The last time I saw the original Ghostbusters, I was sitting in front of Lin-Manuel Miranda and his nephews at a restored art deco theatre in Washington Heights. I wore a ball gown, there were cosplayers in the front row, and Christopher Jackson sang the theme song onstage before the movie began, explaining that this was the kind of thing he got roped into when certain people were procrastinating on finishing certain Broadway shows. From basement childhood viewings to fancy theater screenings as an adult, all of my experiences with Ghostbusters have been positive; I came to the 2016 Ghostbusters trailer not as a superfan, but as someone who’s enjoyed the first two movies every time I’ve watched them. Products of ’80s Hollywood, they do have their flaws, but those flaws are nothing that couldn’t have been improved upon in the new release — especially one that already seemed to buck traditional sci-fi (and comedy) tropes by casting four female Ghostbusters.
Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters stars Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. So much of Ghostbusters 2016’s attention has been focused on its all-female cast, still seen as notable for a science fiction romp. It comes at a time when we hear questions like “Why don’t Captain Marvel or Black Widow have their own movies?” and “When are we getting a Wonder Woman film?” Fans have clamored for shows like Agent Carter and Supergirl to be renewed. Have you heard about how feminist Mad Max is? Sign onto Tumblr, and I’m sure someone will tell you all about it.The Ghostbusters trailer that debuted last week was notable for featuring almost no male dialogue, paying homage to the original with a cameo from Slimer, and — in the Year of Our Lord 2016 — featuring yet another loud, attitude-ridden Black woman character who I now have to hope and pray turns out to be so much more in the actual film.
The number of genre shows, books, and movies starring Black women and other women of color I have enjoyed in my lifetime is so low compared to the swath of tales I’ve consumed that center white female heroes. For every Cassie from Animorphs, there’s a Xena, a Buffy, an Agent Scully, a whole passel of Charmed Ones. The calls for more female representation in science-fiction and fantasy media always seem to benefit one very particular type of woman. My confusion is swift and fierce when I hear complaints about the lack of a Black Widow film — sure, there might not be a Black Widow flick yet, but Scarlett Johansson got to star in Lucy. Hollywood allows someone like Marion Cotillard to snag a big-screen role like Talia al Ghul (The Dark Knight Rises), which could have gone to a Middle Eastern actress. Wonder Woman might not have her own movie yet, but she’s getting one — and unlike the Japanese heroine Katana, who appears in Suicide Squad, at least Wonder Woman got to speak in her trailer. Meanwhile, I can only think of one American sci-fi show starring an Asian American woman in the lead and/or title role that I’ve personally enjoyed to the point of binging (if you haven’t watched Nikita, please do), and Gina Torres spent the early part of her career pulling double duty for the Black and Latina girls in sci-fi.
The calls for more female representation in science fiction and fantasy media always seem to benefit one very particular type of woman.
Counting on blockbuster Hollywood and sci-fi franchises to provide characters of depth for Black women — for any women of color, really — has often led to disappointment. I’ve watched and read a lot of subpar science-fiction and fantasy during my lifetime for no reason other than the fact it did center a Black girl or woman. While those Scholastic Animorphs books don’t exactly hold up to adult eyes, the series was one of the very few sci-fi series aimed at children that gave a Black girl equal time to her white (and Latino!) co-stars. The same goes for Cleopatra 2525 — a horrible syndicated science-fiction show of my childhood about a boob job gone wrong that leads to a dystopian future — which I watched, because it starred Gina Torres. The lack of selection often makes me feel like I have to find something positive in everything with a Black female lead — along with watching or purchasing it, tweeting about it, and hoping “the market” takes notice — and I’ll find myself feeling guilty if I don’t enjoy it or can’t find something good to say about it.
But for me, there was not a single positive note to be found in the 2016 Ghostbusters trailer when it came to Leslie Jones’ character, Patty. While some might have found the line “you guys are really smart about this science stuff, but I know New York!” to be the most offensive part, I somehow powered through until around the 2-minute-and-10-second mark, when Patty actually says “Aw hell naw!” I knew then that this was probably not going to be the movie for me. Maybe on paper that line doesn’t have the same effect, but when yelled by a wide-eyed Jones while she sits on top of a possessed Melissa McCarthy, I found it to be viscerally jarring. Patty is loud (the loudest of all the women featured in the trailer), she’s got an attitude (dare we call it “sassy”?), and yes, she’s a Black woman: it’s the complete stereotype triumvirate.
