No issue with their reaction - I'd be crying right along with them if I saw it...

You're kidding, right? Mel Gibson was one of the biggest sex symbols of the 80's. And Shatner had his shirt off an awful lot during the first two seasons of Star Trek...

How many ugly male action stars have there been? Not many...

It works both ways.


I'm sorry - did we see Black Widow getting trained in any of her first 3 appearances? Nope. It was just assumed that she had been trained, but the audience didn't need to see it, did they?

That whole line of, "Audiences have to see the heroine being trained by males to be taken seriously," is a load of bunk. All you have to do is come up with a good script that has the briefest of explanations, or not - you can just show her being a badass in the first scene!

You do have to set up an action heroine a little more than a male action character since women are smaller, slower, and weaker on average. You don't see too many women the size of Dwayne Johnson, you know? But a simple, effective explanation or an example of great fighting technique gets you past that.

It's only an issue because Hollywood writers and producers aren't very talented for the most part. They put out product, not art.

I really don't understand the desire to have no men being involved with helping out a female character.... how many sports movies have we seen where the man needs his wife's support in order to succeed? Everyone needs support from their loved ones, trainer, mentor, community, etc... to mentally and physically achieve their goals. This isn't a men vs women thing, it's just life. Look at the Olympic athletes (both male and female) who cite their family, faith, etc as being instrumental in their success.

Remember that part near the end of Rocky 2 where his OL said "win" from the hospital bed or some shit like that. Gotta love that stuff. Who didn't tear up just a little bit?

Exactly. Rocky doesn't win the fight unless Adrian gives him her full support (up to that point he had been half-assing it in training because she had been against the rematch).

Everyone needs support or backup at some point.

And just the other day, after a female athlete won a gold medal, the announcer said "And there's the man responsible [for the win]" when the cameras cut to her husband/coach. How many headlines from the Olympics have been "wife of famous person wins medal"? Even in 2016 gold winning Olympic athletes are defined by who they're dating, engaged to, or married. When a male athlete wins, while they may acknowledge the wife's support, no one says the wife is wholly responsible or refers to the athlete as of "husband of famous person".

So yes, until we as a society can acknowledge that women are responsible for their own success, we do need stories where women succeed on their own.

We do? Because an announcer overstates something?

Women have come a long way over the last hundred years. They're going to go a lot farther over the next 20 or 30 years. It's happening naturally. Movies will reflect that.

There's no need to devalue men in the movies in the meantime to speed that along. Ghostbusters 2016 devalues men. Period. Alachia Queen's video review that I posted explains it far better than I ever could - and that's coming from a liberal woman's point of view, too!

It's not just that one announcer, it's multiple media outlets. It's a pattern which highlights ingrained assumptions in our society.

And plenty of men, including myself, have seen Ghostbusters and don't feel that it devalues men. So it doesn't devalue men. Period. I don't even need to link to a YouTube review to make my arguments because I've actually seen the movie.

You say progress for women will happen "naturally" That's a really naive statement. Did civil rights for African Americans happen naturally? Gay rights? Women's suffrage? Or did people have to stand up to the norms of the day and say "Hey, you know what? This isn't right!"? Art, and especially movies because it's such a powerful medium, help people empathize, open their minds, and see things in a new light. It's extremely reductive and frankly bullshit to say that movies shouldn't or can't be used to help shed light on these struggles and issues.

There are a lot of men who are angry that women are making headway in even just the tiniest sliver of mainstream cinema in roles that aren't the traditional love interest/damsel in distress roles. Some of you are even getting upset at the idea of women who kick ass without help from men. That says a lot more about the people complaining than it does about the movie they're complaining about.

95% of the action/adventure movie stars have been men since time began. We bump that down to 92% with a few women getting starring roles and the whole world is coming to an end. And a movie that stars four women who succeed without any help from men is torn to shreds by men who haven't even seen it. The mind, it boggles.

And the Olympic stuff has been fucking ridiculous. They just can't help themselves.

Out of the hundreds of journalists and media covering the Olympics... I've read just a few of those examples, which are borderline to nothing. Not sure how much sports you watch, but it's very common for announcers to talk about the coach/trainer in that way.

About the only one that stuck out to me was one (one!) paper/media outlet that tweeted about the winner being married to an NFL player, and didn't state her name. Are there other bombshells that I've missed?

There have been multiple instances of female athletes being referred to only by which male they're seeing. It's not an isolated incident.

even at headlining articles it's been an issue with this.

I think one of the women were like the wife of some US football player. And the article title was headlined w/ that. Just weird. As if her husband was worth mentioning in the moment in comparison to his wife who did do something?

That is such utter bullshit I can't believe you could even type that.

There isn't a single good male character in the movie. Period. Not one man who is smart, noble, and helpful. It paints ALL men as bad. Your agreement with their agenda is blinding you from that fact.

