GHOSTBUSTERS 2016: Toxic Fandoms
Sometimes, I have to admit. It is difficult to be a fan of anything.
Artist John Yarcuba IV has grown to be a close friend of mine. I love this brother; he is the only other person on planet Earth that I've ever met that has an equally unusual (and unusually equal) passion for, and intriguingly deep knowledge of, the same two media franchises that I too am hopelessly enamored with: Ghostbusters and Gundam. He knows how deep my love for Ghostbusters (1984) really runs--and I need you to understand, too. Comical, whimsical, sly, entrepreneurial, filled with large laughs and splashes of horror, I am a child of the franchise’s ingenius marketing, and Bill Murray’s driest humor. This movie is unstoppable, unbeatable, and relentlessly relevant for every situation in my entire life. The franchise, still vividly alive 35 years later, is my very heartbeat. Having exhausted the franchise's official films and cartoons, imagine a ten or eleven-year-old kid revving up his pathetic CompuServe 2000 dial-up internet just to search "Ghostbusters 3", hoping to find some good news.
Any news.
Every day.
For years.
Later, as a 25-year-old man, with a wife and daughter who know all too well the gospel of the Ghostbusters thanks to yours truly, after all of the rumors and fan fiction, try to imagine my disappointment when, finally, a third Ghostbusters film was not only announced, but an official trailer released. No, the disappointment does not stem from the film Answer the Call itself, the cast, jokes, or computer generated imagery. It stems from the YouTube comments.
Dangerously, shockingly, hopelessly, irreverently toxic in its drywall sexism and horrible aftertaste of the entitled American male. Exhibit A: grown men claiming tales of ruined childhoods; questions of the film's validity due to the sex appeal (or subjective lack thereof) of the four female leads; claims that women "cannot" do what they've been, in this case, hired to perform as. A second group of foolish fans devoted their time to claiming that everyone who seemed apprehensive or skeptical of the then-upcoming film were being no less sexist than the actual sexists. The overwhelming response came from a new group of overly offended fans who repeatedly brought up (see: whined) that they were no longer “allowed” to have a logical, valid disapproval of the film thanks to the iron fist of the feminist agenda.
In no time at all, these three clashing camps of toxic Ghostbusters "fans" represented the whole, and thus began the demise of a decent cinema fanbase for the franchise...MY franchise.
And yes, these camps had some unique influence on the film itself as well. Director Paul Feig found it fitting to retaliate against the real-world sexism the film's campaign launch faced, but cleverly in-film, turning life's lemons into meta-lemonade. Clever on paper as it was, the anti-sexist clapbacks fell pretty flat, and the sexist males in real life, disturbingly enough, were outlandishly offended by the childish jokes. The 2016 reboot/tribute to my favorite movie of all time really revealed a saddening darkness of the "fandom", as well as its staggering self-destructive power: sexism, parasitic as post-World War II HYDRA, found itself exposed by the light, that light being a simple triggering mechanism: a series of movie trailers. This legion of sexism played itself by revealing itself. It ultimately isn't about whether Ghostbusters: Answer the Call was a bad flick or not. That is subjective, and completely up to the individual. It's about toxic sexism, a toxic response to toxic sexism, and a film studio under pressure of cancel culture to speak up or shut down the toxic sexism.
Hilariously, all parties failed. Why is it hilarious? Because Answer the Call is still a fun movie, and I enjoy it, flaws and all. After all of that.
For a split second there, though, I was indeed truly ashamed to say that I was a Ghostbusters fan, mostly due to the fact that other grown men acted on behalf of the entire community of lovers of the first film (for whatever reason, it was "in style" at the time to hate on Ghostbusters 2, really for no other reason than that it wasn't Ghostbusters 1). We all looked bad. Men looked sexist for disliking the film, women looked overly butthurt over their disapproval, and the real sexists that started this firefight sneakily slipped their way out of it, like dirty snakes, like smooth criminals. It was Captain America: Civil War all over again, and Zemo had just divided the Avengers...and walked away.
Thankfully, it didn't take Thanos threatening half of all life in the universe to get us to see the bigger picture.
Most of us discovered that there was something wrong, or missing, at a fundamental level. It wasn’t necessarily just a gender-“thing”, or just a race “thing”, (although plenty of these fandom issues revolve around those categories and constantly, and maturely, need addressing). It was more of an expectation “thing”. A perception “thing”. A representation “thing”. In a time when racism, for instance, heavily revolves around toxic and twisted ideas stemming from an innately health and organic desire to simply belong, plenty of Americans have become much too comfortable voicing their opinions on who belongs where. English actor John Boyega, who portrays First Order soldier turned Rebellion hero Finn, was told by “fans” a black Stormtrooper did not belong in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Vietnamese actress Kelly Tran Marie, portraying Resistance heroine Rose Tico, was similarly told by “fans” she doesn’t belong in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Had these characters been white, would there have been any issue?
I don’t know. A part of me is blinded, and humiliated, by the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man jogging through a neighborhood, gunned down by two white men, each armed, who decided he didn’t belong. What sounds like a tale of caution from the Jim Crow era is a reality in the year 2020. What a blessing the stars of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call were not physical chased after for their so-called intrusion on a franchise that took an extra step to show that yes, they too, belong, regardless of what the toxic sects of an otherwise beautiful fanbase have to say about it.
I would love to hear a promise from the entire planet that something this mortifying would never happen again. It blinds us from the foundational love that united us in the first place. I think my pal John would agree, too. Fandoms need FANS…
…instead of people telling other people where they belong.