It’s not that I haven’t known any loud Black women in my day; I’ve known several — as well as many loud white, Asian, and Latina women, as I’m sure we all have. And while I place most of the blame on screenwriters Paul Feig and Katie Dippold, I’m also well aware that this type of role is Jones’ “thing.” Her persona on SNL aligns fairly closely with what we’re presented with in the Ghostbusters trailer; her “Weekend Update” debut, a monologue about her potential prospects for love and sex in “slave days,” was its own controversy: at the time, Jamilah Lemieux referred to Jones as an “embarrassment,” and Elon James White called the sketch “irresponsible.”
Did The Daily Beast know something we didn’t when they originally used this picture in their January 2015 article about the new Ghostbusters cast? They updated quickly after social media descended, but in retrospect their first choice seems somewhat predictive. That befuddled stare, juxtaposed next to three smiling white women, reflects the trailer Sony just gave us — and inspires the same discomfort I felt when Jones slapped McCarthy across the face in the trailer. Even if this is Jones’ usual schtick, there is no reason it had to follow her to Ghostbusters; Melissa McCarthy’s usual film persona didn’t.
I can’t speak for all Black women, but given how few opportunities we get to appear in genre media overall, I’m not yet ready for this character to be yet another stereotype. There’s certainly nothing wrong with being a “regular person,” as Jones described her character when responding to the furor on social media — and I say this as a “regular person” living a very satisfying life despite not taking math after the tenth grade (really). I wasn’t prepared for the lack of STEM background in Jones’ character to bother me. But combined with the affectations she seems to adopt for the role based on the trailer, it does matter. Not only is her character playing up a stereotype, she appears to play second fiddle to three women who are highly educated scientists. There’s nothing about Jones’ character that indicates she’s not educated or not capable, but unlike the other three, we’re not given the automatic assurance that she is, either. While “knowing New York” is a skill of sorts, I guess, it reeks of making Jones no more than the “streetsmart best friend,” a role too many Black actresses have been shoehorned into over the years.
It’s easy to want to hope that there’s more to Patty; perhaps there’s some sort of twist to the plot that we’re not yet privy to. But Hollywood’s history with Black women doesn’t give me much faith in that outcome, and I don’t love the idea that Patty being a scientist, like the other three, would have to be some sort of “surprise” plot twist. A Black women scientist shouldn’t be so surprising that it can still be considered a twist. A Black woman scientist should be considered, in Leslie Jones’ words, “a regular person.” Why aren’t we seeing that at the movies?
The idea of Patty being employed by the MTA is not the problem here — I hope the MTA worker who reached out to Leslie Jones knows this. The visceral reaction I and others had to the trailer was the way it the compared and othered Leslie Jones, setting her apart from co-stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon. The trailer reflected an acceptance of and satisfaction with the reality that Black people hold only 7% of STEM undergrad degrees, and only 2% of PhDs. It mirrored back “a complex equation of self-doubt, stereotypes, discouragement and economics” that, according to one report, keep us from STEM fields. A Black woman being given a shot in a property like Ghostbusters is such a rare thing that, as with Cleopatra 2525 in childhood, I came to this 2-minute-and-30-second trailer with my loins girded, determined to like it. But after all was said and done — after I’d taken in the stereotypes, felt discouraged by what I saw of Patty’s character, and had once again begun to doubt whether a woman like me has a place in any mainstream science fiction medium — I realized that I would likely be skipping Ghostbusters.
Often the diversity we get does not turn out to be the diversity we want, especially in the hands of white Hollywood screenwriters.
I started teaching myself Latin after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban came out, thinking that it would make for more accurate spells in the fanfiction I wrote centering my own invented Black characters. Latin joined an obsession with mythology, a strangely specific knowledge of red-tailed hawk anatomy, and other oddly specific subjects I dove into because of my love of various fantasy and sci-fi franchises, all the while having to do my own scaffolding and world-building so that I could include myself and my point of view in these mostly white worlds. Imaginative and prone to writing as I was, I didn’t mind doing that extra work, but not every kid has the time or desire to do it — nor should they have to. A child who loves ghost stories should be able to go to the movies and see a Black woman using science to fight them right alongside three white women doing the same thing.
