Ghostbusters Trailer Disliked: Misogyny?

[Rageaholic]

A couple of months ago, the trailer for the all female Ghostbusters sequel was released on youtube (link to trailer). As you can see, it wasn't well liked. It currently has over 600k dislikes, making it the most disliked movie trailer on youtube.According to some, the reason the trailer was so disliked was because of misogyny.

While I'm not going to deny that some are misogynistic dicks, I'm sick of this narrative that misogyny is the driving force behind the backlash. From what I've seen, much of the criticism is aimed at the bad jokes and bad special effects. And the reason the backlash is so strong is because Ghostbusters is such a cult classic.

For me personally, the trailer wasn't AWFUL. It was just kind of stupid and generic. But I was never a huge Ghostbusters fan (I liked it, but it didn't blow me away), so it was just another stupid movie trailer.

[s_stabeler]

it depends on why they dislike it. If the criticism is more or less "why did it need to be an all-female ghostbusters?" then that can be legitimate.(basically, if the only real difference between the all-female ghostbusters and the normal one is the cast are female, criticising that is legitimate. If the all-female ghostbusters is a full imagining of the show- including accounting for the new cast having different personalities- they claiming it's misogynistic is not legitimate)

[TheHuckster]

I saw the trailer. I only laughed once at the very end, with the "exorcism" gag, and even then it was a weak laugh.

Looking at the comments (and YouTube comments can be quite telling as to how people really feel), I think people's criticisms match mine: It's a very weak sequel to a cult classic which, regardless of whether it was made up of males or females, will suck. Whether or not it will be as bad as Ghostbusters II is up in the air at the moment. Ghostbusters is just one of those movies that's very difficult to replicate. It was a very unique and novel movie in its time, and you'll be hard-pressed to write an even better instance of it 30 years afterwards. The same is true for other similarly unique and novel movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Toy Story. Yes, they treat it like a sequel, but in many ways it's a remake at the same time, since it's a new cast of characters and you're "renewing" the origins of the movie's premise, judging by the fact that they need to find a new vehicle and office building.

Seeing that trailers are supposed to highlight some of the better jokes in a comedy, the fact that most of them fell flat (at least in my eyes) doesn't give me much hope for this movie. And it has nothing to do with the cast. I liked Melissa McCarthy in other movies she's done, some of which were quite silly like Bridesmaids and Spy, and I would also say as an actress, casting her in a Ghostbusters sequel was a good choice. But I have a feeling it's not the cast that will make this movie blow, but the writing. And if the writing's terrible, it doesn't matter if you put Melissa McCarthy, Marlon Brando, or Carrot Top in the cast, it's going to flop.

[Dreamstalker]

Beat me to the analysis

I'm really on the fence about this reboot. On one hand it's Ghostbusters and fans have been asking about a new movie for years (some consider the video game to be the third film). On the other hand...I thought some of the effects looked overdone (I've seen better stuff in fanfilms), the new uniform design is odd, and I seem to recall the same plot premise from a few poorly-done fanfics. The trailer in general didn't grab me because of "OMG I have to see this", a friend got in as an extra and I want to see it to find her.

IIRC a completely new team wasn't the original concept.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

This is how I've been looking at it. No, disliking the the trailer is not misogyny.

But, the more feminist leaning Scifi blogs have been hammering Ghostbusters regularly since the announcement. Either they're running stories on it or they're running pieces that are antagonistic towards those that don't like it (TMS still does both, IO9 seems to have backed off to just news post-trailer). So it's like people not liking NuTrek, except there's a sexual component. My blunt opinion, is that frankly the "our time" narrative has wormed its way into the marketing as well in that the filmmakers aren't doing anything to discourage the us vs. them thing. Every time they complain about misogynists, they charge up part of their expected viewing demographic.

So you end up with people that don't like it because its new, actual misogynists, and you have people trolling true believers. And opposing them are a group of people that can't stop namecalling, nor stop talking about misogynists as the "general" group of people hitting dislike which is naturally pissing people off.

It's pretty self-sustaining. And Feig himself has chimed in multiple times which from his perspective is probably fine since he's aligning with the target for this film. I don't think it will affect the general release too much. If he made a good film (and he's made multiple good films) it will make money. The general public probably isn't paying much attention to the whiny corners (for and against) of the internet anyway.

That said, personally I think both sides courted this. This is just people fighting and pretending its for a cause. In reality it's yet another reboot of an 80's property.

[Lindsay B.]

I only laughed once at the very end, with the "exorcism" gag, and even then it was a weak laugh.

You're more generous than I am. I actually didn't laugh at the trailer at all. I honestly didn't think it was funny.

A short while ago, I came across a commentary on Raw Story, written by a person who didn't seem to understand that humor is subjective.

"they just don’t think funny women are funny, okay?"

My apologies. Up until now, I was apparently under the mistaken impression that I was allowed to decide for myself who is and isn't "funny."

"Watch the trailer here. (Defy you not to laugh.)"

I'll take that bet.

I get that she was trying to make the argument that some people were just using "It's not funny" as an excuse, to cover up the fact that they were bashing the film for its all-female cast. But to actually imply that it's a fact that the film is funny, and that people who say differently are objectively wrong, is just absurd.

There was an interesting exchange in the Comments :

One person wrote, "If the movie IS better than that trailer, then good on them for not stacking every funny joke in the film in a two minute trailer making the film itself unnecessary."

Another commentor replied, "Why would you want to see a two-hour comedy film that has only two minutes' worth of funny jokes in it?"

Good point.

At this point, when people insist that I should wait until I actually see the film, and give it a chance, it makes me think about the story of a comedian who angrily told a heckler, "Oh, sure, go ahead and make fun of me. Wait until you see the rest of my act! You won't be laughing then!" To which the heckler replied, "No doubt."

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

To be honest, Fieg writes a style of humor that isn't great for trailers.

That is, he's not writing witty banter. So much of his humor comes from contextual things. Melissa McCarthy's progressively frumpy secret identities in Spy for example. Jason Statham's negging to an absurd degree.

I wonder if he would specifically do better if he asked them to cut it like 80's trailers with a narrator and spend more time building the tone or what the story is. Short, punchy, and without an attempt to spend your jokes. It would be a goofy anachronism in a trailer but I dare say people would be curious. I just went back and watched Beverly Hills Cop and Ghostbusters. I admit it would play weird, but I think that was always smarter for contextual humor.

[TheHuckster]

To be honest, Fieg writes a style of humor that isn't great for trailers.

If that's true, then I have some more hope for the movie.

I will say that in the past I've been fooled by trailers that seemed to show that the movie was going to be absolutely horrible only to find that the movie was much better than the trailers would have you believe. The Lego Movie's trailer looked like it was going to be an overhyped and overacted commercial for the brand. The movie's release really exceeded my expectations more than I thought was possible. Same as with Frozen. I mean, I think Frozen got more positive reaction than was warranted, but the movie was a helluvalot better than the dumbed down trailers they had for it, which made it look like Disney was just throwing out a bad movie just to fill the December void.

So, I haven't ruled out the possibility of Ghostbusters being a better movie than the trailer would have you believe.