Why Come No Female Ghostbusters?

I've had a bit of a break from my usual university work this week, and on Monday I managed to get a lot more done in the morning than I initially expected, leaving room for a movie. I wanted to find something fun so I decided to look at something everybody else seemed to talk about but I hadn't seen since I was in Grade 3: Ghostbusters. It's a hugely popular film with some witty humor and a few amusing ideas that sort of blur the line between science fiction and supernatural. I might have even been able to enjoy it if not for one slight little issue, and frankly I can't even tell if I should have a problem with it or if my feminist side is getting overly paranoid (it happens sometimes).

Much as I tried to enjoy the film, one thought kept going through my mind: why are there no female ghostbusters? Why was it necessary for this film to be so predominantly male? I'm not sure if I should be bothered by this situation or not, but throughout the movie I couldn't help but be frustrated by the fact that nearly all the major characters of note were men, with the only women essentially being relegated to "feminine" roles, namely the damsel in distress and the secretary. The fact that Bill Murray's character Peter Venkman seemed to be bit of a pervert who couldn't stand ten feet from a woman without thinking about sex didn't help much.

The ironic thing is that the distressed damsel character, Dana Barrett, was played by none other than Sigourney friggin' Weaver. You know, the actress who made her name playing what is often considered to be one of the strongest female characters ever put on film? How come she doesn't get to bust any ghosts? All she gets to do is hang out in an apartment she knows is haunted when she should be getting the heck out of there and then because she foolishly decides not to move out ends up being possessed by extra-dimensional beings. The secretary meanwhile never really got a whole lot of depth either (she mentions being a psychic at one point, but that ability never got put to any good use) and seemed to be there only to make snarky comments in a rather irritating voice.

It could have been a cool development if they had Dana maybe learn to stand up against the ghosts in her apartment. She wouldn't need to don a proton pack right away but she could have grown to understand it and perhaps become one of the team by the end. But no, that would have made her an interesting character. Far better to reinforce outdated ideals of masculinity and have her needing to be rescued by an all-male team. Alternatively it could have been interesting if they'd given the secretary something to do, maybe having her becoming a ghostbuster in her own right before hand instead of keeping her at the desk.

For that matter, could it have worked if they'd just written one of the ghostbusters as a woman? Even if they wanted to keep the first three guys (Venkman, Spengler, and Stantz) as men, they might have still been able to make it work. There was a plot point about them recruiting new ghostbusters (and by "recruiting" I mean just taking the first person that walks in), which is how Ernie Hudson's character, Winston Zeddmore, enters the picture adding some racial diversity. Perhaps instead of just him they could have had two recruits, have Winston show up and perhaps a woman who expresses interested in busting ghosts and then they'd have five people in the climax instead of four. But who needs that? Racial diversity is great but apparently gender diversity is not according to these filmmakers.

Fortunately, the good news is that there is word going around about a reboot of ghostbusters that will feature an all-female cast. This should allow some balance at least and I guess seems fair. Since the writers of the original couldn't bother to let any women bust some ghosts why should this reboot allow men to do it? So far not much has been said but there are apparently a ton of actresses who want in on it and not without good reason. I just hope if it does end up happening they actually make the female ghostbusters strong and don't oversexualize them (I'd prefer it if they didn't modify the uniforms to accommodate exposed breasts, miniskirts, and high heels). If they can pull it off, I'll certainly be first in line to see this one. Still, that question remains: why are there no female ghostbusters and why did it take a full reboot for it to happen?

It's the End of the World as We Know It... and I Feel Funny!

2013 saw the release of two unrelated yet similar films, released around the same time (one just a few months after the other) that both had a strange setup: a bunch of guys get together to have a good time and end up trying to survive the apocalypse. Both of these films I had the chance to see in the theater, and one was (in my opinion) hilarious, while the other was (again, in my opinion) awful. Still, the connections between these two movies are quite interesting.

The first of these movies was of course This is the End, the story of a group of celebrities trying to survive after the Rapture happens while they're at a party. Personally, I really didn't like this movie (though evidently a few people disagree, as I recall when I saw it in the theater at least one person a few rows behind me kept bursting into laughter every other moment while I remained almost completely deadpan). In fact, I recall that as soon as I got out of the theater I found myself really wanting to watch The Road just because I wanted to see a good movie about the apocalypse.

None of the jokes stuck with me and the only person I really cared about at all was Emma Watson, who of course is only involved briefly because the guys were all idiots who had a completely pointless discussion about rape, and we're forced to continue watching their unfunny shenanigans when I'd much rather see Emma Watson fighting demons.

The second, as you may know, was Edgar Wright's third installment of the "Cornetto Trilogy", The World's End, a hilariously dark comedy about a few guys going on a pub crawl only to find out that their hometown has been taken over by robots as part of a massive alien conspiracy. This was a hilarious film with a wonderful cast, well-timed jokes, a bit of drama here and there to balance things out without taking over, and of course a fun narrative.

In some ways both films are quite a bit different. One centers on a group of celebrities playing themselves while the other involves a group of fictitious characters. One uses the set-up of a party while the other uses a pub crawl. In some ways, though, this also makes them surprisingly similar. Let's look at the basic structure.

In both films, we start off with an all-male group of friends, in fact with a similar number of people: This is the End has six (though that is including Danny McBride, who joins in a bit later and initially remains completely oblivious to the apocalypse happening around him), while The World's End has five. In either case, said group of friends starts off by getting together to have a good time. 

Granted the "good time" is a bit different in each case, given that in one it's just the five friends going on a pub crawl, and the other involves the six protagonists being the last remnants of a much larger party. We also get a whole sub-plot about Michael Cera being an annoying idiot who likes to blow drugs into people's faces without their consent.

Though the central group is entirely male, we do get a female supporting role, someone who is memorable but whose role in the story seems relatively small compared to the men. Personally, I'd say The World's End handled this much better with Sam, who despite having much less screen time does manage to stick around long enough to have an impact on the story. 

This is certainly more than can be said about how this aspect was handled in This is the End. Now granted, Emma Watson's appearance was memorable, in fact it was really the only thing I actually liked about that movie. I remember while I was saddened to see Sam leave partway through The World's End, I had grown attached enough to the other guys that I didn't mind spending most of the rest of the movie following them. 

In This is the End, I found I really didn't care much for what happened to the guys there and was way more interested in what happened to Emma Watson. Seriously, if This is the End had centered around her transformation into an action survivor during the apocalypse and the guys the movie insists on following just had a minor cameo, I think it would have been a lot better.

So in terms of structure, we have something similar, even if the apocalypse itself is different: a group of male characters and one female supporting role in what initially seems to be everyday life going out to have what they consider a "good time" only for things to start getting chaotic. Over the course of the story, the characters have to make difficult decisions to figure out how to survive as eventually they get picked off one by one.

I do find it curious how each of these films utilized a similar premise, coming out the same year only a few months apart, and yet they're also both so different. One may be great, and the other is terrible (though some might disagree with me on that point), one is British, and the other American, but it is weird that somehow in the same year two different parties managed to come out with a comedy based around the same basic premise of a few guys having fun only to get caught up in the end of the world.