Frivolous Friday: Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters 2016 Leslie Jones Melissa McCarthy KristenWiig Kate McKinnon

We saw Ghostbusters last weekend, and we’re seeing it for the second time this weekend. Because it was so freaking entertaining.

Because I missed a bunch of stuff the first time I saw it, from all the laughing.

Because fuck the racist haters, ‪#‎iloveleslie‬.

Because fuck the sexist haters.

Because I want the movie to do well, so studios will know that an action sci-fi comedy with a mostly female cast can do well and will make more.

Because Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann, HOLY MACKEREL. (Aoife O’Riordan has a great piece on the awesomely queer awesomeness that is Holtzmann)

Because it was such big fun.

Frivolous Fridays are the Orbit bloggers’ excuse to post about fun things we care about that may not have serious implications for atheism or social justice. Any day is a good day to write about whatever the heck we’re interested in (hey, we put “culture” in our tagline for a reason), but we sometimes have a hard time giving ourselves permission to do that. This is our way of encouraging each other to take a break from serious topics and have some fun. Check out what some of the other Orbiters are doing!

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Frivolous Friday: Ghostbusters
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5 thoughts on “Frivolous Friday: Ghostbusters

  1. 1

    Oh shit, what kinda rock have I been hiding under? I had absolutely no idea Kate McKinnon is gay! That makes me love her so much more than I already did. Also, inclusiveness – yet one more thing that sends the haters into fits of tears not unlike infantile colic. I’ve been so busy, I can’t wait to go and see it.

  2. 2

    This, 100%. Double for McKinnon. She stole every scene she was in.

    The movie wasn’t without its flaws, but I’m glad I saw it opening weekend. It was loads of fun and I loved how the characters interacted. That’s what made the first movie so good. You gotta have chemistry or it’s not going to work. I don’t know if they will do a sequel, but I hope to see these four in another movie.

  3. 3

    All the facts above are true.

    you know, when I was a kid I saw Ghostbusters and I didn’t realize it was a comedy. I mean, mostly I understood it as a sort of alternate-world fantasy and I enjoyed imagining and day dreaming about it.

    This remake is like that as well, only I’m older and the humor is more my style. I’m older and I don’t fantasize about those sorts of things nearly as much (I usually get my fill at work), but I really appreciated the comedy this time around.

    I was tempted to say I liked BG16 better, but I’m viewing them both from such different perspectives I’m not sure I can make a real comparison. Loved the them both for totally different reasons.

  4. 4

    I thought it was a great movie! It wasn’t a masterpiece but I love the way it referenced science and discoveries, I wish I had seen movies like this when I was growing up it possibly would have influenced my career decisions which have been regrettably poor. It all adds up, and every influence counts. I hope it does well and I really hope that more kids, especially African American, trans and other minority children are encouraged to give it a shot. Kate McKinnon is a great role model in this.

  5. 5

    I wanted to like the movie more than I did. But the very first scene pissed me off: having spent the previous week battling ableist ideas and the conflation of mentally ill with violent murderers, and dealing with a mental illness myself, what was I confronted with? The media trope that a mentally ill woman (or just an inconveniently non-conforming woman) is to be locked away in a basement and turns into a frighteningly evil ghost out for revenge. As if women weren’t a huge sexist target of the early stages of psychiatry by men in the first place, or that it’s a form of gaslighting feminism, or that it isn’t at all a ubiquitous stereotype in media (especially horror films) that mentally ill people are to be shunned, ignored, gaslighted, locked up, haunting asylums or that they are equally as evil as that criminal on death row that wants to kill you.

    Yeah, one step forwards for feminism, but two giant leaps backward for mental health.

    That pretty much ruined the movie for me, piled on with disappointment for reducing Hemsworth to a joke about sexual harassment/eye candy. I was happy with the female characters (Holtzman is so awesome, if I were at all engineering minded I’d want to be her!) and that women are the leads in a movie that isn’t especially typical ‘chick flick’ romcom is great. I have no doubt it will go on to inspire young girls to get out their science kits and look more at STEM careers.

    But boy that first scene really punched me in the gut and points out how much more work needs to be done. I didn’t expect it to be perfect, but damn if I didn’t hope for a little less ‘crazy female basement ghost’ in it too.

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