I still can’t decide if Patty’s othered status in the Ghostbusters trailer is better than her not being there at all. Often the diversity we get does not turn out to be the diversity we want, especially in the hands of white Hollywood screenwriters. Had Jones’ character been filled by another white comedian, I would have shrugged my shoulders, said “Hollywood gon’ Hollywood,” and moved along. I wouldn’t have had to watch that trailer and feel such extreme disappointment upon realizing that I couldn’t even force myself to be okay with this. The portrayal of Patty in it points to yet another missed opportunity for equal representation in Hollywood; worse, it adds to a long history of characters based in stereotype that Black girls have to overcome, and makes me worry for the future of science-fiction and fantasy in film and television. We’re getting a new Star Trek show soon, and I need Hollywood to be as ready for Captain Angela Bassett of the U.S.S. Reliant as I am. Patty’s existence makes me wonder if we’ll ever get there.
Read what Ernie Hudson had to say about the difference between the original Winston Zeddimore character and what made it on film. Pretty sad. http://www.ew.com/article/2014/11/05/ghostbusters…
Oh wow. That does answer a lot of questions I had about Winston’s character, though – ever since I was a kid, I noticed that his character was just kind of… there… and I was confused about that.
Thanks for that link. I’d heard this story about the original character, but hadn’t actually read the source of it.
Yeah, Winston was originally written (in the first script version of “Ghostbusters”) to be the one with all the technical/scientific knowledge. Multiple PhDs, super skilled in science, etc. Wasn’t he also supposed to be an experienced fighter in the Navy SEALs or Marines or something, too? I can’t remember off the top of my head. Basically, Winston was the central badass of the original script, but all his badassery was taken away and given to the white characters instead, and he was left with the wide-eyed AW SHUCKS sidekick role.
Boo. Fucking BOO, Hollywood, and not in the ghost sense.
So with Jones’ character, I find myself deeply annoyed on two different levels. She is clearly meant to be the analog of Winston, but why didn’t they assign one of the white actresses the AW SHUCKS sidekick role? Even with all his knowledge and physical prowess stripped away, was the most important thing about Winston really that he was Black? Was the color of his skin the only thing the casting director wanted to impart in the 2016 iteration?
Also, why the fuck not bring back the original intent of Winston’s character and give Jones at least some of the science know-how and physical badassery? (I mean, she does bitch-slap a possession of of Melissa McCarthy, but I don’t think that counts, given the context.) Why not make her a sleek, daring, level-headed special ops fighter who has the guts to face down supernatural threats, thanks to what she’s faced in the natural world? Or something?!
Uuugh.
I’m also hoping there’s greater depth to her character than was shown in the trailer, but knowing Hollywood, I’m not holding out a whole lot of that hope.
You do know the whole Winston story right? They didn’t change the character because the actor was black they changed the role because the actor was not Eddie Murphy.
As a white male I think the comedy and diversity would have been so much better if Late McKinnon was the loudmouth streetwise one think Hooks from police academy and Leslie Jones was the wacky Nuclear Physicist.
Yes. Thank you for saying this so much more competently than I could have. I was so excited for this movie and now suddenly… I’m not 🙁
Yes, so disappointing. I guess we’re to used to a rarified Toastie atmosphere that we expected more
I can only assume the new movie is mirroring the original quartet, where three were scientists and one wasn’t. Why both the “not scientists” have to be black, though, while the “scientists” are all white… that’s another question.
I’m also annoyed at the 3 white people to 1 black person formula, as if it was more important to mirror the original than (gasp!) cast 2 women of colour. Jessica Williams would have killed it as a Ghostbuster.
the whole silly “there can be only one!!!” approach to “diversity” in movies is so, so frustrating. like, irl, you don’t choose a group of friends like that (“I really like Nikki, but our group already has its one Asian” or whatever).
You need two of everything like Noah’s Ark so you can be sure to say “Some of my best friends are [insert minority here]” which comes just after or just before you said/say something racist.
It also seems less organic to me to have only 1 person of colour. Like, who has a friend group like that in New York? Why would that POC be hanging out with a bunch of white people if they were the ONLY POC around?
She would have!!
Oh my God, Jessica Williams as a Ghostbuster. We could have had it aaaaaalll…
I want a “The Stars My Destination” movie so, so damn bad. Not only does it have one of my favorite characters ever (who happens to be a WOC) Robin Freakin Wednesbury (Lupita would be perfect…just saying), but in my mind I always pictured Presteign as being black (I pretty much picture him as Idris Elba), which would make his daughter Olivia a POC with albinism, which would kick ass. In fact, Jizbella is really the only female character that is described as being white (and red headed). So even Capt. Lindsey and Moira could be cast as WOC. So much potential for diversity!
