Who You Gonna Call? Four Terrific Comediennes.

ShadowElson Haziran 01, 2022

A favourite summer treat for me has always been hiding from the afternoon heat in an air conditioned cinema. Yesterday I took a hiatus from the long list of things that I should have been getting on with and headed into the Barberini cinema in Rome for that other rare treat - a film showing in original language. Yesterday, though, was like going back in time because seeing the revamped and rebooted Ghostbusters brought back fond memories of the summer of '84 when I saw the original in a long since demolished cinema in Auckland with my cousin. That was back in the day when summer blockbusters were something special and not the endless trail of dreary franchise fodder that now clogs up the multiplexes from March till December. I loved Ghostbusters not because it was particularly brilliant or funny but because it was the perfect summer movie - affable and entertaining and set in New York (a city the teenage me adored but had yet to visit) and spiked with just enough edgy dialogue to keep it hip and interesting. The film's big innovation (and the key to its success) was to bring sarky, irreverent humour to a big budget effects film by casting comedians in the lead roles and letting them improvise. Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray had cut their teeth on Saturday Night Live before finding movie success in the early 80's with The Blues Brothers and Stripes respectively. Costar and writer, the late Harold Ramis, had turned down a job on SNL but had collaborated with Ackroyd and Murray on sketch comedy shows such as SCTV and the National Lampoon Show as well as the films Animal House (with Jim Belushi), Meatballs and Caddyshack. The new film sticks to the same formula but brings in new talent (again all SNL alumnae to keep it just left field enough) running round a clearly gentrified New York and pumps up the CGI just to make sure it still makes lots of money back for Sony. But you know what? It works.

I was rather baffled by all the pre-release controversy surrounding the remake and the misogynistic and racist trolling from "devoted fans of the original". Come on guys, this is not Tokyo Story, it's Ghostbusters for fuck sake. What's more the new film is very funny, passing the 6 laugh test just in the prologue alone. The new Ghostbusters is chock full of smart pop culture jokes including a monologue on the oeuvre of Patrick Swayze, two Exorcist references and one especially hilarious Jaws gag. It also plays wry and meta by referencing its own youtube trolling and takes a couple of low key digs at white male privilege. There are some very funny people in supporting roles including Zach Woods (Silicon Valley), Matt Walsh (Veep) and a very game Chris Hemsworth playing himbo receptionist Kevin who owns a dog called Mike Hat. But best of all, the new Ghostbusters has four very funny women at its centre. Kristen Wiig has got such great comic timing that she can take a nothing supporting role in The Martian or Adventureland and fill it with droll detail, so what a delight it is to see her reunited with her Bridesmaids costar, Melissa McCarthy, riffing off each other, turning run of the mill popcorn movie expository scenes and set pieces into small comic gems. They are joined by Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, stars of the current SNL season, who have their own raucous energy and turn it up to 11 (hints of McKinnon's sexuality sneak out every now in then but this being a Sony/Columbia production nothing is ever made explicit). I would even venture that the 2016 version goes one better than the original by being a true ensemble piece. Back in 1984 Murray and Ackroyd were clearly the stars, poor Sigourney Weaver was reduced to a love interest and even worse, Ernie Hudson barely got a word in - something that the critics who described Jones's role as tokenism (based on the trailer) seem to have overlooked. If you want to read the new Ghostbusters as a progressive feminist text then it is in its sharing of the gags and the limelight between the four female leads - a bit of a revelation for mainstream cinema - as sad as that statement is.

Although not so well known in Europe, SNL has been responsible, in some way, for shaping most of the comedic talent that has come out of the U.S. for the last 40 years. Regular viewers well know that SNL sketches can often be a bit hit or miss, feature lots of corpsing (Ryan Gosling can barely keep his shit together in the McKinnon sketch below) or ramble on for much too long. They also know that SNL allows its performers to take risks, create uncomfortable characters and see where they go and confront political taboos such as race and gender (take The Day Beyoncé Turned Black for example). Wiig, McCarthy, McKinnon and Jones have proven themselves to be both dangerous and uproariously funny on SNL, challenging the notions of how women are allowed to be perceived in mainstream media. Ghostbusters is unsurprisingly nowhere near as ribald as their SNL work (which you can get a taste of from the clips below) but its a small step towards making this summer's box office a bit more interesting and inclusive place.