Movies can and should be used for those things, but not in a movie franchise that had previously been geared towards a general audience and not an audience with a social justice agenda.

Who? I don't know any. I'm dying to see a Black Widow movie and have been ever since her appearance in Iron Man 2! I am looking forward to Wonder Woman, and I'm not even much of a DC guy! I bought Lucy. I love Ripley in the Alien movies. I have no problem whatsoever with women in lead roles.

I just hate the style of comedy used in the new Ghostbusters, and I don't like the actresses and their styles.

And I don't like movies that paint me out to be the bad guy because I've never discriminated against anyone in my entire 48 years of life. Just the opposite, I've hired women and people of color, and have worked for women and people of color and respect them greatly. I feel no, "White guilt," or, "Men's guilt," because I've never done anything remotely discriminatory in my life. I find movies like this insulting for that reason. It doesn't include men who are good and noble and intelligent. It hints that men like that don't even exist through their exclusion.

Everyone gets help. Kick ass male characters learned how to kick ass with the training of others. If it isn't shown it's implied, and if it isn't implied it's a given.

wrong.
No, because you're wrong.
Does a man have to be all three? No? Then you're wrong.
It absolutely does not.



The only 'fact' is that you have no idea what you're talking about, because you haven't seen the actual movie.

Period.

^ Let's not go down that path, eh?

Yes, because if you're propping up Hemsworth's character he's so negative and paints men in such a negative light then you're absolutely barking up the wrong tree...

Really, then name me one male character who isn't a total airhead moron who isn't an asshole and is noble and helpful. Just one.

You've seen the movie, certainly you can name at least one male character who isn't loaded with negative characteristics.

B5, your persecution complex is showing.

Feig isn't denigrating men in the movie. He's gender swapping certain roles in order to highlight the inequities of the different genders in film. If you think that means he's attacking all men, that's on you. If you think that means he's attacking you, that's also on you.

As for the idea that this property shouldn't have had that message, why not? What is it about Ghostbusters that makes it an inherently male property? Nothing. The only reason you think this movie shouldn't have had that message is because you mistakenly think the message is about you. And it's not.

Omg, Kevin is the only funny consistently funny character in the movie. He's a buffoon, but so what? Why does a movie have to have a smart, noble, helpful male character? Those are just check marks for a movie, which is a recipe for disaster creatively. That's like making sure you have a black character, or another minority, just so your movie says it has one.

It's not just about me - it's about all men. It couldn't have been clearer. There isn't a single worthy man in the movie.

I asked Dan if he could name one, but he can't. Neither can you.

And Ghostbusters isn't an inherently male property, but it did start out that way (Aykroyd and Ramis came up with the concept and the characters, so it should have been their propery, but that's not how Hollywood works - they didn't license the concept to Columbia, they sold it). Turning a gender neutral property into a feminist, social justice agenda property was not a good idea. Insulting half of their potential audience also wasn't a good idea.

Subtly telling half your audience that they aren't worthy is a bad idea.

If you don't have a problem with Ghostbusters2016 that doesn't mean that other people don't (or shouldn't), either. You seem unwilling to accept that this movie can legitimately be interpreted as insulting and demeaning to men. Not everyone is going to see the movie the same way you do.

Why does the movie have to have a smart, noble, helpful male character? Because a lot of men in real life are like that, while none in the movie are. That's not saying, "Checklist," that's saying, "Why do you have so many men in the movie, and none are remotely worthy?" They're all bad in one way or another.

The only smart guys in the original Ghostbusters were the actual Ghostbusters. Even the mayor was an idiot until listening to reason.

I disagree. He was being a true politician. He heard everyone out, and made the right decision based on that. He also sent Peck packing...

He was being a true politician. He made his decision based on the fact that he'd be saving the lives of "millions of registered voters". Quite noble.

And he apparently didn't stick up for them as we found out in the sequel.

Repeating yourself endlessly does not make your arguments more convincing or salient. At this point, perhaps we should recap:

- You decide me this movie was a bad idea before it was released

- You refused to see it

- You've cherry picked through the reviews and responses, focusing only on the ones that reinforce the conclusions you came to before release and without seeing it

- You have argued against and/or dismissed any review or response that disagreed with your assessment, doubling down and digging the hole deeper and deeper

It doesn't seem that you're willing to listen to anyone who views this movie positively, or anyone who didn't have a knee jerk negative reaction. Again I assert that you are the person with the problem, fixating on a movie you refuse to see.

I'm bowing out of the discussion now, because I have better things to do with my time than argue with someone who is so clearly ensconced in his own bubble that he refuses to see any alternative.

I'm sorry that Ghostbusters has made you feel so persecuted. Clearly, being a man, you face untold oppression the likes of which the world has never seen.