Saturday, May 21, 2016

Ghostbusters 3 is a toxic mix of PC feminism and corporate cynicism

This new ultra-PC version of Ghostbusters is stirring up an absolutely massive negative reaction. The trailer for it is the most disliked YouTube video in history. The rightier reaches of the blogosphere are getting stuck into it with gusto. And more than a few film critics are saying it'll be a train wreck without a doubt.

Needless to say, this criticism is met with howls of "misogyny!" from the usual suspects, and there are squillions of those. I'm sure that if the social justice warriors weren't so fired up about it, there'd be even more condemnation of the whole project, even from left-leaning cinephiles.

The desperation with which right-on feminist types are defending the project and attacking its critics is as pathetic as it is extreme. This is a good takedown of one of them, Marisa Kabas.

As well as illustrating the falsehood and nastiness of her attack on popular film critic James Rolphe, it has a good summary of the motivations of the movie's defenders:

What’s fascinating with criticisms of new Ghostbusters vs SJW defenders, is it’s all projection from the defenders. People defending new Ghostbusters believe people hate it because gender, and can only defend the film based on gender. Criticisms are based on how the jokes are bad, how the effects are bad, how it’s a cheap cash in on a much loved classic. SJWs are absolutely obsessed with identity politics to the point that they project their obsession onto everyone else. They don’t listen to criticisms, they don’t consider Occam’s Razor, they jump straight to the conclusion that all those down votes, all the negative reaction videos and comments, are based on the literal hatred of women.

Bang on the money!

Look at everything else the PC Left are arcing up about and you see the same primitive psychology at work. They simply cannot see people as individuals. They see only group identities. (Gawd. What a sad, stunted view of humanity!) So they think that anyone who disagrees with them must be doing the same thing from another direction. Consequently they are doomed to perpetuate the very bigotry they so often falsely accuse others of inflicting on society.

Both the production of Ghostbusters 3 and the vicious sliming of those who criticize it are motivated by this rigid ideology. But there's another toxic ingredient in the mix: corporate greed. Clearly, Hollywood money men (and women) thought it was time to rehash this classic. It had a ready made brand that could be leveraged for sure fire bucks. But that soulless goal is why so many people are saying it has "turkey" written all over it:

The reaction to the “Ghostbusters” reboot is the unsurprising, and dare I say long overdue, response from a generation of fans that have repeatedly watched their most iconic childhood memories cut up and sold for parts. Directors, producers, and writers are more focused on the shiny new reboot or sequel, dishing out forced fan-service callbacks with the belief that success is intrinsically tied to more of the same, that a feeling cannot be replicated without replicating that which brought on the feeling in the first place.

Movie lovers resent being taken for granted. And they're saying so now. Their displeasure will also be expressed in low box office figures, I suspect.

Actually, the whole phenomenon is a bit like local conservatives who are really pissed off about Turnbull and his, er, malcoholics seizing control of their party and steering it leftward. Vote whisperer Mark Textor says these people don't matter. But they have different ideas. Just as film fans will probably stay away from Ghostbusters 3 in droves, a large percentage of the Liberal Party's traditional support base will not vote as its strategists predict, I reckon.

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