interstellar had the same issue). Edge of Tomorrow was the usual super serious kickass cliche.
Last edited by JurorNo.2 on October 23rd, 2016, 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#4884126
You put the asterisk inside the URL tags, now the link goes to a 404 page.

Gravity wasn't my type of movie, Oscar winners rarely are.

Cool interview. I was thinking we might get a Ghostbusters III like the new sequel to the first Batman series--Return of the Caped Crusaders. I haven't seen it yet, but it has to be fifty years since the live action movie, right?

Edit: Just googled it, and wow, an exact fifty years since the first film in the series. That's a long time to wait for a sequel!
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#4884128
Sav C wrote:You put the asterisk inside the URL tags, now the link goes to a 404 page.

Gravity wasn't my type of movie, Oscar winners rarely are.

Cool interview.
Thanks for pointing that out! :cool:
Cool interview.
Yeah I just like the way he says "I'm all for female empowerment" and then looks off screen like, "Yes, yes, I'm saying it," lol. Like I said, a sense of humor goes a long way when tensions are high. :)

Wow, 50 years, well anything truly is possible then!
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#4884130
JurorNo.2 wrote:Yeah I just like the way he says "I'm all for female empowerment" and then looks off screen like, "Yes, yes, I'm saying it," lol. Like I said, a sense of humor goes a long way when tensions are high. :)
It sure does!
Wow, 50 years, well anything truly is possible then!
Definitely, not to mention all of the remakes and reboots and stuff that Batman's had since then. We could get tons of new Ghostbusters stuff, even new series, and then get Ghostbusters III (or is the video game three and the next movie four?) on top of that.

Ghostbusters IV
Guess Who's Coming to Save the World Again?
This Summer, 2034
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#4884176
Commander_Jim wrote:How on earth were they sexualized?
Well, it's not a blatant form of sexualisation like some instances, but when Ripley starts off on the Sulaco, she's dressed in a full jumpsuit with leather coat, by the time she fights the Queen (and I'll allow some leeway for it being a hot and humid environment), she's ditched the top half of the jumpsuit, leather coat, given a massive gun and wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt. It's pretty tame by today's standards, but it could be argued she's intended to be far more sexy/badass by the end of the film than near the start - and then there's the scene with her and the others emerging from the cryosleep tubes.

With Sarah, it was mostly in Terminator 2 - giving her tank tops for most of her wardrobe. Again, this can also be equally attributed to the "make her look badass" aspect as well.

Similar arguments could be made for The Bride, Rey and Furiosa.
Commander_Jim wrote:None of them were there to be romantic interests to male stars.
Except Ripley sorta was to Hicks by the end of Aliens, and Sarah Connor was to Kyle Reese (hey, a Micheal Biehn double!)
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#4884182
I don't think you guys really get the issue. It's not about making women look ugly or wearing clothes that don't look good (who wants to see people of either sex looking unattractive in movies?). We don't need to have actresses wearing burkas before we can be all PC and say they pass the test. It's about not making their sexuality the reason for their characters. Ripley was in the original script as a man, how can that character be a sexualised one? Because there's a scene with Ripley in her underwear that was totally appropriate and non-titillating? Sarah Connor was sexualised because she wore a tank top, which would be totally appropriate to what her character would wear? Wow, going by these standards, poor Arnold. The guy appeared nude in T2, then in a skin tight T shirt for the rest of the film and frequently showed off his biceps.

All those characters I mentioned passed the "bechdel test" that Paul Feig and feminists love btw.
Except Ripley sorta was to Hicks by the end of Aliens, and Sarah Connor was to Kyle Reese (hey, a Micheal Biehn double!)
More like Hicks was just there to be Ripley's love interest, not the other way around as it usually is. And when people talk about Sarah Connor being a feminist icon they're talking about T2. But even then the argument could be made that Sarah is the main character in The Terminator and Reese is the love interest.
#4884203
Commander_Jim wrote:I don't think you guys really get the issue. It's not about making women look ugly or wearing clothes that don't look good (who wants to see people of either sex looking unattractive in movies?). We don't need to have actresses wearing burkas before we can be all PC and say they pass the test.
Um, no one brought up burkas, and once again no one said "unattractive." You are the only one saying these things. Perhaps you're the one not getting it.
Because there's a scene with Ripley in her underwear that was totally appropriate and non-titillating?
Non-titillating? Um...somewhere some Hollywood exec is extremely disappointed, lol. Come on, look at the underwear the guys are wearing in Alien and then look at Ripley's. It's not even a question. And once again, I didn't say that was a bad thing. What I said was, it's what male geeks tend to expect to see from their female action heroes.

Not to mention it's bizarre we're even talking about action movies. Ghostbusters is a comedy. But I know you tend to say it wasn't "just a comedy" as though comedy is somehow a put down.
#4884205
Ok well you'll have to explain to me your definition of a female character who isnt sexualized, because the examples you guys are giving me of why Ripley, Sarah Connor, Furiosa, Rey etc (characters who've all been lauded by feminists btw) seem to be that they are wearing clothes that make them look good as well as other standard action hero tropes that apply equally to men (how many Arnie or Stallone movies dont have them down to a sweaty t shirt or tank top, if they even have a top, by the end?).

Like I said earlier, I was impressed with Gravity because Sandra Bullock's character in that wasnt remotely female centric and that role could just as easily have been played by a male actor, and the studio in fact wanted the director to recast it with a male actor. That to me is breaking down barriers. I really dont see what Ghostbusters did that was so groundbreaking.
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