I honestly wasn’t going to report this. I feel that since the 2016 reboot – as we’re seeing in other franchises – I feel the Ghostbusters franchise has become fairly toxic.
And, sadly, it seems to all be based on lies.
When the movie came out there was a narrative that Ghostbusters fans were sexist and that’s why the movie was underperforming – we know the narrative was there long before that, but the blame was being sat at the feet of the toxic male fans.
And it simply wasn’t so.
A similar agenda was pushed when the Fantastic Four reboot took a nose-dive – it was because racists boycotted the movie over Michael B Jordan’s casting – and not because the movie was really, really bad.
Fact is that yes, there are racists and sexists out there, of course, but they aren’t the largest part of the cinema-going audience. The majority of movie fans just want well told stories and sadly Ghostbusters 2016 wasn’t, well, very good.
I totally missed the genius of the original movie(s), the subtle humour, the fact that the brilliance of Ghsotbusters lay at the heart of the movie: these weren’t superheroes and it wasn’t a comedy, it was a movie about four working, witty people whose job just happened to be catching jokes.
The reboot relied on slapstick and fart jokes… this is not what Ghostbusters was. And the movie suffered for it.
Now, at the time Leslie Jones, Patty in the movie, DID come under a lot of abuse from racist sexist idiots online, no-one can deny that – but many defended her, myself included – she was the second best thing in the movie, next to Kate McKinnon’s character, Jillian Holtzman. Both ladies were superb in the movie and often kept it above the threshold of unwatchable… even a lot of fans who hated the movie have admitted the two would be welcomed in a spin-off movie.
But now, in light of the reboot, Jones has sadly hit out, reigniting the hatred that almost destroyed the franchise and the fandom:
So insulting. Like fuck us. We dint count. It’s like something trump would do. (Trump voice)”Gonna redo ghostbusteeeeers, better with men, will be huge. Those women ain’t ghostbusteeeeers” ugh so annoying. Such a dick move. And I don’t give fuck I’m saying something!!
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) 19 January 2019
I tweeted Leslie telling her I expected more from her: “I expected better than this of you.All this does is feed the hatred by continuing the narrative your movie failed due to sexism when it actually failed because it has no respect for the franchise.Not your fault, but you’re better than this childishness.”
As someone who knows the power of social media when it comes to creating hatred, I honestly thought she would be above this. I wrote that Ghostbusters 2016’s failure was not her fault but so too was it not because of sexism but because it had no respect for the franchise or the fans.
I also explained that so far no-one knows for sure who the cast will be but we’re hearing it will be made up of male and female characters equally – as it should be.
She did not reply.
But, as we saw with Solo, which suffered because – like it or not – The Last Jedi paid no respect to Star Wars and felt like it deliberately subverted the expectations of the fans, the fans hold the power… the ones who – like me – have been here since 1984 will support the franchise if they know that it is being shown the love and repect it deserves.
Paul Feig, sadly – and we don’t blame him, it was Sony’s fault – didn’t do that.
So no, this isn’t feeding the trolls, but rather it’s learning from the mistakes and showing the fans the respect they deserve.
UPDATE: I’ve been blocked by her. That’s a first.
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