All I have seen of the upcoming Ghosbusters movie is the few trailers that have been released for it as well as some videos of the stars of the movie on tour promoting it (in this case pretty much talking about how women can be funny and men who can't accept that lack portions of their brain that most humans use for intelligence).
So far, I've loved what I've seen.
All I have read of the upcoming Ghostbusters movie is articles about how the trailers have been so hated on YouTube, how the stars of this movie aren't funny, how it's only happening because of feminism, how it won't be good, how it's ruining the lives of men over the age of thirty, and how the stars of the movie don't give a shit about that because they just remade Ghostbusters.
So far, I've been mostly horrified by what I've read.
Now, with its release just days away, actual reviews reviews are starting to come in. Going off the titles of these, some of them are good and some of them are bad.
Given that I'm sure some groups have had their negative review of this movie written for a year, ("women just so bad in this movie, ghosts can't be caught by vaginas! Ugh, they are trying so hard to be funny that even when they are funny they aren't actually funny, they're just trying to be funny!") enough have been bad that I know this movie won't win an Oscar or any other Film Festival award.
But the truth is, I'd be lining up to watch Ghostbusters in theaters (not waiting for it to come to Netflix) even if the reviews were universally horrible.
Because I have two young girls and representation matters. Because those two girls love seeing young girls and women appear as the heroes in a movie more than they love seeing original Ghostbusters. And because, as my partner and I have talked about, women have every right to be the stars in terrible movies. My daughters need to see women appearing in movie genres traditionally dominated by men, they need to see that people don't like that movie and they need to watch the world not burn around them because of it.
Stallone has made a living out of it, Schwarzenegger became a politician off of them. Jackie Chan is a household name thanks to bad movies. So is Owen Wilson. Men appear in and are excused for starring in, shitty movies every single Friday. Men will star in shitty movies released on the same day as Ghosbusters and not hear anything about it. They'll be given more scripts to look at. They won't be harassed for ruining childhoods. Just think about the worst remakes you've seen up until this point in your life and think about what level of hate the male star in that movie received for doing it.
*Pause for you to think about movies like Planet of the Apes, Godzilla, Psycho, Clash of the Titans, Total Recall...
Even when I think of movies we've come to love to hate (I'm looking at you Star Wars I, II, and III), it's important to remember that at the time, we eagerly anticipated them instead of suggesting from the get go that they shouldn't exist. Only later did we all come together to dislike and disown these movies and promise to never show them to our children.
Women though, are expected to perform to a completely different set of standards. Their performances in movies are scrutinized before they've even come out. While men take on a role in a film, women can actually destroy what's happened in the past by starring in a movie in the future.
Men do not own mediocrity.
-Me
Plain and simple, women are not given the same space to be in a terrible movie that men are and that is bullshit. I'm going to watch this movie because it's important to watch so many women-led movies that we start judging them by their content instead of their cast.
Not joking at all, I want my daughters to know they can be mediocre and not be meet with cries of "I told you so!" and "ugh, women just aren't as funny as men," and "you're a bunch of assholes who ruined the whole year of 1984." I want them to be able to do something, for that something to be kind of good but not great, and for them to just say "oh well, that was fun but moving on."
You know what? The original Ghostbusters isn't the greatest movie. This one will be as good. Or it won't. And who cares.