OMG YES!!!! This needs to happen for all the reasons you cited, but also because The Stars My Destination is one of the greatest sci-fi stories of all time.
It really is! It is one of my favorites, and one I think holds up really well considering that it was written in the 50’s (for example, there is never any commentary on the fact that Gully and Robin portray themselves as being in a mixed-race relationship, which is pretty cool considering how bad things were for real-life mixed race couples in America at the time). Plus, after watching Mad Max I think Tom Hardy would make a really good Gully Foyle.
Did you see when The Toast covered it?
I did! I was super excited because it really isn’t a book that comes up all that often (sadly even on my nerdy Sci-fi websites) so I loved that the Toast covered it! Just one of the (many) reasons this site warms the cockles of my nerdy, English-major heart!
speaking of woc in sci-fi shows, I LOVED Grace Park in Battlestar Galactica despite its insultingly silly finale, and am going to start my rewatch as soon as I find my first-season DVDs; who’s in?
Athena and Helo were two of my favorite characters. I would be in but I have 65 days to graduation and miles to go before I finish destroying the forests of the world with my required paperwork and essays. Ughhhhhhhhhhh.
BSG is always the first thing that pops into my head any time diversity in sci-fi comes up.
I only watched the series for the first time a few months ago, and binged it pretty quickly, so it’s a little too soon for me. Don’t get me started on the finale. Ugh. I actually thought of a new complaint I have about it totally out of the blue the other day.
However, I played the BSG board game at my weekly board game group recently, and it was a lot of fun because they do work the characters’ traits and professions into the gameplay. I think for now that’s the best way for me to get my fix. 🙂
I like to pretend the finale never happened.
There was also only one Matrix move.
Agreed
MEEEEEEEEEEE
ME ME ME ME. I just need to find my black market DVD copies of the show…
Me. Me me me me me. Me.
Whatever the “let’s rewatch this show together” version of a bookclub is, let’s do that.
if I can find those DVDs I’ll write some posts about it and we can all dish.
And if you DON’T find them, let me know and I’ll send them to you.
Yes please.
Isn’t it on Netflix? I’m sure I watched it on Netflix.
I wanted that finale to be so much more than it was. The whole final season, really. There is no way it could have satisfied me, realistically.
Its on UK Netflix!
Other than for Captain Angela Bassett, here are some things we need:
Octavia Butler’s Dawn Is Coming to TV (How the fuck will they even do that, I mean I know CG is good these days, I cannot wait to see this.)
a movie prequel of Brown Girl In the Ring
Halle Berry (and everybody else) Would Love The X-Men Franchise To Give Storm A Spinoff Movie
Also trying to think what Delany I would like to see adapted… I mean my fave by far is Dhalgren but that particular mindfuck could not be filmed… well, maybe by some of the experimental film-makers who I tend to see at, like the Vanguard programming at TIFF, but that would most certainly not be a Hollywood movie. Nevèrÿon could be Hollywood.
Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand!
Oh lord would sex & gender in that though! I think Nevèrÿona would be a bit more palatable for audiences for being a recognizable sword and sorcery tale, and I’m also going for female protagonists. (All love to Stars In My Pocket though – I mean I’m ALL ABOUT the sex gender fuckery and alternative relationships, I just don’t trust the movie machine with them.)
No, fair point. I think I was just thinking about how cool it would be, in my perfect happy donut land, more than I was thinking about how directors, casting, everybody would actually handle the story. But the evelmi! And the person who originated the rings that make you feel things, I forget her name? And the family structures, and the Thants’ outfits? IT WOULD BE SO GOOD.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ALLEN BAIN ET AL, DO NOT FUCK UP DAWN, THAT BOOK IS SO IMPORTANT
Also also, not sci-fi but real world science related Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Henson, and Octavia Spencer are staring in a movie about African-American scientist at NASA during the space race and I’m excited!
OMG HYPE
I saw that on twitter the other day and am so excited because Janelle is EVERYTHING.
Actually… her Metropolis albums provide a narrative that could totally be the basis for an SF movie!
I just have so many heart eyes for Janelle!!! And agreed that you could easily base a sci-fi movie off her music, I mean just look at her music videos (I would recommend only doing this during your free time b/c I fell down a youtube rabbit hole watching her videos recently… I think it was an afternoon well spent though)
I have watched all her videos many times, and made some own mental videos starring both her and I, which are totally feasible because robot love is queer.
