The most contentious film this summer looks to be Paul Feig’s “Ghostbusters.” starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig. It is a reboot to the 1984 film of the same name starring Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd.
Since the film’s announcement in October 2014, there have been many mixed feelings regarding the decision to have an all female cast star in the film. This unfortunately goes to show that we still live in a time where female roles take a back seat to male roles.
There have been many targeted bad reviews from the male public, many of which were apparent on IMDB (a public voting website that rates films). Currently, these negative ratings show an overall average score of 1/10 from 43 percent of the male audience. The “Ghostbros” as they call themselves on the internet, are males who prefer to have an all male cast in the new “Ghostbusters.” They had given the film bad reviews since before its release and are likely to blame for the drastically low IMDB rating. On Reddit, some of these spiteful reviewers have even made sure to keep favorable reviews off the site.
It’s this kind of misogynistic view of the film that really disturbs me. Some of the sexist remarks that I have witnessed online include, “Woman have no right to be funny”, and “Why ruin Ghostbusters with women?”
As for the professional critics who reviewed Ghostbusters, I found that the number of critics on Rotten Tomatoes (a film rating website that averages the scores of professional critics) is at a disproportion with 182 being men and only 57 being women. I also found that only 70 percent of men said “Ghostbusters” was good as opposed to 84 percent of women who said it was good.
This isn’t to say that the critics are misogynistic, however, it is worth noting the difference in rating per gender, albeit a slight one, from professional critics.
Many professional critics are generally giving the film good reviews and personally, I enjoyed it. The cast is good and their chemistry worked well alongside an entertaining story. I especially liked the role of Jillian Holtzmann, the team’s engineer, who I felt was the most relatable character in the film given her wise-cracking persona and general laid-backness.
However, aside from the good reception that it is receiving (as well as the negative reviews that are hopefully not relating a hate towards female roles), there are still people who do see female roles as being an issue like the "Ghostbros."
Hollywood films need more female roles and more men need to learn to be more open to that idea, especially if they are willing to judge a movie before they have even seen it. Giving roles to females that are typically given to men helps shape our society into greater equality. There is a major gender imbalance in film that needs to be fixed and I’m glad “Ghostbusters” took a step towards a greater gender balance.
