Ghostbusters

I really liked this film. Really liked this film. It’s not a masterpiece, it didn't change my life. It doesn’t deserve some of the criticism it has received though, so this is a few of my thoughts in response to some of the criticisms.

Criticism 1: It’s not as good as the original. This is an odd one, because those people who tend to make this statement tend to be the same age category as me, meaning they were kids when Ghostbusters first came out. Now when I was 9 (when GB came out), I wasn’t particularly skilled in cinematic criticism, identifying plot devices or narrative structures. I wanted to be entertained, and be able to play at ‘being’ those characters afterwards – a fairly simple requirement that GB delivered to me when I eventually watched it on video (about 2 years later – those crazy 80s times of having to actually wait for a video release!). So when people are saying ‘this film isn’t as good as the original’ I wonder how many of them are feeling this because they can’t go out and pretend to be a Ghostbuster (aside from men when they ‘cross the streams’). Their memories of GB mean that no remake could ever be as good as the original because the original film is bound up in memories of childhood and therefore becomes so much more than a film. When those of us that saw GB for the first time in the 1980s, we’re watching the new GB as adults, often with children, most definitely with commitments, worries, stresses etc. This GB could never hope to be what the original was, because effectively, we are different people.

Criticism 2: They’re women. Yes they are. As none of the roles require penises or back hair, there’s no reason why they can’t be. But what I particularly loved about the new GB was the fact that there wasn’t a focus on the characters as women – just as there wasn’t a focus in the original of the fact that they were men – they just were. Yes, there was the odd comment about clothing, but it would be odd if there wasn’t; some women do care about clothing and have particular ideas about dress, just as some men do too. There was no ‘yay, Girl Power’ as part of the film, which I loved as it just means that women are doing stuff that’s perfectly normal, it’s no big deal.

Criticism 3: The black character wasn’t a scientist. Well no, she wasn’t. Neither was Winston in the original GB, so if you want a remake to be close to the original, then accept this. But more importantly, films do reflect some kind of social reality. The (very sad) fact of the matter is that it is far more likely that a black woman in the US will be working on the subway, rather than being a professor in some form of hard science at a university. Even in the UK, out of the 83,000 science, engineering and technology professors, only 83 are black. Add female into the mix, and the number drops down to around 20 (see the Times Higher Education ). But, lack of professorship aside, it is Patti who brings the team together and importantly, she has the knowledge of the city that the others do not have that helps them save the day.

I thought the film was great. I’m not out playing, pretending to be a Ghostbuster, but perhaps the 9 year old me would have seen those women and thought ‘I can do that - science isn’t just for boys' or ‘it’s OK to stand up for myself, it's OK to be confident about my skills’ or ‘I want a cat called Michael Hat’.