That’s some A+ daydreaming and I need to step up my game.
Also, NK Jemisin wrote about Janelle’s music and I highly recommend reading it.
I heard about that–it looks really interesting!
What in the WHAT. Between this, the Key and Peele cat movie, and Brian Fuller’s Star Trek, it’s been a good two months for “projects that BourneApprox is pretty sure she’s hallucinating because they can’t possibly be real and so relevant to my interests.”
I had not heard of that Key and Peele movie but I just watched the trailer and THANK YOU for making me aware of this! <3
I agree with all of this! Octavia Butler is actually, oddly enough, an example of Black Sci-Fi that I’ve really, really, really tried to like, but I think that reading Kindred too young just ruined that possibility for me. (Hated that experience in middle school :-/). I’m looking forward to seeing her stuff adapted for TV though, because I *want* to have that opened up for me from a new angle. HBO doing GoT made the books 10x more readable for me. These are the kinds of options that I want us to have! /ramble
Ooh then will we get to discuss the Dawn TV show? I’ve read almost everything Butler wrote. The Xenogenesis series in particular left me feeling all the feels and thinking all the thoughts with no one to help me process it because no one I know has read any of her stuff. 🙁
FUUFUUFUUUUUUU THEY ARE MAKING ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH BROWN GIRL IN THE RING??? Dying of excitement now. I loved that book so much.
Also, ABOUT TIME Octavia Butler got some tv-series love.
Your post has me yelling a lot, but it needs to be yelled.
Thank you for being excited about Brown Girl! Hey, people who love Butler, and also that one person who is into Delany – you will probably also like Nalo Hopkinson!
If you mean me, I love Nalo Hopkinson!
yessssssss. I think my favourite is Sister Mine. You?
Brown Girl in the Ring was my introduction and I’m loyal! Very excited for that movie.
Ooh, I’m always looking for new spec fic authors. Who’s with me on lovin’ N.K. Jemisin?? I adored the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
this was on a list of black SF to read I saw a few years ago and my gf wanted a vacation read so I suggested it to her and she loved it. BUT she got it as an ebook on her kobo so she does not have it to lend me.
This is why I buy paper books. When it comes to lit at least both a borrower and a lender be, is how I roll.
If you liked that, I’d recommend the Summer Prince. It’s set in FUTURE Brazil, and it is SO GOOD.
Chiming in with fanatical love for The Summer Prince (Alaya Dawn Johnson) sooooooooo gooooooooooood OMGGGGG
I am RIGHT BY YOUR SIDE. Have you read The Fifth Season yet? That would also make a great movie, actually.
(Jemisin also wrote up a good response to the recent J.K. Rowling Bad Decision: http://nkjemisin.com/2016/03/it-couldve-been-grea…
Ancillary Justice! Ancillary Justice! Only in the hands of someone who gives a shit, because it’s so easy to whitewash, but if they can avoid that? YES.
Also it needs to be cast with only women. Only poc women (okay maybe a few white women in the background in crowd scenes. I guess.)
(yes I know that the pronouns don’t mean that all characters are what we would identify as biologically female, but the books deliberately subvert your expectations about gendered characters and a tv/film adaptation would betray that intent if it didn’t also do it.)
It’ll never happen, but I would do terrible things just to get Butler’s Patternist series on TV or film
Nope. I had many issues with the finale of the series. I’m open to hearing why I should change my mind though! 😀
I will see this movie if they completely reshoot it and make Leslie Jones and Kristen Wiig switch roles.
Or switch Leslie Jones with Melissa McCarthy, as was originally intended:
http://jezebel.com/leslie-jones-mta-employee-role…
Fieg doesn’t normally like loud comedy??!?!??!?!?
I know, that struck me as… odd, to say the least.
“Sign onto Tumblr, and I’m sure someone will tell you all about it.”
Accurate.
“I started teaching myself Latin after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban came out, thinking that it would make for more accurate spells in the fanfiction I wrote centering my own invented Black characters.”
I know this isn’t the point, but your energetic commitment to fictional accuracy makes my day.
agreed, this made me grin so large
I was especially disappointed in the way Jones’s character was portrayed in the trailer, but I felt like it sort of fit the way all the women were written: i.e., some white guy’s idea of “this is what women are like, and i know this because I’ve seen movies with women in them. Oh, and one of them’s black? That’s cool, I can do that: I’ve also seen movies with black women in them”, rather than characters who are actual human beings.
