The first thing you
need to know about me is that I'm pretty stunned; always have been.
I suppose it also
matters that I'm male, and that I'm 60 years old.
When I as a kid,
there was some kind of question that came up at one of the schools
that I attended where there was no girls' team for some sport or
other, but there was for boys. I didn't understand why that would be,
and nobody could explain it to my satisfaction.
You see, my family
never insisted that there were any particular gender differences to
the world. My sister helped around the house, and liked to cook, and
I did neither of those things. I never assumed that it was any form
of male privilege, but rather that I was a lazy bastard.
So, anyhow, being
stunned, I never noticed how one-sided the world actually was. When
women struggled to get the concept of equal-pay for equal-work, I was
probably the most surprised person in the world that such a movement
was necessary. My assumption was that equal-work meant equal-pay, and
was shocked to discover that it was untrue, and even more shocked
that there were people who thought otherwise.
Fast forward a large
number of decades.
There is a movie out
this summer that is a re-make of the 1984 movie Ghost Busters. I
generally hate remakes of good movies, and had no intention of seeing
this one until it would eventually show up on Netflix or on TV.
There is a
controversy about it. In the original had 4 guys in the roles of the
Ghostbusters, and they were great. The remake has all of the
Ghostbuster roles played by women. Somehow, many fans of the original
take this as some form of sacrilege. Personally, I don't care at all
about that, but hadn't heard anything particularly wonderful about
the film.
Turns out, most of
the world is missing the point.
I just read a great
summation of a woman who is currently 30 years of age about just why
this movie is important. Although the world is far from gender-equal,
you'd think a woman born in 1986, in North America, would have been
spared the worst of it. Perhaps in some ways this is true.
But not in all ways.
She explains it all very clearly;
The short version is
that there is a scene, where the new-Ghostbusters are about to be
annihilated by a horde of evil spirits; their weapons all spent. One
of the characters pulls two big-ass handguns out of nowhere, and
proceeds to go all action-hero on the villains. She does so wearing
baggy coveralls, with no visible cleavage, and her hair bundled up
and away. It is both irrelevant that she is female, and vitally
important. No concession to her gender is made in any way. She is
neither sexualized, nor feminized, but neither is she male.
Our 30-year-old
female blogger found it a cathartic experience. This was the first
time she had ever experienced such a thing, and its impact on her was
profound.
I have not yet seen
this movie, but suppose now I shall.
Already it reminds
me of the recent Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. In it, the lead
protagonist is also female. She is also not sexualized at all. Her
gender is not particularly important to the role she is playing. In
fact, the movie is a form of remake as well, and the place she plays
in it is that of Luke Skywalker from the original. I haven't heard
many make this connection, perhaps as Luke Skywalker is actually a
character in this movie, but I digress.
This character, Rey,
is played as an action-hero, just as the leads of the Ghostbusters
remake are.
These characters are
true leads. They are not there to be somebody else's romantic
interest, or to titillate the audience, or to be the person to be
rescued. The are definitely NOT supporting cast.
This is important,
and it can be seen in the negative reaction of many original-version
Ghostbusters fans to the all-female cast. Somehow, the gender of the
Ghostbusters matters to them just as much.
I loved the original
movie, but wasn't really interested in the re-make as it is, well, a
re-make. I loved the original Italian Job, but haven't seen the new
version. My only notice of the big gender swap was the thought that
it was mildly interesting. See; stunned.
But getting back to
the premise; how many female action-star roles have there been in the
last couple of years? Now remove all that involve sexy outfits;
tight, low-cut, etc. Now remove any where the female hero is in-fact
playing a subordinate role to a male hero.
Hunger Games isn't
one, and Twilight isn't either. Try reversing the genders of the
actors in those. They don't work at all then, do they? Why are these
pouty, and relatively passive characters spontaneously being loved
and followed by everybody they encounter? These are not action
heroes, but rather some strange type of romantic/fantasy/dramas with
monster/revolution backdrops.
I liked the Rey
character in Star Wars, and hope that Ghostbusters works for me, too.
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