When the 2016 all-female Ghostbusters came out, it was subjected to a wild and painful hate campaign. Misogyny was leveled at Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy, and Kristen Wiig, with racist misogynoir thrown at Leslie Jones.
Last year, Jones released a memoir where she detailed how the racist and sexist abuse brought her almost to her breaking point. “I am in a movie. Death threats for something as small as that? The world was not as rosy as I’d hoped it was,” she wrote. She was also displeased at Jason Reitman’s infamous “hand the movie back to the fans” when talking about the 2021 Ghostbusters sequel, the budget issues suffered by her Ghostbusters installment, and at the fact that she got paid less than Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. It all shows that Hollywood has a very long way to go when it comes to respecting its Black stars.
What happened to Jones was awful and it speaks to how deeply toxic fan culture can be. Obviously, the kind of behavior she described isn’t acceptable regardless of the quality of the movie, but the 2016 Ghostbusters was a perfectly solid comedy flick anyway. And Dan Aykroyd, one of the stars of the original Ghostbusters, agrees.
The actor and screenwriter spoke to People magazine about the 2016 movie and made it clear he wasn’t impressed by the backlash.
“I liked the movie [director] Paul Feig made with those spectacular women,” he said, “I was mad at them at the time because I was supposed to be a producer on there and I didn’t do my job and I didn’t argue about costs. And it cost perhaps more than it should, and they all do. All these movies do.” Back in 2017 Akyroyd publicly stated his displeasure with Feig for spending too much money on Ghostbusters, although he still praised the cast of the movie.
Aykroyd reiterated to People that he “liked that film.” He went on, “I thought that the villain at the end was great. I loved so much of it. And of course, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, you’re never going to do better than that. So I go on the record as saying I’m so proud to have been able to license that movie and have a hand and have a part in it, and I’m fully supportive of it, and I don’t besmirch it at all. I think it works really great amongst all the ones that have been made.”
It’s good of him to say this, but it also serves as a reminder of how cruel, sexist, and racist diehard fans of a franchise can be. Bigotry and bullying can’t be on the table when it comes to “besmirching” a film.
Sadly, the backlash to shows such as The Acolyte indicates that this sort of behavior still going on. Fandom still has a long way to go.
Published: Jul 29, 2024 05:00 pm