2 Monks Write a Female Buddy Comedy
laughing and crying, but mostly crying about this.
Honestly? I’d rather see the monks’ version. Think horse-tail penises would make an appearance?
Exactly! It would at least probably be original, rather than reinforcing everything else that’s wrong with Hollywood depictions of women.
But that thing is written by both a dude (Paul Feig; no writer credits for stuff I’d recognize, directed for Parks & Rec, Arrested Development, The Office) AND a women (Katie Dippold; Parks & Rec, Mad TV). Maybe it’s rather a symptom of the usual Hollywood crap with studios insisting on not “taking any risks” and using established/obsolete formulas.
In any way, I’m not going to watch a Ghostbusters reboot without Sigourney Weaver.
Feig wrote/created Freaks and Geeks, which is a sublime work of TV genius!
A blindingly white work of TV genius. Almost everything he’s been involved in is incredibly white.
I think this is something that comes up when the people involved are not, perhaps, actively exclusionary in who they intend to cast, but do not feel responsible for the representation of the people of color they do cast.
I’ve been on kind of an accidental Paul Feig watching binge recently (The Heat and Spy, both of which I also watched director’s commentaries for because my girlfriend believes very strongly that watching the commentary must always happen). And it’s interesting to hear his opinions on casting- he casts people he “really likes” who he thinks “are amazing” even in tiny roles, and in The Heat he talked about casting a young Black youtube star (Spoken Reasons) who plays a drug dealer, who in one scene gets hit in the back with a watermelon. (I just found a good critique of the whole portrayal of the character here: http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2013/07/melissa-mccar…
Paul Feig said that he originally had the character getting hit with a cantaloupe, but someone (it’s important who suggested it but I don’t remember who it was, I don’t think it was Spoken Reasons) suggested the watermelon, and while he initially worried it was too much, when he played it in front of audiences they laughed more at the watermelon so they used that version.
To me, that shows he does not feel responsible for WHY [white] people are laughing, just that they ARE laughing. If you feel responsible for creating funny movies, that’s what matters, but I wish he felt responsible for creating movies that are funny to everyone instead of just white people.
I tried that link and it said it doesn’t exist :/
also YIKES at Feig!!!! honestly.
http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2013/07/melissa-mccar…
Hopefully this works!
It worked for me! Thanks 🙂
This is very well said, and I related hard to the idea of trying to find something to redeem even the dreckiest fiction when, as with the scarcity of black female leads, it seems like the stakes are higher. (side note: boob job… gone wrong… dystopia??)
my only qualm is with the idea that the Animorphs series doesn’t hold up. I mean- the writing is often atrocious, for sure, but the story is still incredible and I reread them all a few summers ago and definitely still cried a bunch of times, so.
I, too, really want to hear more about this boob job-leads-to-dystopia thing.
I’m really glad that Animorphs, of all series, doesn’t seem to have had anything deeply problematic or any failures of diversity and representation. (At least, none that I’ve heard of…) Those were my first book series obsession, right before Harry Potter.
Boob jobs lead to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to dystopia.
Literally my favourite thing to do in the world is to get drunk at a party, show people this opening credits sequence, and then try to explain Cleopatra 2525: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2ZRSwul7cE
…That was AMAZING. I still understand nothing about the boob job, and now I have several new questions, plus the theme song is stuck in my head. Because I had to watch it twice. This sounds like the absolute best thing to do at parties.
Reading this makes me long to see Jones playing a history geek, as has been suggested the role might have been.
Might be, present tense. She’s described as a “municipal historian” in the character poster. No one seems to know yet whether that’s Feige being cute a la calling a janitor an sanitation engineer or whether Patty’s an academic specialist who’s working in the MTA for money or research reasons. I’m not super optimistic, but given the importance of architectural history to the original Ghostbusters, I’m reserving judgement until reviewers see the actual movie.
I haven’t read the book, but I’ve got my eye on the Annihilation movie adaptation by the guy who did Ex Machina. The main characters are four scientists played by Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and light of my life Gina Rodriguez and the mere thought of that cast makes me giddy
I don’t know how happy I can really be about Annihilation’s casting when the Biologist (Portman) is explicitly a mixed Asian woman and the Psychologist (Leigh) is mixed Native American. I am happy about two WOC in the movie and think they’ll be awesome but it sucks to see the casting directors whitewashed the main characters. The other two less important characters don’t have specific races and are the ones played by Thompson and Rodriguez.
