

…You really don’t remember the shitstorm surrounding the ‘98 Godzilla remake?? I mean, I don’t know if you’re old enough to have been around when it happened, but it was pretty severe–far worse than this, and all before Youtube. What made the entire affair rather ironic was the fact that–in Japan–they embraced the redesign as a gag character, which was eventually renamed to simply “Zilla”.

As I’ve also mentioned before, Harold Ramis passed away not all that long ago, so it feels incredibly disrespectful for them to have pushed the movie through. Having been half of the creative team behind the films, some people see the reboot as a desecration to his memory, the same way the “Psycho” remake was viewed as insulting to Hitchcock (plus, Ramis had also previously expressed no desire whatsoever to make another movie, so it feels more like Sony is just using the property as an easy cash grab with total disregard to its creators). Further insulting is the fact that the trailer got a key piece of information wrong: The original Ghostbusters were not “four scientists”. If anything, only one of them can truly be considered a scientist (a physicist to be precise), while the other three consisted of a parapsychologist, a psychologist, and an ex-Marine. Now, unlike this new incarnation, these characters were not stereotypes: They were actually interesting, loveable, and relatable. The cartoon spin-off added even more depth to each character.

Speaking of the cartoon, a lot of people are forgetting how much influence this franchise had on a lot of childhoods, and not just those of men. The movies were wildly popular with children, and the cartoon was one of the most successful animated series of all time (in fact, they changed the look of Slimer in the second film to more closely resemble his cartoon counterpart). People insisting on the “boy-centric” nature of the show seem to forget how many episodes were devoted entirely to Janine, and the fact that she also became an official Ghostbuster herself, and had her own action figures.

There is one large, looming factor that is being conveniently ignored with regards to the tone of this film: Back in the early 90’s, there was a major “Girl Power” movement in mass media, but mostly in merchandising: It was everywhere, and it was TACKY. There was a shallowness and insincerity to it that even my young mind found somewhat offensive to my intelligence. Everything had to have “Girl Power” plastered all over it (or the cringe-worthy alternate spelling of “Grrrl Power”), and it was more embarrassing than empowering. This reboot is selling itself SOLELY on gender. They are USING us. It is NOT a sincere effort to boost women and girls, and it shows: All four of the female characters are negative stereotypes of women. No one is the “heart” of the team; no one is the sly/lazy one with all the charms of a con-artist that will still charge in with proton pack blazing when needed. The reboot’s characters are hollow and cartoonish: The “big, loud, angry black woman”, the self-deprecating “fat girl”, the “butch/tomboy” one, and the generic “quirky/lolsorandom” one. Seriously–they’re all stereotypes that “feminists” constantly complain about. Those aren’t people–they’re poorly-written comic strip characters. Like, Winston may have been the only PoC in the original group, but he wasn’t a walking cliche–he was the average Joe that kept the team more down-to-earth.

The entire affair just comes off as insulting, especially to women. Every last thing about it is dumbed-down and diluted to be the most palatable, and thus profitable. Sony’s got one hand waving a pink, glittery flag while the other hand is picking our pockets. Instead of women receiving an original story and characterizations, they were like, “Let’s take a known money-making title with a built-in fan base, but let’s replace all the characters with women, and throw in a lot of 'female problems’ and 'Girl Power’ while watering it down enough to make it appeal to the self-conscious, easily-offended teenage girl demographic that’s dominating social media”.

That’s literally it. That’s your movie. “Here’s the Girl Happy Meal with the Girl toy. We gave it extra-pretty colors, and made it nice and safe, just for you”. Modern “feminists” made sure to emphasize how needy, delicate and insecure we women allegedly are, and they got exactly the movie they deserve: A piece of shit with glitter on it.