By Deepika Sarma
Last week, when I went with female friends to watch the all-women reboot of Ghostbusters on the very first day that it released in India, I was shocked to see only around 30 people in the entire hall on a Friday evening. Only around five of them were men. But once the movie started and the laughter began, I was thrilled by what a great feeling it was to watch the movie with so many women, just as much as I was thrilled by the movie. We all seemed to laugh at the same moments, and break down helplessly at the same time, and it felt, for all purposes, like a fantastic, rollicking, private party.
Sure, it was a remake, and of a beloved goofy 80s hit, no less. But I was glad; it wasn’t just revisiting an old tale or updating it to the present; it swapped genders putting women in roles they wouldn’t typically have been given in the Hollywood culture machine. And the change in gender changed everything about the film, giving the ghosts, the women’s work, and the obstacles in their path, all-new meaning.
Ghostbusters isn’t the only remake to flip gender: in late July, it was announced that Disney would do a ‘sequel reboot’ to its 1991 film The Rocketeer, this time with an African-American female lead. Last week came the news that the film Splash, starring Daryl Hannah as a sexy mermaid with Tom Hanks, will be remade with Hollywood hunk Channing Tatum playing the mermaid opposite Jillian Bell in Hanks’ role, in a script written by a woman. And on 4th August, it was announced there’d be an upcoming remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Rebel Wilson and another female actor replacing the original con-artist duo of Michael Caine and Steve Martin.
In 2015, a Forbes study showed four out of the top five of Hollywood’s ‘best actors for the buck’ were women. Bridesmaids, the first hit film by Ghostbusters director Paul Feig, grossed $288 million worldwide in 2011, becoming Hollywood heavyweight producer Judd Apatow’s top grossing film. Feig has since directed two other women-centric films (The Heat which grossed $230 million, and The Spy which grossed $235 million). Ghostbusters may not be the runaway success that its director Paul Feig’s previous movie Bridesmaids was (it’s just recovered its $144 million budget but no more at $163 million), but it’s part of a trend catering to a new kind of audience. One that wants less sexism, more women. Of course production houses are backing these films less out of the goodness of their hearts and more because they make money. As a feminist, of course I realise I’m being seen as just a ‘target audience’, a ‘demographic’, a ‘market’ to be tapped. But you know what? It’s great to count as the target audience for a summer blockbuster that isn’t in stark opposition to all of my political beliefs. I can’t deny that I’m lovin’ it.
Here’s what I found so great about the new Ghostbusters, which is co-written by Feig and Katie Dippold: it’s aware, politically, of what it needs to do in terms of representing women. (Though where it fails is in its depiction of Leslie Jones’ character Patty, the only non-scientist, and the stereotypical ‘sassy’ black woman). But it’s a film that understands the sexism of its predecessor, and goes way beyond simply cancelling it out. Ghostbusters (1984) has an odious character I hope would be unthinkable today: Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman, a smart alec sexual harasser we are supposed to find charming. Luckily, the awful 1989 sequel tones his creepiness down a little. Ghostbusters (2016) has a cameo by Murray, who dies a swift and satisfyingly gruesome death within minutes of meeting the new crew.
Melissa McCarthy, Kriste Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate MacKinnon’s characters are all wonderfully nerdy — far more than in the original, and though the plot remains similar, the film only references scenes from the original in fun ways now and then, choosing instead to dive into slightly deeper political waters. Like in The Heat and The Spy, we see the women dealing with plenty of sexism, including at work. They all happen to be incredibly attractive actors but their looks have nothing to do with the plot, which leaves them free to be warm, goofy and possibly the most fun female characters I’ve seen in recent mainstream cinema. They even troll their trolls in the film, making a light-hearted reference to the negative response to the Ghostbusters reboot by YouTube commenters.
For me, one of the film’s best parts was when the final battle with an enormous villainous ghost rampaging through the city ends when they all blast it in the crotch at the same time with their particle throwers; although there were plenty of hints all through the film, that was the moment when it finally hit me that the women weren’t fighting ghosts, they were fighting patriarchy. And what a cool fight that was.
If, like me, you couldn’t bear to leave the theatre when the film was done and stayed until after the very last credits rolled, you might have seen the clip foreshadowing a sequel where they’ll face a familiar villain, Zuul. I couldn’t care less about this new throwback to the 1984 film, but I just cannot wait to see more of the team.
Sure, it’s a “gimmick” to swap genders in remakes, but I can’t help imagining it would have been great to be a kid growing up today with the legacy of this version of Ghostbusters, rather than the one from 1984 I was saddled with. And I can’t wait to see a version of Splash that pokes fun at the old, inane version (in which Daryl Hannah needs saving) until it self-destructs, hopefully in a theatre with loads of women for company. Wouldn’t it be awesome if it was a trend that hit Bollywood? With, say, a remake of Sholay, or Amar Akbar Anthony? I’ve never been able to finish watching the originals without being derailed by boredom. But a ladies version? Now that, I’d pay good money to see.