SPOILERS
Plus the lead is the only survivor! And the Psychologist and Biologist both kill one of the other two so it’s white women murdering women of color!
Oooh damn. Less excited now 🙁
Oh man. Ex Machina was misandrist and perfect, and I love Gina Rodriguez more than I can bear. And Tessa Thompson was amazing in Creed! Yeah, I’m in for this.
…although I just got less excited after KV’s comment. Just give me good unproblematic things Universe!
The Southern Reach series of books is about as unproblematic as horror stories get tbh. If you’re intrigued by the movie, please give the books a shot.
Every character in the first book is a woman. The Biologist is an amazing protagonist. And while there aren’t any textually queer characters for the first book they arrive wonderfully in the second and third. Plus NOBODY central to the narrative is white. All of that comes wrapped up in a beautiful, strange, fascinating horror story. The series is SO GOOD and deserves a better adaptation.
Maybe the three scientists will be killed and Leslie Jones the only survivor, thereby overthrowing the trope of the Black character never making it to the end?
On top of the racist stuff, it just seemed so generic. Like someone said “we have female ghostbusters! Now we can relax and write any old crap and people will still think it’s special!”
As problematic as the other movies were, the script was very elegant and the characters well written. The silliest lines were delivered totally convincingly, and the special effects were used in service to the plot well. Not many 80s movies survive still looking as contemporary as Ghostbusters, which shows the talent of the production design team.
I want Feig’s Ghostbusters to be amazing – so amazing that I use the lines in everyday conversation regularly, just like the original… But I’m not optimistic.
The lack of selection often makes me feel like I have to find something positive in everything with a Black female lead — along with watching or purchasing it, tweeting about it, and hoping “the market” takes notice — and I’ll find myself feeling guilty if I don’t enjoy it or can’t find something good to say about it.
Why does this remind me so much about voting, and buying clothes, and all the areas of “choice” where our choices are between “The Fucking Man” and “Uh, not quite as bad but still pretty cringeworthy”, and we know that we can’t opt out because then The Fucking Man wins and The Market thinks “oh, the people want The Fucking Man”. Yes, there are unprecedented new ways of getting to audiences/buyers/voters, but they’re little two-lane roads compared to the expressways The Fucking Man has.
Tldr, we have no voices but buying shit and shouting into the Internet Wilderness.
Please tell me that Gina Torres in Cleopatra 2525 was not the post-dystopic-boob-job character. Because that…is not accurate. If anything, those boobs should have heralded a new Jerusalem.
I hadn’t seen the trailer, but… wow. That fucking sucks. I’m sorry. “Maybe the trailer lied and the movie’s better than that” is pretty cold comfort, especially when the trailer’s already out there and is going to affect how the character’s seen anyway.
TBH I agree about misrepresentation being more painful than nothing.
It's all on Hulu again! SO UP FOR THIS.
Oh boy, I'm afraid I completely missed why the topic swung to Delany. How embarrassing (since I originally encountered him via the queer SF canon, not being POC). Yes indeed with intersectionality wins.
I think it'd be pretty powerful for men to be addressed as "she", especially if they are "name" actors.
I think it would be more powerful to give all the roles to poc women actors rather than big name men, however!
(Also, since English only marks gender in the third person pronoun, comparatively little of the gender-marking of the novels would come across in the dialogue of the movie.)
I’ve been disappointed ever since I found out this was definitely to be a remake rather than a sequel. A remake feels a little boring, especially when the only apparent difference is that they gender-swapped the characters. A sequel could have been fun, where maybe the guys have all retired and it’s been a long time since any major hauntings occurred in New York, so nobody is really interested in ghost hunting anymore except this one little group of ladies struggling to carry on the work despite the public’s lack of interest. Since the remake-not-sequel news, everything I’ve heard about it has failed to get me to stay interested, and some of the news, like this, has been flat out discouraging. I want this movie to do well because, you know, rare cast of just women as main characters, but the more I find out the more I think it’s not going to be received well, and unfortunately Hollywood is not going to correctly interpret the reasons for its failure.
Well, i think half the internet is like that food critic in “Ratatouille”, completly addicted
to nostalgia and validation that becomes a cranky one when he is kept from his fix.
This movie looks good and funny and i´m going to give it a chance. Think of it as a SNL special.