Ladybusters

In this episode of Jennifer Shouts into the Void, in which I feel the need to express my thoughts and feelings about something, although it will make absolutely no damn difference, I present: Sexist internet comments from a lot of Dudes Who Swear They’re Not Sexist.

I came across this article on Reddit, and clicked even though I knew it would be a bummer.

‘Ghostbusters’ Trailer Is the Most ‘Disliked’ Movie Trailer in YouTube History

Let’s get some disclaimers out of the way: I am a white lady who is very excited about the new Ghostbusters movie. Maybe 70% of that excitement is because of the cast and director, the remaining 30% is nostalgia. I say nostalgia and not love of the originals, because although I remembered liking them a lot as a kid, we watched the first one recently and I was amused, then mildly annoyed, and then I fell asleep. Feel free to skip to the comments button here and tell me what an idiot I am and that women do not understand comedy so this whole conversation is moot.

To sum up, this article (written in April, I’ve updated the numbers where I could) talks about how the first trailer for the remake of Ghostbusters has become the most-disliked movie trailer ever posted to YouTube. It currently has 961,200 dislikes (and 274,000 likes on 37 million views).

Why this matters

One might think, big deal—people don’t like the trailer. Or the movie. But the problem comes when you compare it to other not well-received trailers and other very-disliked videos.

On this list of the Most-disliked YouTube videos, it is the only movie trailer in the top 100. Most of the videos there are also the most-watched, most-liked videos of all time; Baby by Justin Bieber, Gagnam Style by Psy, Friday Friday GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY by Rebecca Black. It follows that the most popular videos have the most eyes, and would therefore have the greatest number of dislikes. People get tired of popular stuff, and also hate popular stuff because fuck the system, I guess?

Ghostbusters is the lone movie trailer on that list, which is telling. Even trailers for really, really shitty movies can’t get these kinds of numbers. For the Ghostbusters trailer, 2.59% of views resulted in someone clicking “dislike.” For Jem, an unarguably terrrrrrible remake of another beloved nostalgic franchise, only 0.88% of viewers clicked “dislike.”

“To put [these numbers] in perspective, the Fantastic Four trailer from last year has only [20,270] dislikes. The Ridiculous Six trailer, which has an impressive 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, has only [5,971] dislikes. Could Ghostbusters be that much worse than either of those two movies? It’s seems unlikely knowing what we know about both Fantastic Four and Ridiculous Six.”

No. There is an active campaign to dislike the trailer on YouTube, to keep the dislikes going up disproportionately to actual sentiment. Just because people don’t like the idea of the movie. And why don’t they like the idea of the movie?

Is it fear of ruining a beloved childhood memory? (Director Paul Feig has a response to this, by the way.)

Is it the poor choices made by the trailer’s producers?

Is it FRIDAY FRIDAY GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAYYY????

Maybe, for some people. There are definitely a lot of folks who don’t like the idea of the movie for totes legit reasons. That’s fine. But you don’t mount an attack at this level on something because it wasn’t produced well. It certainly seems like much of this hatred is coming from men who can’t deal with the fact that the lead roles in this reboot, in the year of Our Lord 2016, have been filled by women. In a comedy. About ghosts.

Let’s hear from some rational folks

Naturally, I wanted to hear that others had the same, righteously disgusted reaction that I had to what seems pretty clearly a sexist attack on a movie that is making positive strides for ladies in entertainment. I thought, for some sad, naive reason, to go back to the Reddit post. Reddit is generally a liberal-minded community (based on what makes it to the front page and the few subs I frequent, at least) and I expected to see a lot of comments that would validate my feelings.

But no.

Oh no.

‘Ghostbusters’ remake is the most disliked trailer of all time on youtube from movies

Instead of a chorus of, “Wow, that sucks and is not fair at all. Sorry, women everywhere who try to do a thing,” which is the only decent or necessary comment to have, everyone instead wanted to agree how much this Ghostbusters flick is gonna su-u-uck. For a lot of reasons. A lot of rational, reasonable reasons. Reasons that don’t sound sexist at all. Right???

Except the reasons were pretty flimsy, and I think that if a lot of these people, and let’s go ahead and assume a lot of these Reddit commenters are dudes, really examined the root of their often extreme negative reaction, they might find it sounded just a little bit I guess I can see how that could be construed as ok it’s definitely a lot sexist.

For example: Some said this was clearly a cash grab, to bank on a popular franchise. And that’s why they weren’t going to like the new movie. Because fuck capitalism and Hollywood’s infatuation with making a quick buck over making quality content.

But I ask you, would a simple cash grab star four women between the ages of 32 and 49, directed by a man who dresses like Paul Feig?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The commenters also claimed that something as grossly superficial as this would be totally devoid of soul. Oh really. Have you seen any of Paul Feig’s movies? How can you say he has no heart? The guy made a new Peanuts movie that people seemed to be really charmed by. I mean I didn’t see it. 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes though.

A few defenders of Paul Feig mentioned how amazingly underrated Spy was, which is abso-fucking-lutely true. And I thought, phew, here we go. My people! I queued up all my best YAS KWEEN gifs and read on, only to find that the very smart statements about how commenters were so pleasantly surprised by Spy were immediately followed by the very very stupid declaration that “The best part of Spy was Jason Statham.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, the best part of an action comedy that somehow managed to have women on screen most of the time, acing the shit out of the Bechdel tes, is the one funny man in it? And you’re not sexist? Yes, Jason Statham was great. But was he the best part of the film? No. The best part of that film was MELISSA FUCKING MCARTHY. SHE’S A GODDAMN COMEDY UNICORN. Good God, dudes, get your shit together.

The most disappointing thing, to me, is that not only do we live in a world of blatant mysogynists—the kind who mount openly sexist, racist attacks on women who’ve done nothing but their literal jobs (#LoveForLeslieJ), but we also live in a world of mysogynists masquerading as rational dudes. You hide your sexism behind arguments that make sense on the surface, and when I try to call you out you say I’m just being irrational. And when I argue that no, in fact, I’m not being irrational and then you continue to ignore me until my voice gets higher- and higher-pitched and a little screech-owlish OK I HEAR IT TOO, you say, isn’t that just like a woman? To get all crazy and hysterical. This is why they can’t be allowed to run the country.

The short of this very long post is this

You do not have to like anything just because it features women, or minorities. You have the right to your opinions.

But all I’m asking is that you leave it there. Literally that’s it. If you could, maybe, find it within your cool and collected logical brain to say, “This isn’t my bag, but I’m glad it exists to give an opportunity to someone who is not a straight white man. It gives a voice to someone who probably had to fight to be heard.” Well that would be just a huge fucking win.

Unfortunately, you have the right to be a seriously inflamed asshole in this democracy of ours. You can spew out disproportionately huge turds on anything you disagree with. You can mount an unjustified, hate-filled attack on a stupid summer comedy. Just don’t pretend it has absolutely nothing to do with sexism. Your anal fissures are totally giving you away.

I would like to ghostbust the penis off of every last one of you.